Are neighbors hampering your efforts of selling a home? What can you do about it?
If selling a home wasn’t challenging enough all by itself, neighbors can often become annoying saboteurs who drag down your home’s value and scare off would be buyers.
Many neighborhoods are blighted by foreclosures which are dampening home values because of their sales prices and often due to the terrible condition they are left rotting in. Then there are those neighbors who simply have no sense of decorum or style. They’ll paint their homes glow in the dark purple, let packs of pit-bulls room the yard and turn the front lawn into a graveyard for broken down vehicles. Then there are others who outright scare off potential home buyers, either by parking themselves in plain view and looking menacing or even in some cases verbally harass or discourage prospects from making an offer.
This leaves 3 choices for selling a home:
1. Buy Their Homes
As a real estate investor the best move in many cases today may just be to buy their homes from them. Get rid of them, fix up the place and perhaps you can even bump up your profit margin with a package deal. Of course this strategy may not work for many regular homeowners today who are selling a home because they are already struggling financially. So what then?
2. Bribe Them
Try talking to your neighbors. If you get along they should want to be more helpful, at least during your showings. If you have become arch enemies over the years and are on the verge of a ‘Hatfields and McCoys’ style feud then kill them with kindness or bribe them. Maybe they’ll let you mow their lawn, buy and donate their junk vehicles, hire a painter or even build them a fence. If you have to give them some cash to go out to lunch or dinner when your prospective buyers are due to show up and most importantly make it clear that the more they cooperate the sooner you will be out of their way.
3. Sell Fast for Cash
If your neighbors are that vindictive or stubborn that they won’t listen to reason then think carefully before you invest any money in trying to fix up your own property. It may just be wasted time, energy and cash. However you may find a real estate investor willing to buy your home for cash fast and get you out of the situation and debt you are in.
