Are you trying to sell a house in Detroit that was lived in by a hoarder? You’re undertaking a very big task that is going to require a lot of planning and strategic decisions. Selling a house on the open market is already a very time-consuming and costly process, but adding everything that comes with selling a hoarder’s house and you’ve upped the difficulty immensely. This isn’t going to be the kind of home sale that happens fast following a quick clean-up and some professional photography. In fact, market buyers are going to be a tough sell on a house that was lived in by hoarders. A smart alternative is to sell a hoarder’s house as-is for cash to a real estate investor like Tower Home Buyers. However, if you are adamant about selling on the market, here are some tips to prep a hoarder’s house for sale in Detroit.
How A Hoarder House Should Be Prepared
Tip 1 – Understand Why Someone Becomes a Hoarder
Before you try to sell a hoarder’s house in Detroit, you should take a moment to understand what it is you’re dealing with. Pop culture and recent TV shows have shed a light on the hoarding phenomenon but that doesn’t make it easy to understand. Hoarding is what happens when a person has a persistent difficulty getting rid of any possessions regardless of their actual value. Hoarding is actually a psychological problem that can have emotional, physical, and societal impacts on the person who lives in the house and those around them. A hoarder’s lifestyle affects friends, families, neighbors, and landlords.
You know you’re dealing with a hoarder if they find themselves being unable to throw away their possessions, get anxiety whenever they consider getting rid of items, have difficulty categorizing or sorting items, get embarrassed over the number of their possessions, have a suspicion of other people touching their possessions, and get obsessive thoughts about the items they own or want to own. What they hoard can run the gamut from newspapers and magazines to cardboard boxes to food to clothing and even pets.
Tip 2 – Remove the Hoarder From the House
If you’re trying to sell a hoarder’s house, you’re going to want to remove them from the premises in some fashion. If they have moved on or passed away, this isn’t an issue. But if they still live in the house and they are putting their health and life in danger, someone needs to step in and help them, part of which is removing them from the property. You may be able to work with them to leave the house, or you may need to involve health professionals. If they’re not being compliant you might even have to involve law enforcement officials. Speak with an expert beforehand in order to assess the right way to remove a hoarder from your Detroit house so you can sell it.
Tip 3 – Be Clear About The Home’s Ownership
When selling a hoarder’s house where the person lived there for a long time, it’s not uncommon for there to be confusion over who actually owns it. It’s also possible that the hoarder is just a tenant, is living in a house left to them by a relative, or living in a house put into a trust so they couldn’t sell it. In some of these instances, you can’t sell the house or even fix it up without someone else’s permission. So you’re going to want to figure out the right documents in order to determine who the rightful owner of the house is. You don’t want to start the process of selling your hoarder’s house in Detroit and then find out you’re not the legal owner.
Tip 4 – Get the House Cleaned By Professionals
Perhaps the most important tip we can give you when selling a harder’s house in Detroit on the open market is to hire cleaning professionals who know how to handle this specific situation. Every house is going to need some cleaning and repairs before you sell it on the housing market, but a house lived in by a hoarder is another thing altogether. You can’t just clean a hoarder’s house in a day and it’s good as new. This is a job that requires expertise.
Of course, you could avoid all of this by selling the house as-is to a cash buyer like Tower Home Buyers. We won’t ask you to clean anything, no matter how messy.
You’re certainly going to have to pay a lot of money for a hoarder cleaning service but if you expect Detroit market buyers to purchase the house, it’s required. Your house needs to be livable and no one wants to feel like there’s still an effect from all the hoarding that happened here. Also, once you clean the house, be sure to remove any fixtures and materials that are contaminated. That includes carpets, furniture, wallpaper, and anything else that can retain smells and stains.
Tip 5 – Assess & Fix the Damage
When you want to sell a hoarder’s house in Detroit, cleaning up is the biggest issue you’ll face but there’s a step after that which is also very important. Chances are, this house has been neglected for a long time. Once the house has been cleaned, it’s time to determine what other issues are present and where you need to make repairs.
Again, you’re going to want professionals to come in and make assessments based on their areas of expertise. That means the electrical systems, foundation, plumbing, and landscape. Aside from that, you’ll want to do an assessment of the house’s appliances, fixtures, and essentials. What can be replaced? What needs to be replaced? The point is to identify all the potential areas where a market buyer may find a reason to walk away.
Tip 6 – Consider Selling As-Is to a Cash Buyer
As you can see, selling a hoarder’s house on the open market in Detroit is going to be a lot of hard work and likely very expensive. This list of tips will help but provide no guarantee that you’ll be able to convince market buyers to purchase your hoarder’s house, especially with so many options available to them in your neighborhood. And besides all the cleaning and repair costs, you also have to consider real estate commissions, seller concessions, and closing costs.
What you may want to consider instead is selling the hoarder’s house as-is to a cash buyer like Tower Home Buyers. We won’t make you clean anything. We don’t need you to repair anything. We don’t even need you to remove any of the items inside. We will buy the house from you in its current condition and we will give you cash. Don’t waste another day worrying about a hoarder’s house or trying to clean it. We’ll buy your hoarder’s house in Detroit for cash fast.
Contact Tower Home Buyers today and we’ll reach out to you ASAP to discuss the house and begin the process. We’ll make you a free, fair offer on your hoarder’s house in Detroit, though you’re under no obligation to accept it. But if you do, we can close in a matter of days and you get to walk away with cash in your pocket. There’s nothing to lose by requesting an offer today!