Selling your house online has become more and more popular over the years. Studies have shown that 94% of home buyers start their search for a place online, and that was before the pandemic. You can imagine how many people are looking online for their next house now. So if you’re hoping to sell your Utah house, you can definitely sell it online instead of using the traditional approach. However, you’ll want to plan a strategy to do it successfully. The three biggest things you’ll need to figure out are advertising on social media, how to market your property and what websites you should use to sell your house online. Below, we’ll cover all you need to know about how to sell your home online in 2021 successfully.
How to Sell Your House Online in Utah
Selling a house online is a great idea. More people can see your listing, so the chances of selling your Utah house successfully are a lot higher. But what does the process look like? Well, you can either market your house online with an agent or by owner. Let’s take a look at both of these selling methods a little further.
→ Need to Sell Your House Fast In Salt Lake City? Check out these Helpful Guide to Sell Faster.
Selling Your House Online with an Agent
Hiring a listing agent isn’t a bad idea because they usually handle marketing your property online and on social media. However, you’ll need to double-check that they offer that as a part of their service. The cost to hire a full-service listing agent in Utah is, on average, 2.6% of the sale price. So say you sell your house online for $383,000, the median price in Utah, your listing agent, stands to make $9,958 (2.6%).
Selling Your House Online By Owner (FSBO)
Selling by owner online is another option you can consider and will save you some money on the cost of hiring a listing agent since you’ll be doing things on your own. That doesn’t go without saying that selling a house by yourself isn’t the easiest task. Also, you’ll want to keep in mind that if the buyer uses an agent, they may ask you to cover their agent’s commission as a part of the purchase agreement. The average buyer’s commission rate in Utah is 2.8%. Using the example above with the median sale price of $383,000, the buyer’s agent’s commission could cost $10,724 (2.8%).
Selling Your House Online to an iBuyer
Another way you can sell your Utah house online is by selling to an iBuyer. This wouldn’t require you to list the property with an agent or buyer owner, but you’ll still be able to sell your house online. iBuyer’s are large companies that purchase homes and resell them and usually do this in multiple markets. They tend to have criteria that they’re willing to buy and will make you an offer online. This approach is definitely more of a business transaction. Before selling to an iBuyer, you’ll want to find out the true cost of working with a Salt Lake City iBuyer, because their service charges can sometimes be more than realtor commissions (6-7%).
Get Great Photos and Video Made For Your Listing
If you end up deciding to sell with an agent or by yourself, either one you choose will include getting the house ready to list. When selling a home online, it’s helpful for buyers to see photos of the property and even a video of the residence. So, either selling strategy will include getting the house ready to sell, including making any necessary repairs, cleaning, decluttering, and staging the property.
An agent usually has a photographer lined up to take photos and videos for your listing. However, if you’re selling by owner, you’ll want to hire a photographer to take professional photos of your house and a videographer to create a video walk-through.
These photos and videos will be prospective buyers’ first glimpse of your place, so you’ll want to make sure the house looks great. When preparing the home for photos, make sure to put away any personal items, including family photos, and store items that make any rooms look cluttered or disorganized. On the day of, make sure to double-check that everything is clean and to open all the shades or drapes to let in as much natural light as possible. Good lighting is key for great photos and video.
Write a Catchy Listing Description
Something else that’s important when selling a house online is a listing description, besides buyers looking at photos, you’ll want them to have a clear description of the property and all it has to offer. Make sure to mention if the house is located in a great school district, if it’s close to shopping or if there are neighborhood amenities. Buyers won’t know this by only looking at photos of your listing. If you’re working with a full-service agent, they usually are the ones to come up with a listing description. However, if you plan to sell your house online by yourself, you’ll need to figure out what to say about your home.
Professional photos, videos, and an informative listing description will be important to have if you plan to use social media and other websites to promote your home sale online.
Using Social Media to Sell Your House
If you intended to sell with an agent, it won’t hurt to ask how they plan to use social media for marketing your home. If the agent is a part of well-known real estate business, they usually have a Facebook page, Instagram, and Twitter account. They may even have a blog with followers that promotes upcoming listings. You’ll want to find out what social media platforms they’ll be using and how often they’ll be posting your listing.
If you’re going to sell by yourself, using social media to sell your house is a great idea. You can market and advertise your listing in a few different ways. One way is by getting your close friends and family involved by offering a reward to anyone’s repost that leads to the sale of your house. This reward could be a $100 to $200 gift card, enough to get people interested.
To do this, you would create a post on Facebook and Instagram with a few photos of your house and information about the listing, and then have your friends and family repost it. Just make sure that anyone interested in the listing has a way to contact you and change your privacy settings so that people can see the post.
Another way you can market your listing on social media is to find for sale by owner pages on Facebook or Instagram in the Salt Lake City area and find out if you can post your listing on their page. You could also see if your neighborhood or Salt Lake City has a page and post your listing there. Maybe one of your neighbor’s knows someone that’s interested in moving into your area.
Selling Your House to a Cash Home Buyer in Utah
Another way to sell your house online would be to sell to a cash home buyer in Utah. Like iBuyers, cash home buyers purchase houses online from homeowners looking to sell fast but without expensive commissions and service fees. To sell your house online to a home buyer is really simple. You would contact a local Salt Lake City home buyer like Cash Quick Buyers and request an offer for your place online.
Listing your home isn’t required because they would buy directly from you. Usually, they request some information about your house so that they can offer you a fair cash deal. They don’t require repairs or improvements to be made before closing because they will buy your home in as-is condition.
Once you accept your cash offer, you can pick your closing date, which can be done within 7-14 days or a few months, whichever you prefer. The entire process is fast and doesn’t include costly repairs, commissions, service fees, and months of uncertainty waiting for your house to sell online in Utah.
Getting a Fair Cash Offer on Your House
If you’re interested in getting a fair cash offer on your house, you’ll want to find a reputable home buying company in your area. Cash Quick Buyers is a” we buy houses in Salt Lake City” company that is a BBB accredited business and comes highly recommended. They can make you a no-obligation cash offer for your home within 24-hours. The free offer for your house also doesn’t include realtor commissions and service fees. Cash Quick Buyers will often pay for closing costs too.
If you’d like to find out more about how it works and how they calculate their cash offer, visit their website for more information. Or give them a call, they’d be happy to explain the process.
Websites For Selling a Home
If you’d like to give it a go and sell your house online, it doesn’t hurt to try. Just make sure to have your photos and listing description ready and have a few hours set aside to post to several different websites. The more people that see your listing, the better. Some listings sites may charge a fee, but there are free home listing sites too.
Below are some well-known home-selling websites to consider using:
For Sale By Owner
For Sale By Owner is a well-known free home listing site that you can use to post your home sale online. They also offer other tools to help you sell your house online, including:
- Pricing Tools
- Access to legal forms
- Live Support and more
Website: For Sale By Owner
By Owner
By owner can list your FSBO on the MLS and other real estate websites. However, to be posted to all these listing sites costs $499. They also offer a 7-day free trial just for access to their website ‘By Owner,’ but it costs $39 a month after the free trial.
Website: By Owner
Craigslist
Craigslist is one of the most popular free home listing sites for people selling by owners. The process of posting your listing is pretty simple, with prompts to add specific information. Just make sure to watch out for scams and determine if the interested buyer is really looking for their next house or just being nosy.
Website: Craigslist Salt Lake City
Final Takeaways
Since more and more people turn to online sources to find their next homes, selling your house online is a great option. As you’ve learned, you do have a few different strategies you can use to sell your house in Utah officially, it just depends on how much time, money, and effort you’d like to put into the process.
Even though people are looking online for houses, that doesn’t mean your home will sell quickly. So if you’re in a situation where you need to sell your house fast because you’re getting behind on mortgage payments, facing foreclosure or bankruptcy, selling online to a home buyer who can close quickly and doesn’t charge commissions or fees would be ideal.
The whole point of listing your house online is so it can be easy for you to sell, and it can be when you work with a local home buyer like CashQuickBuyers.