Coming to the decision to sell your house is not an easy one. There are a lot more decisions to be made, like whether to use a licensed real estate agent or sell directly to a home buyer, not to mention, where should you move next? Don’t let this delay your decision to sell your house. Below are four ways waiting to sell your house in Los Angeles will cost you.
Houses are in Demand
Waiting to sell your house in Los Angeles will cost you because “right now” there are still buyers for houses. Mortgage rates are at all-time lows, so now is a great time to put your house up for sale because buyers have more purchasing power. With the impending real estate market dip due to the coronavirus economic shutdown, houses will soon be flooding the market, and demand may start to lessen dramatically. But for right now, there are still enough buyers in the market to buy most of the houses listed for sale. There are also buyers that have taken a large portion of their money out of the rapidly fluctuating stock market and want to invest it in real estate because they see it as a safer investment. Once these funds are invested, buyers will stop purchasing real estate.
Less Competition
If you put your house for sale right now, you will have less competition than if you wait until the market really starts to dip. Buyers will easily find your house in Los Angeles. Once the downward trend is more widely seen, many sellers will use that as their queue to list their house for sale. That means, the market will soon become flooded and you will have lots of other competition for buyers in Los Angeles. In order to catch the buyer’s attention when the market is flooded, you will have to make sure your curb appeal and all necessary upgrades have been done, and you may have to accept a lower offer than you plan on, just to get a buyer.
Prices Dropping
If you wait to sell your house in Los Angeles and you start to realize that downward trend, that means the average sales price for your comparable properties will also be less than you were expecting, and you may even have to accept a lower than market price offer to sell your house. This costs you the extra capital gain you would have had if you acted now. When the market is flooded with houses for sale, the buyers have more power in selecting the house they want and are able to make lower offers because they have so many other options. Desperate sellers in markets like these will start accepting the lower offers, which compounds the dip in the housing market.
Extra Fees
The longer you own the property for the year, the higher the percentage of taxes and dues you will owe. The annual taxes on the property are prorated based on how many days out of the year you own it, you will only receive credit for the part of the year you will not own the property. The same goes for homeowners association fees, only the part of the year you do not own the property will get refunded. These prorations are subject to the payment due dates. Most taxes are due at the end of the year, but some homeowners association fees are assessed at a different point in the year.