Sarasota Homes For Sale

I have a neighbor who stopped over and asked me what he and his wife should do if they found themselves in a situation where they had to go live with another family member. It’s a long story, but he was basically asking me, “Leo, what should we do if we need to sell our home in a hurry?” I’ve lived in my personal home for quite a few years so my neighbors know me and they know I’m a real estate investor. That means I buy and sell homes for a living, keeping some of them as rental property and reselling some for a profit.

In reality, there are some things about how to sell a house that are the same as selling investment property, and there are some things that are completely different. For one thing, whenever we sell our home it means we have to move out. That is pretty obvious on one hand, but it is the most significant difference between selling my personal residence and selling a home I own as an investment. The investment properties are generally vacant so I don’t have to pack up my belongings and put them in storage or move them into a new residence. When I sell a single-family dwelling that I’ve purchased as an investment I simply show up at closing and the property changes ownership to the new homeowner. My responsibilities are over at that point when I sell a home.

But my neighbors have lived in their home for many, many years and they raised their family there. They own a lot of furniture and other personal belongings that will have to be stored or moved to a new location. That’s really their primary concern, I think. It’s why they asked me for advice. They don’t want to be stuck in a position where they have a buyer for their property but nowhere to move when closing day comes. People can always go stay in a motel for a while, but a moving van full of personal possessions has to go somewhere else!

Once I was faced with that situation when we had to sell our home and move quickly. It was challenging, so I’ve tried to avoid it ever since that experience. I told my neighbor that his best alternative is to get bids from specialty movers that come in, take photos, pack up all the household contents and keep elaborate records of every item in every room. These records are scanned and available on a spreadsheet for the homeowner, whenever he or she needs to extract some items in the future. Otherwise, they are all stored in a special storage facility that keeps things organized on numbered and labeled, wrapped pallets. I’ve been in one of these warehouses and they are incredibly organized. I told my neighbor he had better consider that type of arrangement so he’s prepared to move out and let his have access to their new home when the time comes.