3 Tips to Sell Your Home Before Downsizing with a Reverse Mortgage

If you’re thinking of using a reverse mortgage to downsize to a smaller home, you may be wondering how you can attract buyers. It’s a tough real estate market so you need to give yourself as many advantages as you can to find a committed buyer. Here are three tips to improve your chances of selling your home now.

1. Spruce up your home. Get out the paint, replace stained and worn carpets, and repair that old screen door that’s falling off the hinges. It’s a buyer’s market, so many house hunters are looking for deals on homes that are move-in ready. Take a walk through your home and around your property to make a note of anything that needs to be repaired. Then choose the tasks that you can do yourself or hire someone else to do them for little money. Money from a reverse mortgage loan can help pay for repairs.

2. Offer incentives to potential buyers. Those incentives could include helping to pay the buyer’s closing costs, offering a big-screen TV, or purchasing new kitchen appliances for the buyer as part of the deal. Be creative and find out what features and incentives are in demand in your area.

3. Upgrade your kitchen or bathroom. If you can afford it, use some of the money from the reverse mortgage loan to pay for the renovation. Many homebuyers want stainless steel appliances and sleek cabinetry and countertops. The less buyers feel they have to do to upgrade a home after purchasing it, the more appealing it becomes. But don’t go crazy with the upgrades, especially if homes have lost a lot of value in your area.

The Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM), the most popular reverse mortgage loan in the U.S., allows you to take equity out of your current home to to spend as you want, including buying another home. If you’re planning to downsize to another home, a reverse mortgage could help you do this. Get reverse mortgage quotes here.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Reverse Mortgage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.