Florida As-Is Real Estate Contract – What To Expect

The process of selling a home is a huge disadvantage for most people. It takes time, a lot of money, and it piles an undue amount of stress onto your life. 

There’s also the requirement of fixing things up, getting things up to code, and hoping that your investments come back to you with returns. When it comes to selling a property in Florida, there might be a better way for you. 

We’re going to look at the process of selling a house “as-is” today. We’ll explore what it takes to enter into a Florida as-is real estate contract, giving you some insight into how simple and easy it might be. 

Hopefully, the information below will inspire you to take an alternative route the next time you sell your home. Let’s get started. 

What Does It Mean To Sell A House As-Is?

Selling a house as-is means that a buyer takes it off of your hands without any required improvements or renovations. Homes that are in some kind of disrepair are harder to sell on the normal market. Buyers aren’t as interested in purchasing a home that requires work or isn’t ready to be moved into.

So, the normal seller takes it upon themselves to make those changes and bring things back into a presentable place. The difficulty is that those renovations can be very costly in a lot of cases. 

Small cosmetic issues typically don’t make a massive difference, but issues with the home’s foundations or essential parts of the structure are hard to overlook. You might also have costly repairs included in improvements to things like roofing, siding, plumbing, electrical work, and more. 

When you sell a home as-is, you’re offering it to a company that buys houses exactly as they are without an expectation for any kind of improvement. You don’t have to touch up the paint job, repair the stairs, or even deal with the plumbing issues you’ve been having. 

The home is sold flaws and all, and you’re left with a lot less work to do. 

Marketing and Showing 

Another element of the home selling process is the fact that one has to present the house on multiple platforms. Whether the home is listed online or via other mediums, it takes a lot of effort to place ads in the appropriate channels and draw buyers. 

In a lot of cases, the seller will find a real estate agent to do this work for them. It’s also important to note that listing your home on popular sites isn’t always free or easy. You might need the recommendation or pull of the real estate agent to get your home listed. 

Once you’ve placed your ads, you play the waiting game. Some homes might take a number of months to get picked up. Throughout that process, your real estate agent is giving showings, dealing with offers, and spending a lot of time on your home. 

All of that time costs money, and the price continues to go up the longer the house sits on the market. When all is said and done, you might not get the price you were hoping for, and your equity is shaved by the expense of listing and showing your home through the realtor. 

Selling your home as-is eliminates that entire process. 

What To Expect When Selling As-Is

Instead of the process described above, selling as-is offers a quick and easy alternative. Different companies have different approaches, but most of them follow a general pattern. 

You’ll enter some information about your home into the business’ website and approximate the value of your home. You might also be asked to list any damages or issues with the home that the buyer should know about. 

Once you see the value of your home and you’re happy with the price, someone will come to look at the home and make sure everything is in order. In most cases, the buyer will be interested if you were honest with the information you gave on the website. 

They’ll make you an offer, and the sale process will carry on over the course of a couple of weeks if you accept. 

Things to Note 

Just because selling as-is is a simplified version of selling a home, though, doesn’t mean that you should take it lightly. It’s important to keep a couple of things in mind, as there are a few selling house-as-is laws to keep in mind. 

First, note that you have to disclose everything you’re aware of about the house that may be of interest to the buyer. Any damages or things that would lead to damages must be noted. If you withhold that information, you’re breaking the law and could be liable to legal proceedings. 

This is the most important thing to understand. You should still have an inspection done before you sell the home so you’re aware of any wear and tear that’s accumulated over the course of your homeownership. 

If you are unaware of any issues and something occurs after you sell the house, you are in the clear. It’s withholding information that gets you into legal trouble. Buyers have a right and a responsibility to do an inspection so they know what they’re getting into with a home. 

Now that we’ve given you the basics, let’s explore the pros and cons of selling your home as-is to a cash buyer. 

Cons of Selling As-Is

Just like everything, there are a couple of negative sides to selling your home in this way. It’s on you to decide how to weigh the pros and cons to see if selling your home as-is would be the right choice for you. 

The first con that people cite is the fact that you get a little less money than you otherwise would for your home. It’s true that you won’t get the highest price possible on your home if you sell as-is. 

This happens for a couple of reasons. First, you’re not listing the home on the market and acquiring multiple bidders. As more and more people compete for your home, the price will increase and you’ll wind up with more profit. 

Presenting your home on the normal channels in a presentable way and working with a realtor to improve appearance will draw more money. That said, those things cost time and money, and time has a cost-value. 

Realtors take a percentage of the sale, oftentimes the same amount of value that they add to the home. You must then consider the stress of waiting, how waiting affects your plans and your finances, and the effort that you put into marketing and selling the home. 

Another reason that the price is lower is the fact that you’re not doing anything to improve the home’s appearance or quality. When you sell on the normal market, it’s expected that everything is in working order, everything is clean, and there are no damages to the home. 

You might get returns on your investment to fix these things but, again, making those repairs costs you time, effort, and money. In many ways, the lower sale price is the key disadvantage to consider.

How Much Do You Lose?

Now you’re probably wondering “how much do I lose with an as-is residential contract Florida?”

Fortunately, you don’t lose too much money at all. In many cases, you receive the actual market value of your home. You lose money on the potential of what the home could be if you repaired it and had competing buyers, but it’s difficult to estimate the true return on that investment. 

Again, making those changes introduces stress, expense, and time into the equation. Depending on who you are, those things hold more or less value. If time and peace of mind are very valuable to you, a small hit on the sale price of the home might be worth a lot less than the exhaustion that comes from selling a home on the market. 

Note that some companies will not offer the market value of your home. Different as-is companies have unique approaches, and they might not provide as much value to you. There are a number of companies that buy homes at market value, though. 

So, in reality, you’re not losing too much. 

Pros of An As Is Contract Florida

We’ve touched on a lot of the benefits of selling a home as-is, but there are a few more that we haven’t covered. 

The first point that we haven’t touched on is the fact that you can still make the necessary renovations if you want to. Selling your home as-is doesn’t mean that you have to unload a problem property into someone else’s hands. 

If you want to fix the place up and increase the market value, you should do so. You’ll see that investment reflected in the asking price that the company gives you.

Staging and Aesthetics

Another piece of selling a home is the process of dolling it up for potential buyers. You want to make sure that there are no dings, scratches, scuffs, or flaws anywhere in the house. 

You’re repairing paint jobs, gardening, researching modern interior design, and stretching yourself in numerous ways to try and make the place presentable. You might even hire a stager to come in and work their magic. 

All in all, you’re not improving the quality of the home, you’re just making it more presentable to buyers. That process is time-consuming and it’s stressful. Further, it costs a little bit of money to get all of those factors in working order. 

Selling a house in Florida to an as-is company eliminates the need for any of that. They look at the nuts and bolts of the house as opposed to the little details that don’t matter too much. 

You can make sure that everything is in working order and present the house without flourishing it at all. A little ding or paint chip here and there won’t affect the asking price of your house. 

Buyer Qualifications and Payments

If you’ve sold a home in the past, you know that it can often be difficult to work with the buying party in terms of getting your money. You don’t get your equity right away, and that’s frustrating. 

Buyers have to be approved, get a mortgage, and that money has to go through one or two other mediums before it reaches your bank account. There’s a lot of room for things to go wrong in that equation. 

Further, it takes a lot of time and increases the stress you’re experiencing. As-is buyers are typically cash buyers, which means you’ll get your money right away. 

When you see “cash buyers” for homes, that tends to mean that they’re as-is buyers as well. 

Failed Home Investments

One factor to keep in mind if you’re looking to repair your home is that things don’t always have the same ROI that you think they will. 

Any industry that sells home repair products or materials will boast about the return on investment that their renovation products offer. “Remodeling your kitchen sink will bring thousands of dollars back into your pocket!” 

We’ve all seen it. 

Those claims may very well be true, but many of them aren’t. You might spend a lot of time and effort remodeling significant chunks of your house, only to find that you just get what you put into it and nothing more. 

That’s a step in the process that doesn’t need to be there if it doesn’t bring any money in. As-is sales eliminate the need for any of those changes to happen. 

Need To Sell Your Florida Home Fast?

If you’re looking to sell your house fast, we can help you get the ball rolling by getting you multiple offers from interested buyers. Submit your address to get your home value and a no-obligation cash offer.