How to Sell Your House in 5 Days? (Is it Possible?)

No one wants their house to languish on the market, but some people are in more of a hurry than others. If you need to sell your house fast, it’s possible to list it and get under contract in an incredibly short period – even within five days.

However, if you want to complete a rapid sale, you need to plan before you list it and work hard to make the contract happen. Selling a house fast requires strategic planning, quick decision-making, and professional assistance. 

Use this guide to increase your chances of a quick home sale and learn how to sell your house in 5 days or a similar amount of time.

Is it possible to sell a house in 5 days? 

Even if you are motivated to sell your house fast, it is challenging to sell it within five days. It takes time to prepare a house for sale and your real estate agent needs to bring in motivated buyers who want to make offers immediately.

If you list your house on the market and are lucky enough to get an offer within five days, it’s unlikely that you will close on the sale within that window. The buyer will want to schedule a home inspection and appraisal, which will take at least a week to complete.

You also don’t have control of the local market. Some houses immediately receive offers when the market is hot, which means a five-day sale is more feasible. However, if you live in a slower market, you might have to wait longer to get the buyers you need. The calendar also plays a role in housing demand.

There are fewer buyers around the holiday season because most people are waiting until the new year to move. Severe weather could also keep buyers inside, pushing back their home search a week. On average, it takes 72 days to sell a house.

To sell your house fast, focus on the factors you can control. This means listing your house at a competitive price, making sure it is in good condition, and being prepared to negotiate. Even then, your best possible buyer might need to delay the closing date to secure a mortgage.  

An experienced real estate agent will never say they can sell a house in five days, but they will do their best to achieve a quick sale that helps you achieve your goals.

Steps to Sell a House Quickly

You can get a quick sale on your home with careful planning and the right preparation. You need to tap into the factors that you have control over and maximize your chances that buyers will like your home and want to make an offer on it.

Follow these steps if you want to know how to sell your house in 5 days. You might get a buyer sooner than you expect.

Find a Trusted Real Estate Agent

The first step toward any home sale is to hire a real estate agent. A quality Realtor will understand the specific needs of their clients and will respond accordingly. They will evaluate the traditional real estate process and consider how to modify it for a quick sale. If your real estate agent knows that you are in a hurry, they can dedicate more time to marketing and promoting your home to close the deal. 

Real estate agents don’t stop working once the seller has an offer and accepts it. They continue to work with buyer’s agents, lenders, and other parties involved in the process to reach the closing date. They don’t want the sale to drag on longer than it needs to. Once your agent understands your timeline, they will make sure to keep up with everyone involved to move the deal forward.  

If there is a reason why you need to sell your house fast, explain it to your Realtor. This provides context as to why you need to move. Some sellers are on tight deadlines to relocate for work while others are going through a divorce and want to push this part of their lives behind them. Let your Realtor be motivated by you. 

To find a real estate agent, check out FastExpert. You can read agent profiles and find the most experienced Realtors in your area. You can also request interviews with these agents so you can quickly choose the best ones for your needs.

Prepare Your Home for the Market

You can list your home on the real estate market whenever you want, but most people make improvements to the property before trying to sell it. Turnkey properties usually sell faster but require more time to prepare. Not all buyers want to take on project houses or have the budget to make major repairs immediately after they move into the property. 

Here are some of the steps you can take to make your house more desirable to potential buyers. The sooner you work on these preparations, the sooner you can market your home. 

• Declutter your home: sort through your belongings and remove anything you don’t want to move with. Host a garage sale or place items in a storage unit for later. 
• Make repairs: identify any potential issues with the house that could deter potential buyers. This can speed up the home sale because you won’t have to negotiate around the repairs. 
• Consider a pre-listing home inspection: this will alert you to any major issues that could delay the home sale.
• Invest in landscaping: create a positive first impression with neat landscaping, freshly mowed grass, and a pressure-washed house and driveway. 
• Stage the property: work with a company to strategically place furniture and help buyers imagine themselves in the home. 

If you don’t have time to complete these projects, hire a cleaning service. A clean house is significantly more appealing to buyers. Your house cleaners will make sure there is a neutral smell in the home and the space is as bright as it can be. 

Your goal is to make your house as desirable as possible to as many potential buyers. Dirty, worn-out houses that need significant repairs will attract a smaller buyer pool and will usually take longer to sell. 

Set a Competitive Price

One way to sell your house in a hurry is to set a competitive price. When buyers think they are getting a good deal on the property, they are more likely to make offers. If they feel like a house is overpriced or out of their budget, they will walk away. 

Work with your Realtor to determine how much your house is worth. They will run a comparative market analysis (CMA) on your home. If you overprice your house, it will be harder to sell it when the appraisal comes in lower. However, you also need a floor for how little you are willing to sell your house for. This way, if you receive a lowball offer, you will know whether it falls within your accepted range or is too low for your financial needs. 

The price is also based on your home’s condition. If you plan to sell your house as-is, without any repairs or staging, you will have to ask a lower price for it. If you invest in repairs and upgrades, it usually will sell for more. 

Consider your finances and decide whether it is better to sell your house quickly at a lower price or to invest in the property and sell it at a higher rate. Even small upgrades, like replacing a worn-out water heater or repainting your walls, can increase the fair market value of the home. 

This give-and-take between price and condition is why it is so hard to promise that you can sell your house fast. A house in good condition could be overpriced while a home in poor condition drives people away. Real estate agents have to strike a balance between the two if they want to attract buyers.

Implement Aggressive Marketing Tactics

Once you establish the fair market value of your home, you can work with your Realtor to market the property. They will do their best to navigate the sales process quickly and attract the widest pool of buyers possible. 

Good marketing starts with the property listing. Your agent will take professional photos and even videos of your house to share with buyers. They will write a detailed online listing that highlights all of the best features of the home. Once this is shared on the multiple listing service (MLS) buyers can explore your property and request showing appointments. 

Your Realtor should use a mixture of in-person and digital marketing tactics to reach as many people as possible. They can hold open houses for local buyers to view the property and share the MLS posting across various social media channels. If you have a unique house, the agent might even work with local news outlets to promote it. 

Your agent needs to generate interest in the house to get people to look at it. The more people who see your house, the higher the chances that someone will make an offer on it.

Expand Your Pool of Potential Buyers

If you are worried that the selling process will be slower than you want, talk to your agent about expanding your buyer pool. There are multiple types of buyers beyond individual home owners and opting for a non-traditional sale might be the best route. Here are a few options: 

• Real estate investors: these are individuals and firms who buy properties and then rent them out. Investors usually make cash offers, which means your house will sell faster. 
• Cash buyers: these companies purchase distressed homes that need to be sold in a hurry. You can close with most cash buyer companies within a week. Some of these buyers even skip the home inspection process. 
• Wholesalers: these real estate professionals seek out buyers and take a commission on the sale. They work like middlemen to connect homeowners with buyers. 

Depending on your agreement with your Realtor, you might not be able to work with a wholesale expert or even a cash-buying company. Your agent deserves their commission and won’t get it through these channels. If you want to work with a cash buyer, you will need to fire your Realtor. 

Cash buyers are known for making offers well below the market value of the home and charging hefty fees. While you are guaranteed a fast sale, you won’t get as much money for your property as if you hired a Realtor for a traditional sale of your home. Know the pros and cons of working with these companies before you move forward with a deal.

Streamline the Viewing Process

You have total control over when buyers can look at your property. Talk to your Realtor and go over windows when buyers can tour your home. Identify any particular times when you need to be home or buyers cannot look at your property. 

The more available you are, the more people will be able to see your house. If someone tries to schedule a showing and you won’t let them see the house until the weekend, you are pushing back offers by several days. Try to make your house available on most days and at reasonable times. 

If you receive offers on your house, respond to them promptly. Buyers don’t have several days to wait for your response. While you might be tempted to wait for a higher offer from another bidder, there is no guarantee that it is coming. Most agents expect a response within 24 hours of submitting an offer. If you want to sell your house quickly, you might not want to wait for other offers to come in. 

Be Ready to Negotiate the Final Sale Price

Communication is an important part of any house sale. Your buyer will make an offer and you will need to accept, reject, or counter it. A counteroffer is usually an opening for a negotiation. It invites the buyer to counter with another offer or accept the one you made. 

However, the negotiations don’t stop once both parties have reached an agreement on the sale price. The buyer will then schedule a home inspection and could submit a new offer based on the results. For example, if the roof needs to be replaced – a major repair that is also expensive – and the buyer didn’t know it, they might submit an offer that is lower to account for that issue. As the seller, you can decide whether you will accept that offer or try to sell the house as is at the current price. 

Both parties can also negotiate closing costs, closing timelines, and other elements of the sale. Your buyer might even ask to include certain parts of your home in the sale, like a hot tub in the backyard or your boat if you live on the water. 

Your Realtor can help with all of these negotiations to make sure both parties are fair and reasonable.

Leverage Professional Networks

Your Realtor will do the best they can to streamline the home-buying process. They will make sure the buyers have access to reliable inspectors and appraisers to move through these steps quickly. They can also recommend contractors for home repairs, professional stagers, and even real estate attorneys to handle any legal work. It takes a team of people to sell most houses, even if the buyer wants to list theirs as-is and move out quickly. 

As you interview real estate agents, ask them about their professional network. A quick call to a trusted partner can help you overcome speedbumps in the home sale so you can close faster.

Understand the Legal and Financial Implications

Once you have a buyer in place and the negotiations are over, you can move forward with the closing process. The buyer will gather the money to buy the house, either through mortgage financing or securing enough cash, while you prepare to move out. Both parties need to be ready to exchange ownership of the house by the closing day, which can take anywhere from a few days to a few months. 

It’s hard to sell a house in five days because the buyer has to complete so many steps to purchase the property. While your part is time-consuming (you need to prepare the house for sale and move it), your buyer also has work to do. A fast home sale will happen in about a month, but even that is pushing the timeline. 

While you might be tempted to list your house as For Sale By Owner (FSBO) to sell it fast, the traditional sale route is still the best option to close in a hurry. Your Realtor will do their best to attract buyers and can help you get the best price for your property. They can also quickly draft the paperwork to make sure the home sale is legal and ethical, while still getting you the money you need from the sale.   

Sell Your Home Quickly for Its Fair Market Value

Speed isn’t the only factor to consider in the sale. While you want to sell your house in a hurry, you also need a final sale price that you are happy with. You can increase the desirability of your home by making improvements to it, but that also takes time, money, and hard work.

The house sale process is a give-and-take between investing in your property to attract more buyers and working to move on your desired timeline. 

If you want to strike a balance between a speedy home sale and a good price, work with FastExpert. Many agents specialize in quick sales and can help you find qualified buyers. They use unique marketing strategies to sell houses quickly. Explore FastExpert today and move on your time.