Are You Ready to Let Go of the House? 6 Good Reasons To Sell Your Home Based on Logic, Not Emotion

1. The value of your home is significantly higher than when you purchased it.

They say if the price is right, the home will sell. A top-notch real estate agent will be able to help you establish a price range for your home using a comparative market analysis that takes into account current market activity and other homes like yours on the market.

If the price of your home is significantly higher than when you bought it, you’re in a great place to sell and use those gains to upgrade to a new home, move to a more expensive and desirable location, or build your savings.

But make sure you do your homework. Top-selling New York real estate agent Ambreen Faruqi has seen homeowners act too quickly based on a shoddy, inflated price estimate coming from an agent who didn’t have the sellers’ best interests at heart.

“We had a couple of people who were thinking of selling because some schmuck Realtor told them their house was worth $1.5 million and it really was not,” Faruqi said.

“And so they were really motivated to sell, but there was no way they could pull $1.5 million from that property.”

So be sure you know the real value of your home before anyone else can persuade you otherwise for their own gains. As a starting point, use HomeLight’s Home Value Estimator. Enter your property address and answer a few simple questions to get a ballpark estimate of your property value in under two minutes.

2. You want to cash in on equity

One factor closely tied to price appreciation is home equity. As your home increases in value, the equity you build (the difference between your home’s worth and the remaining mortgage balance) becomes a valuable asset. Selling allows you to unlock that equity, potentially paying off your next mortgage in full or making a larger down payment and significantly reducing what you owe on your new home, which lowers your monthly payments.

You can even tap into your equity to buy a new home before your current one sells. HomeLight’s Buy Before You Sell program allows you to get your equity unlock amount approved in 24 hours or less. With this, you can make a non-contingent offer on your dream home and increase your chances of securing it without waiting for your current home to sell. You also avoid moving twice.

HomeLight’s Buy Before You Sell program features an easy, straightforward process. Here’s how it works:

3. Real estate market forces are working in your favor.

Political uncertainty fills the news, but when you are deciding whether it’s an opportune moment to sell your home, you need to cut straight to the trends of your local real estate market and determine whether it’s a buyer’s or seller’s market.

Signs that you’re in a seller’s market include more buyers out looking for homes than there are homes for sale. That puts the ball in the seller’s court when it comes to pricing and negotiation.

You also want to take a look at the latest mortgage interest rate trends. If interest rates are on the rise, with every month you wait to sell, you risk taking a higher interest rate on the next home you buy.

Talk to a real estate agent about who holds the cards in your current market, then also consider the ideal time to sell a house in your area. As you search for a reputable agent, take advantage of HomeLight’s Best Time to Sell tool. This tool analyzes market trends and local data to give you a rough idea of when demand is highest and when you might fetch the most profit from your sale.

By combining this insight with expert advice from your agent, you can make a more informed decision about the right timing for your sale.

Try our Best Time to Sell Calculator

This free tool uses transaction data to determine what times of year homes in your market sell the fastest and for the most money.

Check now

4. You’ve thought through staying put versus moving from every angle, and the pros of selling outweigh the cons.

What do you, or you and your family, stand to gain from selling? And what do you stand to lose?

Before you make any rash decisions, take a hard look at your motivations and whether they’re based on the long-term picture or fleeting desires, such as a house you saw on the internet that’s probably out of your price range.

Will a specific school district make all the difference to your children’s future? That might be a great reason to move.

Are you in love with the crown moldings of a townhome that’s aesthetically beautiful but in an inconvenient location? That might create headaches for years to come. Knowing what your priorities are will help you make the right choice.

“I see people wanting to move, but they really haven’t really sat down and thought about the pros and cons of why they live where they live,” says Faruqi. “Sometimes the truth is that they are in a good spot.”

5. You’ve got a strong sense of what’s available on the market, and you like what you see.

Moving is much easier when you already know where you’re headed next. Before listing your home, go get a sense of what’s on the market.

“[Another] hesitation is ‘I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know if I like where I’m going,”  says Faruqi.

Home sellers are usually homebuyers, too. So one good reason to sell is if you’ve got a good sense of what’s on the market, know what you can afford, and want to take advantage of the opportunity to snag the property of your dreams.

The internet and house-buying apps work for casual browsing, but a real estate agent who knows every inch of the inventory is an even better resource.

Faruqi tells hesitant sellers, “Let’s take you out to see a few properties” before we put yours on the market.

6. You’ve checked your emotions at the door and feel ready to move on for practical purposes.

With time, houses become homes filled with memories. The emotional attachment to a home can delay your decision to sell.

You’d be surprised how many people settle for conditions that make their lives significantly harder simply because they’re comfortable. Comfort feels good in the moment but doesn’t necessarily create the best life. There’s a reason why “getting outside your comfort zone” is generally believed to be a positive thing.

If you have too many kids and too few bedrooms, or family members who could benefit from better in-home accessibility, it’s important to think about what you’re gaining and what you’re losing by staying in your current home.

An emotional attachment to their own home—there’s always that factor,” Faruqi said. “Approach the decision from a place of logic, not emotion, and see what truths bubble up to the surface.”

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