If you’ve found yourself saying, “I can’t sell my house in Atlanta Georgia,” this article is for you. Maybe you’ve been trying to sell your Atlanta house for a while now and haven’t received any offers, don’t panic! As frustrating and perplexing as this may be, you still have a few options at your disposal to help you sell your house for a fair price.
You’ve probably already tried the first one at least once: Lowering the asking price. If you haven’t because you’re stuck on a certain number, you may have to re-evaluate your expectations. All else fails, lowering the asking price may get a conversation going with a buyer to help you get closer to your desired sale price.
Everybody wants to sell their house for more than they paid for it but if housing prices in your area are low, the economy’s not doing well, or your home has some sort of structural or locational problem, you may have to reduce your asking price.
What are my options if I can’t sell my house in Atlanta?
Having you house sit around with no action while you’re attempting to sell can be real deflating. Here are five other things you can try when you can’t sell your house in Atlanta:
1) Take It Off the Market
You may be trying to sell your home at a bad time, such was when there are a lot of other houses just like yours on the market, during the winter months, or during the holidays.
If this is the case, you might be best served by taking your home off the market for a few months – if you can afford to keep paying the mortgage – and wait until market conditions improve.
2) Take Out a Second Mortgage
If you have built a lot of equity in your home, you may want to take out a home equity loan — if you can afford to pay the higher monthly payment, that is. If not, you may be able to renegotiate a loan modification plan with your lender or convert your adjustable rate mortgage into a fixed-rate mortgage that has a lower interest rate. The loan can be used to fund other things, including real estate investments.
3) Rent Out Your Home
If you can’t sell your home and don’t want to hold two mortgages (your old home and your new home) one option may be to rent out your home at or near the price of your monthly mortgage payment. That allows you to apply the rent to your mortgage without having to incur any additional expense – other than upkeep, maintenance and repairs. You will want to take into account not only the mortgage (principal and interest) but also monthly tax allowances as well as insurance. This will cover your bases at least and will help you have to come up with less in the case of emergency big ticket item replacements or even minor repairs.
4) Consider a Short Sale
“I can’t sell my house in Atlanta because I owe too much!” This can happen if you purchased your home within the past few years and currently owe more than the home is worth (called being upside down).
In some instances, you can negotiate with your lender to accept less than what you owe on your mortgage. If it looks like the other option is foreclosure, your lender probably will accept a short sale.
Keep in mind, however, that short sales can affect your credit. Redeeming a pre-foreclosure on your credit history might disqualify you from getting another mortgage, at least for a little while.
5) Offer a “Lease to Own” Option
A lease to own option is when you rent your house to somebody with the option to purchase your home at or before the lease expires. This is a good option if you can’t find qualified buyers because you can collect rent plus a lease option fee from a tenant while giving them time to save up for a down payment and establish their credit so they can get a mortgage to buy your home down the line.
You also can add a lease premium to their monthly rent that can either be applied to the down payment later or – if they don’t end up exercising their option to buy your home – you can keep it as income. Because of covid, “lease to own” options have become increasing more popular since home prices have gone up and now, interest rates are doing the same. This alternative allows you some flexibility as well as getting your desired purchase price amount. We can definitely help you out in this realm as its something we do quite often.
I Can’t Sell My House in Atlanta Georgia!
