Photograph to show potential
Your home listing warrants professional photography, no matter the condition of the property. A professional photographer will take steps to shoot each room from the best angle, ensure optimal interior and natural lighting, and edit for the ideal brightness and exposure.
A high-quality camera with a wide-angle lens is also essential to showcasing entire rooms rather than half or three-quarters of what’s there. For these reasons and more, professionally photographed homes can get 118% more online views and sell 32% faster than houses marketed without professional photos.
Your real estate agent will almost always arrange for professional photos as part of the listing process.
Highlight the surrounding area
A home’s location will be important to buyers seeking out a home with potential. Mention in your as-is listing if your home is close to any of the following:
- Local parks, including playgrounds, green spaces, and dog parks
- Shopping, including grocery stores, pharmacies, and specialty shops
- Hospitals and healthcare centers
- Schools; be sure to specify the school district
- Distance from New York City
- Proximity to highways
- Gyms, libraries, cafes, and swimming pools
Include as-is in the listing
Unless you explicitly mention that your house is being sold as-is, buyers will have no idea of your intentions with the listing. Other common descriptors mentioned in as-is listings in Connecticut include priced to sell, quaint, original kitchen, and fixer-upper.
To balance the focus on as-is condition, work with your agent to craft a property description that highlights the best features of the home, such as beautiful, original hardwood floors, large windows, and a spacious backyard. In Connecticut, there isn’t a specific as-is checkbox for agents to label the house. Instead, the agent will write as-is in the MLS remarks section.
Understand buyers may still negotiate
Listing as-is provides no guarantee that buyers won’t try to negotiate savings on their purchase, even on an asking price you felt was already reduced to reflect the home’s condition. One of the best defenses you can have is an agent who takes a hard stance to prevent a deal from going south for the seller.
Auslander reminds the buyer’s agent that “the house’s price reflects its condition to try to prevent nickel and diming.” He advocates for the seller during the negotiation and does his best to get them the most money for their home without losing the deal.
Be aware of minimum property standards for certain loans
When you place your home on the market, it’s hard to predict if your top offer will come from a cash buyer or a buyer pre-qualified for a home loan.
But if you do end up working with a financed buyer, be aware that different mortgage types (such as conventional loans or government-backed FHA, USDA, or VA loans) have different minimum property standards. These are standards related to the overall condition of a property, which will play a role in the willingness and/or ability of a lender to finance a buyer’s loan.
Before properties can be financed, their value and condition are typically examined by a state-licensed, independent appraiser contracted by the buyer’s mortgage company.
If you’re unsure whether your home will meet appraisal requirements, you can start by taking a look at the FHA minimum property standards. If your house complies with FHA, then it complies with most other lenders’ requirements.
Prioritize a cash offer if you receive one
On occasion, conventional lenders may even finance a fixer-upper property sold as-is, and it’s not impossible to finance a fixer-upper with an FHA loan. However, if you’re selling a house as-is — especially one that needs heftier repairs — you may want to consider accepting a cash offer if you receive one. Cash eliminates the lender-ordered appraisal as well as the time it takes to close on the buyer’s loan, creating a faster and clearer path to settlement.
In Auslander’s experience,cash offers aren’t as common as offers that come with a financing contingency, but it depends on the type of home and the price point. Cash offers are great for uninhabitable homes, homes that are missing appliances, or homes that have broken heating systems — because those types of homes wouldn’t qualify for most mortgages.
Pros of listing a home as-is:
Cons of listing a home as-is:
- Limited buyer pool
- Expect lower offers
- Negotiations and repairs aren’t always off the table
