I may be transferring with my job and may need to get rid of my house. It’s worth about $160K so that’s almost $10K in commissions to a realtor. I’d like to keep all of the equity so I want to sell it myself. The market where I live is pretty slow so I figured a good selling point may be to offer owner financing. What are the drawbacks to owner financing for the auctual owner of the property (me)?
If you are offering the owner financing there are a lot of drawbacks.
You have to make sure the contract (CFD, LC or L/O whatever) paperwork is right and legal for you and your buyer.
You have to do the marketing, and figuring out the best way to make it presentable and marketable.
You have to be prepared to be realistic about your houses actual value.
You have to take the phone calls, answer questions, show the house.
You have to figure out how you want to qualify the buyer.
You have to collect the money.
You have to record the appropriate documents as per your state requirements.
You have to pay any fees, specific to your type of transaction.
You have to deal with delinquent buyers.
You have to hear their reasons why they will be late
You have to inspect any changes they think they want to make to the property with your approval, as you hold the deed still.
You have to do the book keeping at least, keeping track of expenses.
You have to handle the foreclosure proceeding and file the paperwork, or at least have your lawyer get it going.
But, if you approach this like a business, put your emotions out of the picture, accept the responsibility, the rewards can be immense, more than enough to offset the drawbacks.