Moving Home Is An Opportunity For Entrepreneurship: Here’s How

The costs associated with selling a house can often be excruciatingly high, especially for younger people. There are legal fees, estate agent fees, removal fees: it can all add up very quickly. Most people try to make money out of their homes by pricing them just right: not too high to scare off buyers, but not too little to screw themselves over.

But it turns out that there is much more to selling a house than choosing the perfect price. In fact, there are lots of ways you can make money during the move and reduce your expenses. Here’s how.

Sell Stuff You Don’t Want Online Or In-Store

When moving house, there’s often a truck load of stuff you don’t want to bring with you. Instead of throwing it all into a skip and dumping it in landfill, why not try selling some of it online or in a consignment store? According to Sharon McRill, an entrepreneur from Michigan, sellers can make a lot of money by sending items to consignment shops. Her advice is to find a shop with an excellent reputation and then send them pictures of your items to make sure that they will sell them. There’s no point, she says, going to the effort of taking your unwanted items across town, only to have them rejected by the cashier.

Sometimes, consignment shops can be fussy about the items they carry. On the other hand, people on the internet are often able to find uses for your items, no matter what their condition. Start posting pictures of items you want to sell on eBay and Amazon and gauge online interest. Often, you’re able to make a lot of money by selling products people really want at discount prices. The best selling items on eBay are electronics items, collectibles, and clothes. Just make sure that you start the process well in advance if you decide to use one of these platforms. Currently, eBay and Amazon both require sellers to build up their reputations over a number of weeks before allowing them to sell unlimited quantities of goods online.

Reduce Your Capital Gains Tax

Capital gains tax is a tax that applies to any gains you make on investments. For instance, if you invest in something and then sell it on for more than you paid for it, the IRS will take a slice from you. But when it comes to housing, the rules are different. You can sell a house for significantly more than you bought it for and still not pay a penny in capital gains tax.

What’s the cutoff? If you sell your house for $250,000 more than you bought it for if you’re single, or $500,000 more if you’re a couple, then you’ll have to pay tax on any capital gains. But if you’re below that threshold, you don’t have to pay any tax at all. To avoid paying tax unnecessarily, experts recommend that people sell their homes before the value rises in excess of their allowance, hitting them with a massive tax bill. A better strategy is to hop between houses to make maximum returns on your investment.

Bypass Estate Agents

Estate agent fees are sometimes high, and often they don’t get you the price that you want for your home anyway. Often, a better idea is to simply sell your home for cash and then get a third party to go through all the effort of selling it on and doing all the paperwork. Some homeowners, especially those who own dilapidated properties, are likely to benefit enormously from this type of selling arrangement. 

Homeowners who live in order style homes also stand to benefit. Houses built after the war often don’t sell very well compared to newer builds. Older styles just aren’t the fashion anymore, and so sellers can often end up waiting many months before a buyer comes along. The alternative is to redo the exterior of the house, which might not always be cost-effective.

Negotiate Down Your Estate Agent’s Commission

Estate agencies get paid commission for every home they sell. And guess who pays their fee? You, the seller. As a result, if you do decide to go through an estate agent, it’s essential that you do everything you can to drive down their commission.

Although reducing the estate agent’s commission doesn’t directly make you money, it helps you avoid spending it unnecessarily. Many agents charge more than 7 percent (which is a lot of money when you compare it to the value of the house), but everything is negotiable. Just tell your agent that their fees aren’t acceptable and that you’ll only work with them if they cut them down to 5% and see what they say. If they refuse, then you can always go to another agency for a better deal.

Hire A Top Sales Executive

Most people wanting to save money on moving house avoid agents altogether. But if you can find a good one, they can sometimes pay for themselves. According to real estate agent John McLaughlin, people can make more money than they think through estate agents with aggressive online marketing plans. Online marketing, he says, is essential to getting you home in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

Top agents should be able to drum up enough interest in your property that buyers start getting competitive and bidding up the price. If an agent can portray your house as desirable enough, you might be lucky enough to spark a bidding war, paying for the cost of the agent and netting you more money in the process.

The bottom line is that selling a house doesn’t have to be as expensive as you imagine. With the right strategy, you can reduce your costs dramatically.