Top Five Reasons to Auction Your Home

August 24, 2017

Home selling can be an overwhelming, time consuming, and challenging process. For many home sellers, just the idea of keeping the house spotless so it's ready for viewing at any time is exhausting. An alternative to a traditional home sale listing is placing the home up for auction. This type of selling method isn't just for banks auctioning distressed properties. An auction platform offers many benefits to a variety of home sellers, including those in good standing with their lending institution.

1. Auction Advertising Can Draw More Serious Buyers

Auction advertising utilizes a multi-channel marketing technique, much the same as the methods used when listing the house traditionally. This type of saturation reaches a broader market and more potential buyers. In addition, buyers that typically gravitate toward auction sales are more apt to be serious about the purchase of the property. These potential buyers are looking for a property with specific features and improvements, and the advertising for your auction sale will draw them in.

2. Ideal for a Seller's Market

Buyers struggling to find just the right property through traditional home showings, in a seller's market, often turn to auctions. While the auction can save time and hassle for the seller, it also can save the same for the buyer. That's an attractive incentive to place a bid on home.

Auctions naturally create competition. In a seller's market, a house being sold via an auction platform has the opportunity to sell for well above the market value because of the competitiveness of the buyers. In addition, sellers have the option of setting a reserve price so if no bids hit that price, the seller can choose to re-list the house traditionally or simply not sell.

3. An Efficient Way to Sell in a Buyer's Market

According to Forbes, "Auctions are not only for competitive markets. They can also be helpful in a downturn to sell a house quickly at true market value." When it's a buyer's market, homes can sit without a nibble of attention for weeks and even months. The longer a home sits, the higher the risk that it will be sold for a price below its market value. An auction eliminates that long and drawn-out waiting game. By using an auction platform to sell your house, it can mean a faster sale at a higher price even when the market is saturated with similar homes.

4. Auctions Offer Transparency

For both sellers and buyers, transparency makes the real estate process smoother. A seller wants to know that the buyer isn't going to back out of the contract, and the buyer wants assurance that by placing the highest bid, they'll win the property. When buying a property through an auction, the competing bids can be seen.

In a traditional home sale, the buyer places an offer on the property. The seller considers the offer and then either accepts it or makes a counter offer. If it's a counter offer, it now goes back to the potential buyer. They can accept the counter or make another offer. This back-and-forth can take time and result in no agreement and no sale. With an auction, there is zero negotiation between the seller and buyer. Just transparent bidding.

5. One Day for Signed Contract

One of the most popular reasons to sell your home through an auction platform is not having to deal with an extended listing process. It's a one-day event, and, at the end of the auction, you should have a signed contract from a qualified buyer.

An auction can be an easy and efficient way to sell your home in almost any type of real estate market.

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