It’s an uneasy feeling when you suspect your home has a foundation problem. Of course, Murphy’s law would have it that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” and you would discover this suspicious foundation issue while getting your house ready to sell.
Questions start flooding in like “can I sell a house with foundation issues?”, “Should I fix the problem before I list?” How much is this going to cost? Which are all excellent questions to ask, especially when you’re trying to sell your house fast in Tennessee.
To help you find some answers, we’ll cover all you need to know about selling a house with foundation problems, how to tell if your house has foundation issues and if you should fix the cracks or sell as-is instead.
How To Tell If Your House Has Foundation Problems?
Before you get too nervous, you’ll want to confirm you do have a foundation problem. The first thing you can do is check for visible signs that would warrant further investigation. In general, you won’t be able to diagnose a structural or foundation problem on your own officially, but you can look for these signs:
- Cracks around the house
- Crumbling foundation
- Bowed walls
- Separated siding
- Long cracks in the paint throughout the property
- Cracked tiles or flooring
- Wetness or mildew smell
- Uneven floor
If you notice any of these issues, call a professional from a foundation repair company to access your home and give you answers.
A good way to find a reputable company is by looking at reviews online for local foundation repair businesses in your area. You should also see if they have someone on staff with structural engineering experience.
If you were to hire a home inspector, they would give you a general idea of all the repairs that need to be made, but their expertise is not in foundation repair or structural engineering. So to save you the expense, hiring a foundation expert would be beneficial in this particular situation.
On average, foundation inspections take about two hours to complete, and since the work isn’t a DIY job, you should get at least three opinions from foundation experts. You’ll want to find out if the issue is similar across the board and if there is a price difference to fix the problem. You can also use this information when selling a house with foundation issues. The buyer may want to know what precisely is wrong and how much it would cost to fix the problem.
Be Open About Your House Foundations Issues
Once the inspections are complete, you will need to decide what to do next. Your options would be to either sell a house with foundation issues or fix the foundation problem and then sell. Whatever you choose to do, you will need to be open about your foundation issues with prospective buyers.
When selling a house in Tennessee, you are required to provide the buyer with a hard copy, a signed disclosure statement before signing the purchase contract. Tennessee real estate law requires sellers to disclose any material defects about the land or buildings. So trying to hide the foundation issue could result in legal action down the road.
Nowadays, buyers using bank financing require a home inspection to be completed before approving the loan. It’s a way for the bank to confirm their investment (loan) is secure and worth the loan amount. The assessment will alert buyers of the issue, and a solution will have to be negotiated before selling.
Ultimately, this means hiding the foundation problem wouldn’t be a good idea. It would be better to be transparent about the foundation issue instead of getting into legal trouble or losing out on the sale of your home.
That being said, when buyers hear foundation problems, they usually run. That’s not to say that you won’t be able to sell your house. Some buyers out there wouldn’t mind taking on a project like this, but your pool of potential buyers is pretty small.
How To Sell a House With Foundation Issues
There are a few ways you can handle selling a house with a foundation problem in Tennessee. You can pay for the foundation issue to be fixed or reduce your asking price for the buyer to make the repairs themselves.
You will also need to figure out what selling strategy you would like to use to sell a house with foundation issues. Typically people will either sell with a realtor, by the owner, to an iBuyer, or to a home buyer. Each selling strategy has its pros and cons and involves either commissions, service fees, and closing costs. This is something to remember if you’re trying to figure out how much you stand to make from the sale of your house.
Selling with a Realtor
Selling with an agent isn’t a bad idea if you would like a hands-off approach to selling your house. They would handle the majority of the process and negotiate on your behalf. If you hire a real estate agent, you will have to sign a listing agreement that gives them 3-6 months to sell your house, and you would agree to pay a commission of 5-6% split 50/50 with the buyer’s agent.
Selling For Sale By Owner
Selling by owner would be a more hands-on approach to selling a house with foundation problems. You would be in charge of listing your property, coming up with a marketing plan and executing it, showing the home to potential buyers, answering questions and taking phone calls, writing a compelling listing description, negotiating, paperwork, hiring a photographer, and more. Needless to say, it’s a lot of work to sell by the owner.
And, although you would be doing all the work to sell your home, if the buyer uses an agent to purchase your home, you’ll still be on the hook for their agent’s commission. So though you would save 2.5-3% selling by owner, the buyer’s agent would need to be paid a 2.5-3% commission. When people realize they will be doing all of the work and still have to pay something towards commissions, they look for other selling options.
→ Click here to find out how to sell a house during COVID-19.
Selling to an iBuyer
Selling to an iBuyer has become more popular; you can easily ask for an offer online, and a company will purchase your home to resell it. This approach does look at the home-buying process as a business transaction, and offers are usually non-negotiable. Although the convenience is nice and you may have to make repairs or be deducted the cost for repairs in their bid. The other caveat is that they charge service fees and make you pay closing costs. The true cost of selling to an iBuyer maybe even more than selling with a realtor. Since you’re selling a house with foundation problems, you’ll want to try to save as much as you can, so selling to an iBuyer may not be the best option.
Sell to a Local Home Buyer
Selling to a home buyer may be the best option for you in this particular situation. They mix the best of both worlds, selling online but without realtor commissions, service fees, or closing costs. Furthermore, you would be able to sell as-is and not deal with the hassle of trying to sell a house with a foundation crack. You would be able to sell your home within days instead of months and get a cash offer within 24 hours. Sounds like an ideal solution for this selling situation.
Identify Repair Cost
Whether you decide to sell a house with a foundation crack or fix the foundation problem, identifying the repair costs is key. After you get three opinions and estimates, you may discover that the repair costs aren’t too bad and you can afford to do them before you sell. On the flip side, you may find out that the foundation issue was worse than you thought and will cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix.
In general, the national average cost for foundation repair is $4,488. Major repairs that require hydraulic piers can cost $10,000 or more, and minor cracks can cost as low as $500. The average homeowner pays between $1,985 and $6,990, according to HomeAdvisor.
This doesn’t usually include addressing water issues, drainage, or waterproofing.
Ultimately, it’s up to you how you would like to handle selling a house with a foundation issue. If you decide not to fix the foundation, it will be helpful to have three opinions/estimates to use during negotiations with the buyer. More than likely, selling a house with a foundation problem will include a price reduction. But by having three opinions, you will know more about the issue and how much of a price reduction you should make.
Pricing The House Right
Throughout this article, we’ve focused mainly on selling a house with a foundation issue in Tennessee, but what if that’s not the only issue going on with your home? What if there are other repairs in the house that need to be made besides the foundation?
If you know your house will need several repairs and prefer not to do them, then you’ll need to price the house right to sell. The best way to know the value of your home is to hire a home appraiser. They will give you an unbiased opinion of your home’s value and a better idea of how much to price the house for.
Remember that even if you price the house right, you will need to find a buyer willing to take on the foundation problem and any home repairs you elected not to do.
On average, homes in Memphis, Tennessee, took 52 days to sell. That doesn’t include escrow, which takes 30-60 days for the buyer to get loan approval, inspections completed, renegotiate the offer, and close. And more than likely, those numbers are for houses without foundation problems. All things to consider if you’re trying to sell your home fast in Tennessee.
Selling House To Home Buyers
Now that you know more about your foundation problem, how much it will cost, and the difficulty of selling a house with foundation issues, you should know there is another solution- selling your house directly to a local home buyer.
Here’s the thing, you can try selling your house on your own or with a real estate agent, but you will likely take a price reduction or have to pay for the foundation problem to be fixed. That doesn’t include the 5-6% in realtor commissions, other fees, and closing costs.
If you were to sell to a home buyer like Fair Cash Deal, they wouldn’t charge you agent commissions or fees; they would even pay closing costs. Better yet, they buy houses in as-is condition. So you can sell a house with foundation problems with no repairs necessary.
Fair Cash Deal also pays in cash, which means they aren’t subject to loan approval and contingencies. They would simply make you an offer for your house as-is within 24 hours of contacting them and be able to close as early as 7 days, or if you need more time, they can work with your schedule.
To summarize, if you were to sell a house with a foundation crack to Fair Cash Deal, you wouldn’t need to:
- Fix the foundation problem
- Do any home repairs
- Hire a realtor or sell by owner
- List your house
- Show your house to multiple buyers
- Wait for weeks for an offer to be made
- Pay realtor commission, fees, or closing costs
If you need to sell a house with foundation problems in Tennessee fast, your ideal buyer would be Fair Cash Deal. You would be able to avoid all the hassle and uncertainty of selling a house with foundation problems and be able to sell and move out on your schedule.
Final Thoughts:
When trying to sell a house with a cracked foundation in Tennessee, the thing to remember is you do have options. You’ll need to figure out what would be the best scenario for you. If repairs are within your budget, by all means getting the foundation repaired would be a good idea to attract buyers. If you’d prefer not to invest any more money into a house, you’re about to sell, that is understandable too. Just make sure whatever you decide to do lines up with your timeline to sell. Fixing the foundation cracks doesn’t guarantee a fast home sale, and you already understand trying to sell a house with foundation issues will be difficult.
No matter what, you can always sell your home as-is to Fair Cash Deal and get rid of this foundation problem for good.
To learn more about our company and our home-buying process, please visit our website for more information. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have or make you a cash offer for your home. Here at Fair Cash Deal, we like finding win-win solutions for homeowners dealing with unique selling situations in the Memphis area.
