If you are looking to sell a house in Ohio, read this guide, and figure out the best way to sell your home.
Whether you’re ready to move out, move away, or move forward with the cash value of your home equity in your pocket, you’ve come to the right place to get started.
Ohio real estate laws are governed by the state’s department of commerce. While they’re fairly consistent with most other states, it’s helpful to understand the legal obligations and choices available to you as a seller. Discover more about selling a house in Ohio and what to consider.
The first choice you’ll need to make is your home sale method. You don’t just have to work with a full-commission realtor. These days, you have more choices than ever on how to sell a house in Ohio, and each offers a different blend of time, presale work and cost, and profit potential.
Most home sellers choose a traditional listing with a real estate agent. Agents typically handle:
If you opt for a traditional listing, interview three to five agents and review their CMAs, marketing plan, and pricing proposals before committing to one listing agent.
“Fizz-bo” or “for sale by owner” is a property whose owner takes on the entirety of pricing, marketing, and showing their own home rather than engaging a real estate agent. On the plus side: FSBO means saving on the listing agent’s commission (typically 3% of the sale price).1
The downside is that you can lose time and money without a highly skilled agent. FSBO homes tend to stay on the market longer and sell for less.
You can straddle the line between a full-service agent and FSBO by working with a licensed brokerage with MLS membership for your home sale. Instead of paying an agent commission, you pay flat fees for specific services that you need from a menu of options to help list, market, and sell a house in Ohio.
Listing a home “as is” is more about condition than sales method, but there are legal aspects to be aware of. In some states, you can sell a home as is with zero disclosure and complete responsibility on the part of the home buyer for what they end up with.
Sellers who choose to list an Ohio home as is:
While it might feel like lost profit and opportunity, sellers who don’t have the resources, desire, or ability to either fix the home themselves or go through the time and work of a listing sale may find that a fair cash offer with a fast closing is their best option.
A flipping company is often local or regional and can be as small as a single individual. Some will take on properties with major damage and renovation needs, and some are looking for properties in need of cosmetic upgrades that they can purchase at low prices.
After fixing up your home, they’ll need to sell it at a high enough profit to come ahead after covering what they paid you, the time spent holding and financing it, the labor and repairs of work done, and the cost of reselling it.
Sale-leasebacks, a common commercial contract, are relatively new to residential real estate. They combine a sale of your property to an investor-landlord with the right to continued use of the property as a renter. For Ohio sellers, they provide the flexibility to continue living at home as a renter, without homeownership responsibilities, at a negotiated rate.
Plus, if you’re looking to buy another home, a sale-leaseback helps you leverage your unlocked equity to negotiate as a cash home buyer with no sale contingency.
If you prefer to work with a familiar real estate agent but are interested in the sale-leaseback option, some sale-leaseback companies can negotiate directly with your realtor.
Internet buyers, or iBuyers, are a more recent flavor of large-scale cash buyers, and you may want to reach out sooner than later to lock down an offer. Two of the four largest players closed their doors for good (Zillow iBuyer in 2021 and RedfinNow in 2022).3
There are still some iBuyers who operate in some Ohio cities and buy houses, and several smaller iBuyers can also be found. You can get an initial offer after answering a short set of questions, and schedule a video walk-through to arrive at a final offer within days.
Before you settle on a price point, it’s crucial to pull out the calculator and do some math. Ask realtors to provide two or three price options instead of one, with a rundown of how to get to each through home improvements, staging, etc.
Even if you’re already set on your selling process, it’s useful to gather as much information as possible. If you receive a few fair cash offers and proposals from at least two real estate agents, you should have a solid understanding of your Ohio house’s value range:
Don’t forget to factor in time as a cost. If you’re already moving out and your home is on the market for three months, that could mean three extra months’ worth of property tax, homeowner’s insurance, utilities, and cleaning services—plus the ongoing cost of interest if you’re waiting to pay off a mortgage loan with the sale proceeds.
The shortcut on this topic: aim for late spring if possible. Seasonality plays a role in both how long it takes to sell a home and what price you can get for your property.
In Ohio real estate, the best month to sell is June, and the worst is January. June sales average 27 days on market (DOM), which is the period from listing a home to signing a purchase offer contract, and sell at 9.2% higher median price than in January, when DOM averages 58.4
In terms of how long it will take to close on a sale, the good news is that Ohio sale periods are about 11% faster than the national timeframe.5 In 2022, the Ohio average was 74 days total (listing to close) and 35 days closing period (from offer to close).
Averages are the tips of the iceberg, though. There are a boatload of variables that go into predicting the timing of your sale, including:
If you’re groaning at the thought of the work, cost, and time of a traditional sale, we can help. Truehold's sale-leaseback allows you to jump straight to a simple closing at a competitive price—no staging, renovation, or showings needed. You can receive a no-obligation offer on your home in 48 hours and close in just 30 days. In fact, Truehold will take immediate responsibility for covered repairs, as well as homeowners insurance and property tax.
You’ll gain the flexibility to remain in your current home as a renter, while freeing up your home equity and paying off your current mortgage. Plus, you’ll be able to enter into negotiations for a new home purchase with no sale contingency or complicated schedule juggling. Check out options for a sale-leaseback in Cleveland to get the most out of selling your Ohio home.
Find out more today—our advisors can walk you through our process and answer questions so you can decide whether Truehold is the right solution for you.
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