How Can I Sell My Condo Fast in 2024?

Some sellers wonder if it is difficult to sell a condo. The short answer is: no. Real estate agents know that everything can be sold, it just comes down to how motivated and realistic a seller is. But, like anything, there is the easy way and the hard way to do things. We’ll look at both options so you feel best prepared on how you want to move forward to sell your condo.

The quickest way to sell a condo is to sell it to a real estate investor. But who is a real estate investor, how do you find one who is interested and what are the pros and cons of selling to a real estate investor?

In the following paragraphs, we’ll explore this more to give you a better understanding of this process.

Who Are Real Estate Investors?

Residential real estate investors are entrepreneurs who buy homes, condos, and other residential property and then resell it at a profit or rent it out.

Typically, real estate investors are able to buy properties fast, from condos to entire buildings and everything in between. Real estate investors are generally more flexible than other buyers and have the cash available to close on a property much quicker than in a traditional sale involving a real estate agent.

How Does Selling a Condo to an Investor Work?

Here is a quick outline of the process of selling your condo to a real estate investor:

1. Requesting a cash offer from a real estate investor will get the conversation started quickly.
2. After you start communicating with a real estate investor, the next step would be for them to do an assessment of the property, which would typically be a quick walk-through. As a rule, they do not need a formal inspection, as they rely on numbers, more specifically, the cap rate.
3. The real estate investor would be able to quickly make an offer on your condo, either on the spot or shortly after.
4. If you are satisfied with the price, you could then move forward with signing a purchase contract.
5. The closing of the sale could take place within a week or two after the purchase contract is signed.

If you want to learn more about it, read our article Selling Your House to an Investor the Right Way.

What Are the Advantages of Selling My Condo to an Investor?

#1 Selling Fast

The greatest advantage of selling your condo to a real estate investor is to be able to sell it fast. A real estate investor typically conducts residential property due diligence within a day, during either the walk-through of your condo or by simply looking at the revenue and expenses.

The deal is able to move ahead quickly and I have seen deals close within a week when condos are sold to real estate investors

#2 Selling for Cash

Professional real estate investors do not use traditional financing methods like mortgages that take weeks for the banks to have the buyer conduct property inspections and approve the paperwork.

Instead, real estate investors use other sources of financing, like hard money loans or their own cash to close the deal. Selling your condo to a real estate investor for cash means that the deal is more likely to close quickly and even to close at all! Because sometimes lenders disapprove buyers for a loan for various reasons and the seller has to start marketing again.

#3 Selling As-Is

By selling to a real estate investor, you are able to circumvent making lots of costly repairs or improvements to your condo. Real estate investors are actually looking for properties that they can fix up themselves, in the style that they choose.

This will save you much time and effort. And if you don’t have the money to invest in repairs and improvements before getting paid for your property, this is a win-win for both you and the real estate investor.

#4 No Hassle

Working with a real estate investor is very straightforward. They will be quick and to the point as they want to get the deal done as fast as you do. This means that they won’t want to do multiple walkthroughs which would take up time and interrupt your life.

#5 No Realtor Commissions and Closing Costs

Professional real estate investors typically don’t use real estate agents so there won’t be a realtor commission that would be taken out of the sale price. To learn more about realtor fees, read our article Cost of Selling Your Home with a Realtor.

Investors will also take into account what the closing costs will be and work that into the offer price. This streamlined approach allows you to know exactly how much you will be making as you work to sell your condo fast.

#6 Relocation Assistance

There are some real estate investors who are able to offer financial help when the sellers are looking to relocate.

Another option that some real estate investors may consider is signing a leaseback agreement that would let you rent the condo from the real estate investor until you are ready to move out.

These are just additional ways in which selling to a real estate investor allows you the most flexibility as a seller.

What Are the Disadvantages of Selling My Condo to a Real Estate Investor?

The greatest disadvantage of selling your condo to a real estate investor is that it is more likely than not that their price will be lower than market value. But how much lower? That depends on a lot of different factors, but the most important thing to think about is if you value selling your condo fast or for a higher price.

There are some real estate investors who may be willing to pay the market rate for your condo. Those real estate investors will usually plan to pay the condo off over time by renting it out rather than reselling it right away.

While this is an option, you should be prepared to receive lower than market rate offers for your condo from real estate investors. Then it’s up to you to decide what price you’d like.

How to Get the Best Offer on My Condo from an Investor?

You can find real estate investors by simply looking up “companies that buy houses fast for cash” online. However, when selling your condo to an investor, it’s important to know two things:

1. You don’t have to limit yourself to one offer. It’s best to shop around and to compare offers from different investors and choose the best one.
2. You need to do research on the reputation of each cash homebuyer to avoid fraudsters and companies who can’t process the transaction professionally, wasting your time.

By using HouseCashin, you can get multiple offers from reputable local investors competing for your condo. HouseCashin is a national platform connecting motivated home sellers with reputable real estate investors that meet our quality standards.

Fill out our simple online form to request a non-obligation cash offer on your condo from HouseCashin.

Selling your condo to a person who wants to live in it is another avenue to consider. It may take more time and effort to do this, but the sale price will also be closer to, or even above, market price.

The sale won’t take place as quickly as it would if you sold to an investor, but for some sellers, having a higher sale price is worth it.

In this section, I will show you what you can do to speed up the sale of your condo when choosing the harder way over selling it to an investor.

Should I Hire a Broker or Sell “By Owner”?

Using a real estate broker to sell your condo will make the process much smoother and easier than trying to sell it yourself. Real estate brokers are professionals and have done this hundreds or thousands of times.

Top-rated real estate agents know the ins and outs of pricing, marketing and selling properties, and your condo is not an exception. If you are interested in learning how to sell future properties “by owner”, make sure you pay attention as your broker does their job and gets the sale closed.

Now, let’s go over the methods that I use, as a real estate agent, to efficiently price and market condos to have them sold fast. If you are confident enough in your ability to sell your condominium ‘by owner’, you can use the following information yourself.

How to Price My Condo to Sell?

Find Comparable Condos and Look at What they Sell For

The first step to price your apartment is by looking at the competition. You can visit popular websites like Zillow, Trulia, or Realtor.com or even do a quick Google search for condos in your area and see what websites pop up. Remember, you need to put yourself in the buyers’ shoes and go through the search process as they do.

Once you determine what websites they would most likely use to buy a condo in your area, you should do a search on those sites and see what your competitors are priced at.

You have to look for condos that are very similar to yours, usually focusing on the size of the apartment (both square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms), the quality of the renovations, the features of the unit (washer/dryer, dishwasher) and the amenities of the building.

Be sure to learn the difference between various types of condominiums. For example, a townhouse is also considered a condo. But if yours is located in a multifamily building, it will not be comparable in terms of the price.

Condominium buildings also differ by types, which affects the prices of apartments in them. This resource will help you learn the main classification of property types.

Location is also an important factor. Some neighborhoods are more popular than others. So a condo downtown will have a very different value than a similar one located on a city’s outskirts.

After finding a handful of condos that are very similar to yours, you will start to see where they are priced at. The easiest way to organize this is by putting them all in a spreadsheet and breaking down pricing on a square foot basis. If you see that condos are listed for $500/sf on average, you can quickly do the math for your condo as well.

It is important to keep in mind that these condos that you are looking at haven’t sold yet. Since there is no rule at what price you can list your apartment, you also need to look at condos that sold recently in your area.

You can also do that on the above-referenced websites by searching for “sold” apartments. You will likely notice a small difference between listed prices and what they actually sold at. Again, you can put these in a spreadsheet as well.

There are markets where condos are listed at market price and there are other markets where they are priced below market value, often creating a bidding war. Once you’ve determined how your market behaves in terms of pricing, you just need to pick a strategy.

Underpricing May Give You a Higher Offer

Some sellers prefer to list their property on the higher end of the market, and it’s their right to do so, but this is the harder route to take. Your property will likely sell if it is listed at a higher price. But, it will also likely take longer, and something that you must consider is if you value time or money more. For some sellers, they prefer a higher price from the start, even if it means a slower sale.

In today’s market, there is a better way to market your property. And don’t worry, even if what you are looking for is a high sales price, that can still be achieved, just maybe not the way you have thought about it before.

Buyers these days are very educated and they recognize a good deal if they see it. The easier way to sell your property fast is to underprice your condo, and then let multiple offers come in. Once you have plenty of options to choose from, you can notify the potential buyers that you are looking for the “highest and best” offer, which generally drives a sales price well above the asking price.

Once a buyer imagines their life in the apartment and decides to put in an offer, the process becomes emotional. In my experience, most people focus on winning during a bidding war and not focus so much on what the apartment is actually worth. Nobody wants to lose and that is exactly you can take advantage of.

Will Repairs and Improvements Speed Up the Sale?

There’s no doubt that a beautifully renovated condo is more attractive. Fresh paint, an updated kitchen, and bathroom go a long way in impressing potential buyers. The challenge is finding the balance between the cost of the work you do and the return on your investment.

First, you have to decide if you have the time to do any repairs or upgrades. If your preference is to just sell as quickly as possible, you will need to list the apartment as-is.

If you would like to get the highest possible price and do not mind spending a few days or weeks upgrading the apartment, then you will need to do a quick evaluation.

Generally speaking, real estate professionals do not recommend a full renovation of an apartment as it is hard to predict what buyers will like, and even harder to guarantee that you will get your money back.

Instead, agents like to focus on a few key items so the apartment appears to be in better shape and gives a good first impression when someone walks in. I personally like to walk through an apartment and look for areas that seem old and outdated.

The following items are not only cheap and can be done quickly but usually make a huge difference:

• Repainting the apartment with white (or neutral) paint
• Semi-gloss white paint over baseboards and molding
• New light switches and outlets
• Clean the apartment including the windows
• New door handles
• Fresh caulking in the bathroom
• Old and outdated appliances can be swapped out
• Granite countertops can be added
• New light fixtures
• Sanding and staining hardwood floors
• Replacing carpet

These simple steps can create a great first impression and can be the deciding factor between selling or not.

How to Sell a Condo in a Tough Market Quickly?

I always believed that instead of reinventing the wheel, we need to look for the best players in the industry and see what they are doing. In your case, you need to focus on successful real estate professionals in your area. You should go through their listings and see how they present the properties.

I would consider doing the following for your listing:

1. Hire a professional photographer. They do this for a living and have hundreds of tricks on how they can make your apartment look better without misrepresenting it. Just remember that first impression matters and most buyers will see your apartment online first, relying on these images.
2. Create a 3D walk-through. You can use companies like Matterport or do it yourself with Zillow’s free 3D Tour application. This allows buyers to virtually walk-through the apartment guaranteeing that when they reach out to see it in person, they already love it.
3. Provide a floor plan with measurements. Buyers will likely bring their own furniture so it’s important for them to know that it will fit. It also allows them to use their imagination and spend hours designing their future home.
4. Include a video. People rely more and more on videos as it’s a very convenient way to understand the layout and learn about the finishes and amenities.
5. Hold regular open houses. It’s important to provide easy access to potential buyers so they do not need to put in much effort to see your condo and fall in love.
6. Listen to feedback from the buyers. If you notice anything that they point to and you can fix it: do it!
7. Always negotiate. Don’t ignore any offers as some buyers like to start low with their offers.
8. Consider staging. Some condos have unusual layouts and buyers get confused. Take out the guesswork from the equation and show them how it is best done by hiring a professional staging company. If you would like to save some money, you can do virtual staging as well. In this case, only the images are edited.
9. Pay for featured listings. If websites offer the option to market your listing, take it. By putting your condo in front of more people online, you will likely get more real-life traffic too.

We’ve just discussed two ways of selling your condo:

1. The easy and quick way, which is selling your condo to a real estate investor.
2. The more complicated and time consuming way (that you can still speed up by the strategies I showed you) — marketing the condo to the general public.

Now, you need to understand which one works best for your situation. Choosing between these two options is basically choosing which factor to prioritize: the time or the amount of money you can get at the closing.

Selling a condo traditionally — to someone who is going to live in it — generally means prioritizing the money, while selling it fast and for cash prioritizes the time.

However, this is not always the case. If you are in a situation when losing time also means losing money, choosing the first route may actually be more profitable for you than waiting to get the full market value (minus closing costs and agent fees) for your condo.

If additionally to your urgency you also have problems with the condition of your condo and you don’t have the money to repair it, it may even be hard to find a real estate agent who will agree to list it. Most buyers want move-in ready properties. And realtors try to increase property value to get a higher commission (which is a percentage of the final price).

If after weighing all the pros and cons of both methods you have decided that you want to sell your condo to an investor, you still need to get the best possible offer on it. And the best way to do it is to submit a request for multiple cash offers to HouseCashin.

HouseCashin is a national platform connecting homeowners who need to sell their property fast and for cash with reputable local real estate investors. We work with investors from all over the USA, and all of them are screened by us to meet our reputation and professionalism standards.

By requesting a cash offer from HouseCashin, homeowners can get multiple offers from local real estate investors competing with each other. This helps them get the most of the quick sale, often closing just within a week after they accepted our offer.

Fill out our simple online form to request a no-obligation cash offer on your condo from HouseCashin investors.