Selling Your House Online To Remote Buyers

Selling your home is a huge decision that involves an exciting yet complicated process, even when you’ve decided to sell online. Navigating an online real estate transaction, particularly with remote buyers, can seem daunting. But whether you want to sell your home online or you’re just considering it, it’s worth knowing how to sell to remote buyers.

Advantages Of Selling Your Home Online

Selling a house completely online differs greatly from traditional home selling. Yet, someone might choose to do a fully online home sale for many reasons:

• Less work to list and stage: Instead of being forced to make time to deal with the sale of their home, homeowners can instead list, stage and sell their house on their own time. This helps sellers avoid parts of the traditional sale process that would otherwise cost them money or time, such as holding open houses.
• A great option for homeowners who want a quick sale: iBuyers, house flippers and even plenty of regular home buyers are now more eager than ever to try buying a house sight unseen online.
• A great option for homeowners who want a quick sale: Interest in buying and selling homes online is rising in popularity. The COVID-19 pandemic upended traditional real estate transactions and normalized buying a home remotely.

How To Sell Your Home Online

Though in the past it may have seemed risky, many home buyers today are willing to buy a house online without seeing it in person first. This is especially true if they need to move quickly or intend to renovate the home in question. If your goal is to reach these eager, remote buyers, follow the steps below to sell your home online.

1. Set Up A Listing

One of the first steps in selling your home, online or traditionally, is writing the home’s listing description and submitting the property to a multiple listing service (MLS). Next, taking high-quality photos and videos of every corner of your home can give buyers a good idea of what to expect without forcing them to tour the house in person. A video or good photo can also increase your home’s exposure to additional potential buyers, depending on how much attention your listing, social post or video gets.

If you’re interested in trying this but don’t know the best way to capture your space in a photo or video, you can always seek out a photographer who specializes in real estate photography.

Drone Photography

Aerial photography may seem like an unnecessary addition to your home’s marketing material, but it can make a big difference in selling your house. By using a drone to take a photo of a property from far above, sellers can show interested buyers the entire property at a glance. Potential buyers can also see how the house looks in its neighborhood and what surrounds it.

2. Arrange Virtual Tours

Setting up virtual tour capabilities for your listing is worth considering when you’re selling your house online. This service appeals to remote buyers because they can conveniently view a home without leaving the comfort of their own home.

Virtual Staging

Professionally staging your home can be very expensive. One of the nice things about selling online is that you can choose to virtually stage your house. Virtual staging allows home buyers to see the potential of the house they’re looking at if it was redecorated, repainted or even upgraded. This can be a very useful tool to help sell a property, and it often costs significantly less than in-person staging.

3. Fill Out Paperwork

These days, many communications and documents exchanged between buyers and sellers are done via email. Much of the paperwork associated with real estate transactions can be completed electronically. These documents include:

• Bids and offer letters
• Sale and purchase agreements
• Listing agreements

Earnest money and other types of deposits are also commonly transferred electronically to escrow accounts using services like PayPal.

4. Coordinate In-Person Walk-throughs

Even today’s digital real estate market landscape requires some in-person visits to the property. These in-person activities include:

• Home appraisal
• Home inspection
• Final walk-through for the home buyer

5. Finish The Closing Process

It’s worth noting that much of the closing process can often be done online. Important real estate transaction documents like final purchase agreements and closing statements can frequently be sent electronically.

Pros And Cons: Selling Online With A Real Estate Agent

Whether you’re working with a real estate agent or selling the house yourself, for sale by owner (FSBO) style, it’s important to make sure your home has the best chance of selling. So, how can a real estate agent help you sell your house online – and is it worth it to work with one? Let’s review some benefits and drawbacks of working with a real estate agent or REALTOR^® when selling digitally.

Benefits Of Working With A Real Estate Agent

When selling a house online, you can choose to do it yourself via FSBO and save a bit on real estate agent-related costs. If you choose to sell your home by yourself, however, you may miss out on some benefits of working with a real estate agent.

• Home listing experience and access to a multiple listing service: If you’re interested in getting your home in front of as many eyes as possible, it’s wise to work with a real estate agent who can list your home on an MLS. An MLS is accessible only to real estate professionals, so listing there can help get you more legitimate and desirable offers.
• Real estate photography and staging your home: Without a real estate agent, it can be hard to know exactly what you should do to entice potential buyers. Real estate agents have experience preparing homes for listing and can offer you help. Your agent may even know of more cost-effective alternatives to make the staging process easier for you, such as specific methods of decluttering.
• Professional real estate advertising: While you can certainly advertise your home on social media yourself, real estate agents have established audiences that they could share your home with right away. Your real estate agent can help make sure your home’s advertising highlights its good features and attracts qualified buyers.
• A higher asking price on your home. On average, homes sold FSBO make less money than agent-assisted sales according to the National Association of REALTORS^® (NAR).
• Consistent support throughout the home selling process. Many agents will stick with you and keep the sale moving from contract to home inspections, appraisals and anything that might go wrong before closing day.

Drawbacks Of Working With A Real Estate Agent

Whether you sell your home online with or without a real estate agent is ultimately your choice. Your circumstances and the time frame to sell your house are unique to you. It’s wise to weigh the following when considering all of your selling options before moving forward.

• Added costs. Working with a real estate agent means you’ll pay commissions and other fees. But keep in mind that selling a house yourself doesn’t mean you’re exempt from paying extra costs associated with the sale. You’ll still have to pay for things like seller concessions, buyer’s agent commissions and closing costs.
• Less control over the process. A real estate agent will give you their opinions to consider. Via FSBO, you can sell your home on your terms, putting as much or as little time into selling your home as you’d like.
• Selling with a real estate agent takes time. The added services that come with an agent can also increase the time your home stays on the market. FSBO sellers often enjoy faster transactions, especially when the home is sold to someone the seller already knows.

The Bottom Line

Selling a home completely online is now a perfectly viable option for anyone looking for an easier way to reach more home buyers and potentially sell their home faster. Whether you decide to work with a real estate agent or not, leveraging technology to sell your home online can save you money and can often be a smoother path compared with the traditional sale process.

Going through the selling process also means it’s time to start looking for your next home as a buyer. Explore your financing options and start the application process with Rocket Mortgage^® today.