To sell or not to sell your house – Common, not-so common, and downright bizarre reasons to sell your home

My goal is to help you make the right decision about whether or not to sell your house. If you do decide to sell, I want to make sure that you get as many dollars and as few upset stomachs from the sale as possible.

People’s reasons for wanting to sell their houses are almost as varied as the houses themselves. Here are some of the common, not-so common, and downright bizarre reasons that have prompted sellers – that Michel has known over the years – to put their houses on the market:

School district
Neighborhood
Better job opportunities elsewhere
Recent marriage or divorce
Recent death of spouse
Additional debt burden due to layoff, medical expenses, disability, or overspending
Serious house defects that they don’t want to fix
Increased space desires for expanding family (we’ve got twins! Oups!)
Diminished space requirements now that kids are grown
Noisy neighborhood (stadium, highway)
Unfriendly neighbors (bikers)
Neighborhood shopping ( 10 miles away)
Climate (2 tornadoes went through your house)

Do you really want to sell? Are you motivated to sell?

Everybody has a different answer to that question. It’s an important question. In fact, one of the first questions a buyer asks is “Why are you selling”.

It’s an important question to ask – but not only for the homebuyer. Some homeowners sell for the wrong reasons. Some people move only to find that the neighborhood or city they thought was so wonderful from a distance is more expensive, more stressful, less interesting, or not as nice as the place they left.

Others in financial trouble sell a home instead of finding ways to use their home to obtain needed funds.

Still others think about selling without understanding how to make the process financially worthwhile for themselves.

Without truly understanding why you are selling, you risk not selling your home efficiently or effectively.

Your motivation to sell will be the driving force of your selling actions. This will, to some extent, determine how quickly, how negotiable, or how flexible you are with the sale of your house.

The 3 levels of motivation:

1. Strongly motivated

You are forced to sell. It’s a no choice situation, and the consequences if you don’t sell can be quite annoying. The main reasons for selling are:

• The mortgage: you can no longer afford the payments;
• Divorce: you go from 2 income to 1. Your spouse wants to move out;
• Job related. Your employer moves you to another location;
• Illness, death: you have to move for emotional reasons.

In this level of motivation, your negotiating position will be weak because you usually are facing a deadline.

2. Reasonably motivated

You are in a much better negotiating position than the strongly motivated. Your main reasons for selling are:

• You want something better and bigger (upgrade)
• You want something smaller or not as expensive (downgrade)

3. No motivation... but wondering.

Finally, can you afford to sell your home? Use one of the following Mortgage calculators to see how much you can borrow.

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