Selling your house or condo on Maui can be a fast & efficient process. It doesn’t have to be the long and drawn out process that it often turns into for so many sellers. Here we will help you explore the different ways you can go about selling your Maui house that can potentially save you time and money.
Many people think that they need to hire a Realtor to sell their Maui house, but that is not true. Plenty Sellers are choosing to sell their properties directly to a professional buyer, like Maui Home Buyers. The benefit of this option is you can sell MUCH quicker, without any fees, inspections, repairs or appraisals. Here are some pointers to help you make the right choices so that selling your Maui property is quick, easy and painless!
Find A Reputable And Trustworthy Direct Cash Buyer
The fastest and easiest way to sell a house in Maui is to get an off market cash offer directly from a local professional with no contingencies. At Maui Home Buyers, this is what we do. We will make you a cash offer right away, often within just a few hours of your first call to us, and we can close at quick as 10 days if you’d like us to (the only reason we can’t close even quicker is because title transfer in Hawaii is a slow process, 10 days is about as quick as the title department can pull off).
By selling your house directly, you avoid tons of headaches and hidden fees such as realtor commissions, repair costs, marketing expenses, and the monthly holding costs of ownership. Plus you get the peace of mind knowing that this is our business, and we stand behind our offers – when we agree on price with a seller, we successfully close over 99% of our transactions. There have only been a few extreme cases (for example one house had a bad title, and the title department could not transfer title, so it was beyond our control). We are able to close fast, in only about a week and half when needed. If you use an FSBO listing or hire a Maui real estate agent, the process usually takes at least a few months, especially since the real estate market has changed since the economy went into a recession and interest rates have increased, and now houses are taking much longer to sell and sellers are starting to lower their prices. This equates to thousands of dollars spent each month on mortgages, property taxes, insurance, utility bills, and upkeep/maintenance.
Not to mention, in this market a house might sell for 950k this month, but in two months from now there may not be anyone willing or able to pay more than 850k due to the rapidly increasing interest rates and how those mortgage rates dictate how much a traditional retail buyer can afford to offer.
Selling Your House As-Is
It’s common that putting more money into a house you want to sell doesn’t make sense. Unless you have the experience and resources it takes to have that work done efficiently, cost effectively, and with a high level of quality, most people will invest their money into repairs and upgrades that don’t actually make their house sell for any more money. When you sell your Maui house as-is, the new owner gets to renovate the house and make it custom to fit their needs and wants. Maui Home Buyers can make you an offer on your Maui house right now, since we always buy as-is. Allowing you to avoid the renovation and repair costs and burdens completely.
Avoid Hidden Selling Fees And Huge Commissions
To avoid all Hawaii realtor commissions and selling fees you can go the “For Sale By Owner” route, or you can choose to sell directly to a professional local homebuyer in Hawaii. When you cut out the middleman, you don’t have to worry about paying 6% commissions. Many realtors also charge for things like marketing and admin expenses. If you are planning on hiring an agent, make sure you know everything that’s included in their commissions, and everything that you will be charged on top of the commissions, since not all agent work the same way. It’s also common for your listing agreement to require you to pay your Realtor commissions and fees even if you find the buyer yourself. Because of this, we always suggest that you call Maui Home Buyers for a quick cash offer with no obligations prior to signing with a Realtor; we just might be able to save you from having to make repairs, months of headaches, back and forth, showings, and extra fees.
A seller recently called us because he wanted to move to Big Island and wanted to sell fast, and he was unhappy with the realtor he had hired. By all means, they seemed to be very professional, experienced, and qualified – I even thought so. But when he called us it been a month since he signed a listing agreement with them and they still had not put the house up for sale on the MLS or even put a sign in the yard, so no buyers even knew it was for sale. Then he called the realtor to say that he found his own buyer, and wanted to cancel the listing agreement, but they said he was required to pay their $42,000 commission if he sold anytime in the next few months, even if he found the buyer without their help! Surprisingly this is very common, and could even be considered standard procedure for listing with a realtor, and in many cases it can be fair (for example, it would be fair if the realtor has worked tirelessly for months marketing the home and successfully generate many reasonable offers, but then the seller just decided to sell the house to their friend but still wants the realtor to walk them through the process – maybe the friend only found out he was selling the house from an ad the realtor posted anyway? In this case, it’s probably fair that the realtor be compensated for their work). But that was not the case with this home. Fortunately we were able to assist the seller in negotiating with the realtor to release them from the contract that required paying commissions, and we were able to pay him even more than he expected to sell for with the realtor, plus we closed in just 12 days! If he had waited for the house to be listed it likely would have taken between 2-6 months to get his cash and back to his family on Big Island. Needless to say, this was the perfect outcome for this seller and he couldn’t be happier!
Organize Your Personal Things In Advance
No one enjoys moving. But you can avoid being overwhelmed by planning ahead so on the moving date you don’t feel unprepared. Clear out rubbish, get rid of things you really don’t need, donate old clothes. Pack the things that you don’t use everyday, so when it’s time you can just get your stuff and move on once your house is sold. This is really important if you list with a realtor because during showings it’s best to have all of your personal items stored away out of sight so the buyer can envision the home being their space. If you work with Maui Home Buyers you don’t need to worry about this part, we are happy to help you with the moving process, even if you have a lot of junk or things to throw away/donate we can make the terms of the sale to let you take what you want and leave the rest at the house after closing the sale and we can take care of the dump runs and donations.
Compare Your Options
There are a number of ways to sell a house in Maui. If you are ok with the fees and expenses, no guaranteed sale date, and the home is in great conditions not needing repairs than hiring a realtor might be the best option. Doing FSBO could work best if you have experience in real estate. Just remember that you are responsible for everything, from showing the property to processing the paperwork to answering all of the buyer’s questions and legal disclosures. Or if you choose to sell directly to Maui Home Buyers, we handle everything. You won’t have to wonder how much cash you’ll actually get after they deduct all of the fees and commissions, or deal with the cleaning, repairs, staging or paperwork. We make things simple so you can sell and move on with your life and focus on what’s important to you.