3 Easy Steps to Selling an Investment Property
BY James Klobasa
Selling your first investment property can be confusing and stressful if you do not use an
agent. Even so, you can sell your property on your own and cut out expensive brokerage fees
by following these three easy steps.
Believe it or not, the most stressful part of real estate investing is making a sale.
During this phase of the investment there are so many things that can go wrong, and your
profit depends on making a smooth and quick sale. While most sales do go through smoothly,
the uncertainty and anticipation can keep you worrying late into the night. This is
especially true if you choose to bypass an agent and sell your property on your own.
A brokerage agent does do a lot of leg work during a sale, but all of it comes at a cost.
Hefty brokerage commissions turn many investors off of the idea of using an agent and onto
the idea of selling the property themselves in the hopes of increasing residual income. If
this sounds like something that you would like to do, follow the following steps for
selling your investment property.
The first thing that you need to do to make your first sale in real estate investing is to
calculate the asking price for the property. You can do this by hiring a professional
appraiser to price the home or by checking the sales prices of comparable homes in the
same area of your property. This is normally done at the court house by comparing similar
recent real estate sales prices within a few miles of your property. You should also take
into consideration the current real estate market. If the market is a buyer's market, you
will probably have to lower your price. If it is a seller's market, on the other hand, you
might be able to fetch more than the market value of the property.
Once you have settled on a price, you need to market the property. This involves advertising
the property and showing it to perspective buyers individually and at open houses. During
this phase you should also contact your attorney to draw up the necessary purchase contract
forms. This purchase contract will need to be signed by you and the buyer once you have
negotiated an offer.
After you have negotiated an offer, the real work begins. Now it is time to close the deal.
To do this, you will need an escrow company to perform the closing. This is the time of
paperwork as you will need to provide the buyer with disclosure statements and he will
need to provide you with a loan commitment letter. Inspections are also performed during
this time and a title search will be completed by your escrow company. Next, you will need
to meet with the escrow company and buyer to sign the paperwork; pay closing fees to the
escrow company; pay off the mortgage; and pay or put aside any taxes owed.
As you can see, the closing phase is the busiest time of selling your first property in
real estate investing. But it is also the most exciting. This is where all of your hard
work pays off and you get to walk away with the profit.
ABOUTH THE AUTHORJames Klobasa, once broke with no job and $20,000 in debt made a choice that changed his life forever. That choice was investing in Real Estate. With the founder of, The Little Building Co. you too, can learn at Real-Real Estate Investing |
