Get Those Houses Sold! Part I

Part I

Now I’d like to talk about a situation that you (hopefully) will not find yourself in. It may be important to talk about it. Say you have a few homes that have been for sale for quite some time. For the sake of argument, let’s say you have six houses. You have a market that is slowing down, causing an enormous number of houses to appear on the market. Prices are rising and rates are increasing as the load on the market is increasing. Whew! Sounds like a situation no one wants to be in.

But you have been hanging in there. You have been advertising in newspapers, and been having open houses. You have a mailing list. You have tried putting out some signs in the towns but a lot of the towns don't allow it. You have a Website. You truly have been doing a lot of stuff that has been suggested. You really just need to get these houses sold. You have done everything you can possibly think of. What else can you do?

It boils down to this; you are going to have to get really aggressive and find lease option tenants for them or move them out. A couple of questions to ask yourself might be how close are you in equity? Do you have a spread in them?

Maybe what you have found is you have been advertising lease options and let’s face it, owner financing does not draw anybody. The rents are also so low here compared to what you have to charge for lease option months that people just don't want to do it.

Is there really anything wrong with putting tenants in them?

Now you may not want to do that. You may be thinking….you just want to sell. You truly want to sell; you do not want to put tenants in the homes...

Of course, that is understandable. Who wouldn’t want to sell in your situation? But let’s face it. We all want things. We want to retire at forty. We all want to look young and fit our whole lives…who doesn’t want that, right? But in reality (for the most part), it doesn’t happen.

The question is-how do you go about it? How do you deal with your current situation? Is there even a solution to your situation? Don’t worry-you are not alone. In part II, we will discuss the next steps to get those houses sold!