Are you thinking about selling your Northern Kentucky house for cash? Is your house becoming too much for you to manage and you’d rather just get it sold fast and move on to a simpler lifestyle? That’s what we’re going to talk about. I’m Eric Sztanyo from We Buy NKY Houses, where we are buying houses for cash in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area and I will tell you about a scenario when selling your Northern Kentucky house for cash after your spouse dies.
I wanted to do a case study today of a home that we just closed on about an hour ago in Florence, Kentucky. A lot of times people see businesses like mine. They see the signs on the side of the street of “We Buy Houses” and they think it’s all a scam. They think it’s all we do is hoodwink people and twist their arms. And like, we’re just terrible people.
Some of that in this industry is deserved and I get that. But, what we try to do at our business is be very honest, very forthright. We show you all the numbers and because I’m not only a cash buyer and investor, I’m also a realtor with Keller Williams Realty, Team Sztanyo is the website. When I come and talk to sellers, I give them multiple options. And there’s no question that the cash purchase, that’s for someone who’s in a unique situation. It’s not for everyone but it does provide some advantages.
Advantages Of Selling Your Northern Kentucky House For Cash
Number one, we can close very quickly.
Number two, we can be very flexible.
Number three, there’s no hassle with it. You don’t have to do anything.
And so for some people, that’s the best situation for others. For most people, especially in this market, it might make sense to list it, list your home on the market, but it depends.
Usually, you’re going to make more money on the side, but it’s a little bit more work. It’s going to take a little bit more time. You’re going to pay some real estate commission to the realtors, but you still might net more on this side. Those are kind of the two general areas I wanted to do. Kind of a case study today of the person we bought from was somebody who, it’s cliche, right? She’s a widow. Her spouse passed away just a little bit over a year ago. And, I can hear the comments. Now, people are like, “you only prey on widows.” It’s not true. Like I came to the house, I showed her both options and we came up with a solution that worked best for her because what was happening was the house was just a little bit too much to care for.
This is not an uncommon story where the husband takes care of the house. I’m not trying to be sexist or anything like that, but this can be common. When the wife is getting a little bit older and she’s trying to take care of all the house, and it’s not something she did in the past, that can be really stressful. That can be overwhelming. And so in this house, there was a situation where there was some water coming in the basement, and there was some work that needed to be done outside. We still have to go do this work.
And it was kind of overwhelming for the homeowner. And not only that, the other thing she was really worried about was “I don’t want people coming into my house. I don’t want to go through the whole listing process of putting it on the market.” And I showed her the numbers and said, you’ll make more money this way. She’s like, I know I get it, but I would rather make it simple.
And then there was one other piece to the equation, which was that she needed the money in order to buy the next place. And so what we were able to do was say, “I tell you what, we can give you occupancy after closing. So here’s the cash offer. Here’s what we can pay for the house”. We’re always very honest about this.
On this side, it’s basically what could we resell the house for. We call it the after repair value. And then we subtract out that we usually multiply that by 70%. So that covers some of the fixed costs that we have in terms of insurance and utilities. And we need to pay the buyer’s agent, a real estate commission when we go flip the house on the other side. So that’s, you know, $200,000 house, that’s $6,000, right there.
A lot of people don’t factor that in when they’re trying to sell their house to us. So we have some fixed costs. We have some profit we want to make, so that 70% covers for that. And then we need to subtract out the repair costs, the money we need to put into that house. Then that’s the number and you could either sell it to us for the cash offer, or you can make those repairs yourself and put it on the market, or you can put it on the market as it is. Well, she decided “I want to sell it to you for the cash offer.” I’m good with that number. But also what we were able to work out for her in this situation was you can have occupancy for a month after we closed.
So we just worked that out in the negotiation, basically, rent for the month. “And so you can live in your house. Now, you’ll have the check from the closing. Whatever you owe over or the mortgage that you owe on it, that’s the net number you’ll get.” So she just got the check, and she can now deposit that check. And now in the meantime, she was able to go find another place to live. She found a rental, much more simple lifestyle. She doesn’t have to worry about repairs. She doesn’t have to worry about the upkeep of the home, the maintenance, and this brought a lot of peace to her. And this gave her three to four weeks of transition time where she doesn’t have to worry about a really quick move.
She can kind of do it slowly over these next few weeks. And that was the best option for her. And like I said, we give a lot of options when we come and talk to our sellers, whether it’s the cash side, whether it’s the listing on the MLS, and we always walk those numbers through you, we’re always looking for win-win negotiations. We never want to do a deal where somebody doesn’t feel comfortable with it. And we even asked you the question, is this what you want to do? If not, let me know, because we’ll rip this up. And so I just wanted to give that case study today. I know a lot of times people see the We Buy Houses advertising it, and they’re like, “these guys are crooks. These guys are scam artists.” And I just wanted to give a real-life situation of what happened today with one of our closings, kind of a case study here.
Reasons why people might want to do the cash offer versus listing on the market.
In this case, it was really about ongoing maintenance and repairs and just the weight of maintaining a home over time as you’re getting older. So that’s one reason.
Another reason might be a divorce.
Another reason might be the home is too far gone in terms of repairs and you can’t catch up.
Maybe you’re behind on payments and maybe foreclosure is coming. Now that we’re kind of into 20, the latter part of 2021. Now the forbearance programs are starting to slow down. Now, the banks might be saying, “Hey, you need to start paying us.” And a lot of people might not be in that position.
Sometimes people are just relocating to another city and they need to move really fast. They need to close really fast.
Help In Selling Your NKY House AS-IS
There are different reasons why speed, Why no hassle, why flexibility might make more sense. But if not, we often encourage people to say, “Hey, you’ll probably make more money if you listen on the market. Hare your options. What would you like to do?” So that’s how we run our business. I just wanted to give you guys that case study today. If you have more questions, please give us a call at (859) 412-1940. If you’re thinking of selling your home for cash to an investor, give us a call at WeBuyNKYHouses.com. Thank you!