What is an iBuyer? In a nutshell, it’s a new trendy way to buy or sell homes in the real estate world. If you’re a home seller who wants to sell your home fast with minimal fuss, selling to an iBuyer might be an option for some. However, I am here to tell you it’s not all rainbows and butterflies going that route. 

Traditionally when you sell a home, there are necessary steps to take including making repairs, staging your home, holding open houses, soliciting offers, negotiating with home buyers, and signing the purchase agreement. You may also have to overcome any roadblocks that may come into play along the way. AReal Estate Agent will take care of all of this and will navigate the entire process for you. 

When you go through the process of selling Real Estate through an iBuyer, it can be more of a streamlined transaction- plug in the address and fill out a questionnaire about your home. Within 24 hours, you will receive a cash offer. The ‘i’ in ‘iBuyer’ stands for ‘instant’ which is why they call it ‘instant offers.’ From there, you decide whether you want to move forward with the process or not. Depending on your preference, the transaction can close within a matter of days. 

This may sound fine and dandy but there is a downside to all this convenience of iBuying. Selling to an iBuyer means you make less money on the sale of your home. How so? Well, when you use a Real Estate agent, they negotiate the best offer for the sale of your home versus when using iBuyers, they are looking to make a profit. Therefore, people who sell their home to an iBuyer often end up paying for that convenience, netting less money. 

Also, iBuyers will charge a fee for taking a house off of your hands to prep it for sale. That fee averages around 6%-8% but could be lower or higher depending on how long they estimate it will take to sell your home. Granted, home sellers who work with a Real Estate agent will also pay a fee for that service. However, a recent study from Collateral Analytics found that on average, home sellers will pay between 13%-15% more to a iBuyer than they would to a traditional listing agent. 

Having said that, there is a lot of value in working with an expert when you are making one of the biggest transactions in your life. So while going the route of using an iBuyer can be fast and somewhat painless, you won’t be getting the most value for your home. If those benefits are more important to you than getting the highest amount for your home, iBuying is a viable option. But if profit is your chief priority, a traditional home sale using an expert is probably your best bet!

Want to learn more about this? Give us a call today to talk!

Florida Lifestyle Realty 

(321)613-5922