Selling Your Quadplex Quickly [2 Best Ways to Sell a Fourplex]

Selling a 4-family home by marketing it to the public can be challenging because most potential buyers are interested in buying one unit rather than the entire property.

This is what makes selling a quadplex such a headache.

Still, you can sell the entire four-unit property by finding the right buyer: a real estate investor who buys real estate to rent it out.

Among real estate investors, there are professionals who purchase rental properties fast and for cash, eliminating the need for involving Realtors in the transaction.

They find small multi-family homes and single-family homes, renovate them, and then rent or resell them for profit.

This means they’re ready to buy properties in their current condition, so if your quadplex needs work, it won’t stop investors from making a serious offer.

How Does Selling Your Fourplex to a Real Estate Investor Work?

The process of selling a 4-family home to a real estate investor is simple and straightforward:

1. Get in touch with a professional cash home buyer and request an offer from them.
2. They will ask you when they could come to see your property. Schedule a walkthrough so they can evaluate the condition of the units and decide how much they can offer for the house.
3. Review the investor’s offer. A professional cash home buyer will usually make a fair offer within 24-48 hours of property viewing, depending on how active your real estate market is.
4. Sign a contract with the investor if you’re pleased with the offer. The investor will put money in escrow and take care of the rest of the sale process.
5. Close in 2-4 weeks if the property doesn’t have tax liens, title issues, or other complications. The investor will issue the payment at closing. You will receive your cash as soon as the bank processes the transaction, which is usually within a day or two.

Pros and Cons of Selling a Quadplex to a Real Estate Investor

The following are the advantages you get when you sell a four-family home to an investor:

• Companies that buy houses for cash don’t expect you to make any repairs — they’ll take your property as is, which means you can save time, effort, and out-of-pocket renovation expenses.

• Cash home buyers close fast, often within a few weeks. This is because they don’t have to go (and put you) through lender-required appraisals and inspections, like in a traditional real estate sale financed by a bank or conventional lender.

• Professional cash property buyers cover all closing costs and reduce your overall expenses in the sale.

• You can avoid paying high realtor commission fees, since you don’t need an agent in a sale to a cash buyer. Investors handle the entire sale process.

• Residential real estate investors buy homes for cash, which means no waiting around for their mortgage application and approval.

  There is no risk that the property will get appraised for less than your asking price. Or that its condition will stop a lender from issuing a loan to the buyer, which could halt or cancel your sale.

Although there are many merits of selling a house privately to a cash investor, there’s one major limitation:

• The cash offer you receive could be less than the property’s actual value.

This is because investors are buying your property to make a profit. If they buy it from you at its market value, they will have to resell it above market value, which would be impossible to do.

Yet, if you consider the Realtor commissions and seller closing costs you avoid by using an investor, you find that the amount of cash you take home is not that much lower than if you sold your fourplex the traditional way.

Where to Find a Good Real Estate Investor to Buy Your 4-Unit Property

When selling a home to an investor, the first step is to find a local professional with experience, a good reputation, and proper industry ethics.

Unfortunately, like in any industry, there are bad players who aim to take advantage of tired landlords and trick them into selling their fourplex cheaper than they could if they dealt with a reputable professional.

Others advertise a cash sale, but in reality, they don’t have cash, which can lead you to lose time and money.

Our platform, HouseCashin, has a wide and dynamic network of reliable home-buying professionals who purchase quadplexes all across the country.

We screen investors on our platform based on their experience and proven commitment to ethical real estate practices.

You can get started on the process of selling your 4-unit property by submitting an online form to request offers on your quadplex.

You may receive one or multiple offers, depending on your real estate market. But there’s no obligation to accept any of them.

Neither will you be charged any fee for using our platform — it’s entirely free for you, unlike using iBuyer platforms or some of the popular real estate marketing sites.

Once you receive an offer you’re happy with, you can accept it and move toward closing, which usually takes about one or two weeks if you need to sell the quadruplex urgently.

Another way you can sell your 4-unit property is by opting for the conventional way: marketing it to the general public.

The process involves advertising the property on online marketplaces, social media, print media, onsite signage, and other ways.

There are two different approaches you can typically use in a traditional sale:

• Sell the fourplex by yourself as a FSBO (for sale by owner) listing. If you choose this option, be prepared to oversee every step of the sale and do thorough research on the laws and paperwork requirements in your county.

• Work with a real estate agent. The agent will represent you throughout the sale and manage the entire sale process.

Regardless of the option you choose, none of them will be as fast as selling to cash property buyers. However, the traditional sale may get you the highest possible price for your property.

Even so, you still need a real estate investor if you’re looking to sell the entire fourplex at once — someone who is willing to buy the property for investment.

Alternatively, you may consider selling each unit independently as if you were selling a condo or selling a townhouse.

In this case, you (or your agent, if you hire one) should navigate you through splitting the title of your quadplex into four separate titles, which not every Realtor is experienced in.

Note that this would mean you have to facilitate four different deals, which would considerably prolong the sale.

The following sections discuss the steps involved in a classic sale and why it typically takes longer than selling directly to a cash-house-buying company or professional.

Prepare the Property

When selling a fourplex traditionally, you have to prepare the property before you can list and market it.

You will have to make repairs and renovations, and upgrade your fourplex with modern amenities if necessary, since typical buyers want turnkey homes that are ready to rent out.

Other reasons regular buyers request renovations include:

• Buyers need mortgages to purchase property. However, most lenders don’t finance homes that are in bad condition, which means the buyer can’t buy the property even if they’re willing to handle the repairs.

• Landlords want turnkey houses that can begin generating rental revenue immediately.

As a result, you have no option but to do renovations, unless you come across a buyer who has cash, which is rare.

After repairs, you should also clean the property, stage it for photography and viewings, and take professional photos that will be used for marketing.

If you’re in an active market, you can do without professional photography and staging, but it does make a huge difference for selling your property faster and at a better price.

What Does a Traditional Real Estate Sale Entail?

In a FSBO sale, you’ll be responsible for managing the sale process — from hiring repair contractors and listing your property on major FSBO websites, to handling price negotiations and all the necessary paperwork.

If you choose to hire an agent, they will oversee the process on your behalf.

That said, the steps involved in a traditional sale remain the same whether you choose to sell by yourself or via an agent:

1. When selling a house with problems, assess what needs to be fixed, how long it will take, and how much it will cost with the help of a construction and renovation contractor.
2. Establish an appropriate listing price for the property. An agent will conduct a CMA (comparative market analysis) to determine a suitable price based on the property sales history in your area.

   If you’re selling by yourself, use property valuation tools online (such as our home value estimator) and look at the price tags for similar properties currently sold nearby on real estate marketplaces.

3. Prepare the property for sale by making repairs and cleaning it.
4. Market the property to the public. A Realtor will list your house on the local MLS and advertise it on major listing websites such as Zillow, Realtor.com, Opendoor, and Redfin.

   If you’re selling by owner, list your property on popular FSBO websites such as HouseCashin investment property marketplace and Real Estate Bees property marketplace.

5. Compare and counter offers. As offers begin to come in, review them, negotiate with prospects, and pick the best offer possible. However, if your property is in a slow market, you may not have that much of a choice.
6. Wait for your buyer to complete their lender-required inspection and appraisal. Buyers financing the transaction by using a loan need inspections and appraisals for mortgage approval.

   If the appraisal reveals that the property’s market value is lower than your asking price, you’ll need to adjust the price.

7. Hire a title company to oversee the title search and transfer. You can then schedule a closing date once the title search is complete.
8. Finalize the deal and close. You should expect to receive the money in your bank account a few days after closing.

Pros and Cons of Selling a Fourplex Traditionally

Here are the benefits of selling your fourplex the traditional way:

• You can avoid the stressful formalities and bureaucracies involved in real estate transactions by hiring an agent.

• If you or your agent has the necessary experience and negotiation skills, you can sell the property at its market value.

There are also several drawbacks to selling traditionally, which include:

• Property repairs, renovations, and upgrades are expensive and time-consuming.

• Traditional sales generally take longer than a sale to an investor. In addition to the time taken by renovation, you also have to market the property for weeks to months and negotiate with prospects, many of whom will be picky.

• Lender-mandated inspections and appraisals further delay the sale.

• Agent commission fees are high, at about 3% to 6% of the final sale price. This significantly reduces the amount of money you’ll get from the deal.

• Typical home buyers often have very specific preferences when it comes to the properties they want. This leads to drawn-out and stressful negotiations with them and their agents, even for seasoned sellers.

Now you have an idea of how to sell your fourplex — both the fast and easy and the more complex ways.

The next step is comparing how much you can earn by selling your quadplex to a real estate investor versus hiring a Realtor.

To start, find several local cash buyers, collect their offers, and compare them. When consulting a Realtor, be sure to ask for a quote on their commission, as well as how much they could sell your quadplex for.

To get in touch with cash buyers, complete a quick online form and compare the offers coming from reputable real estate investors buying fourplexes in your area.