Sell My House Fast in Riverside
Need to sell your house fast in Riverside?
Competitive cash offers: There’s no need to sort through dozens of We Buy Houses Riverside websites. Our team of experts understands the local market, and we work with one of the largest cash buyer networks in the nation to ensure you get the best offer possible through HomeLight’s Simple Sale Riverside platform.
No repairs or roadblocks: We specialize in helping Riverside sellers move quickly, even if a house needs repairs or you’re going through a difficult situation such as divorce, death in the family, or financial troubles.
Simple and fast: Get the cash you need to move on to your next chapter without the stress of showings, negotiations, or waiting months to close.
How it worksExploring your options is free and easy
Step 1 Tell us about your home
Step 2 We find you the best offer
Step 3 You accept and decide when to move
Sell My House Fast in Riverside
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I Need to Sell My House Fast in Riverside: What Are My Options?
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- 12 min read
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Stacy Sare Cohen, Contributing AuthorClose
Stacy Sare Cohen Contributing AuthorStacy Sare Cohen is a seasoned content writer with a passion for real estate, home design, decor, and home improvement. She holds a B.A. in English from UCLA and has been published in Apartment Therapy, Angi, HomeAdvisor, and elsewhere. When Stacy’s not creating content, she’s dreaming up new project ideas for her newly remodeled condo.
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Kelsey Morrison, Former HomeLight EditorClose
Kelsey Morrison Former HomeLight EditorKelsey Morrison worked as an editor for HomeLight's Resource Centers. She has seven years of editorial experience in the real estate and lifestyle spaces. She previously worked as a commerce editor for World of Good Brands (eHow.com and Cuteness.com) and as an associate editor for Livabl.com. Kelsey holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, and lives in a small mountain town in Southern California.
If you need to sell your house fast in Riverside, whether you’ve inherited a house, you’re relocating for work, need to cash out your home’s equity fast, or are looking to put a divorce behind you, the two best strategies are: 1) seek out a cash offer, or 2) work with a top real estate agent. In this guide, we will review the pros and cons of each approach to help you decide which makes the most sense for your home sale.
Sell Your Riverside House Fast With an All-Cash Offer
Get an all-cash, no-obligation offer through HomeLight’s Simple Sale platform whenever you’re ready. Receive your offer in 24 hours and close in as little as 10 days. No showings, no repairs, no open houses. Available to sellers in Riverside and throughout the Inland Empire.
Option 1: Sell your Riverside house fast for cash
Selling a house to a cash buyer allows you to cut through the traditional real estate process, such as inspections and repairs, home prep and staging, and can significantly accelerate your home sale.
HomeLight’s Simple Sale platform connects you to the largest network of cash buyers in the U.S. We use the information you provide about your home plus local neighborhood data to get you a convenient no-obligation cash offer in 24 hours. If you accept the offer, you can close in as few as 10 days.
Here are the three easy steps in the Simple Sale process:
HomeLight was founded in 2012 and is accredited by the Better Business Bureau with an A+ rating. The company has earned 4.8 stars on Google based on nearly 300 user reviews.
Who else will buy your Riverside house for cash?
You can also find other cash buyers, such as house flippers, iBuyers, and investors, who will buy a house for cash. Here are examples of these businesses, the types of homes they look to purchase, and their processes.
- House flippers: House flippers buy homes with good bones in dire need of repair to remodel and resell as turnkey for maximum profit. Flippers typically make offers well below market value to account for the cost of needed repairs.
- iBuyers: iBuyers use a proprietary algorithm that compares many data sets, including price history, lot acreage, a home’s square footage, tax valuation history, and other data points to determine the home’s automated valuation model (AVM). While historically offering more than flippers, iBuyers typically charge sellers a fee between 5% to 6%.
- Buy-and-hold investors: Buy-and-hold investors buy houses as a long-term investment, often converting properties into rental units to build equity.
- Franchising/homebuying companies: These investors will buy your house “as-is” for cash, and renovate and sell them as turnkey homes for a significant profit. Like flippers, these investors offer sellers below market value.
Cash buyers in Riverside
The following house-buying companies operate in Riverside County. Read on to learn about the types of homes they purchase, their timelines, and customer ratings.
SoCal Home Buyers: This company buys single-family fixer-uppers and turnkey multi-family homes in Riverside County and throughout Southern California. Sellers will receive a cash offer within 24 hours and can close in as few as seven days. SoCal Home Buyers will even pay the seller’s closing costs. The company has been around since 2008, holds an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and touts 4.8 stars from 32 Google reviews.
Sell Quick California, LLC: Founded in 2018, this company purchases homes in various conditions and doesn’t require sellers to make repairs or clean properties. Their cash offer calculations are thorough and fair and each one is done by a person, not a computer. The business holds an A+ BBB rating and a 5-star rating from 26 Google reviews.
Premier Property Buyers: This homebuying company purchases houses in various conditions and situations throughout Southern California, including Riverside County. Closings can take place in as few as seven days, or whenever works best for the seller. Premium Property Buyers holds an A+ BBB rating and has a 5-star rating from 23 Google reviews.
Southern California Cash Home Buyers: This local company buys Riverside houses in any condition. The business website promises sellers an offer in seven minutes if the house meets their criteria. According to the company, sellers don’t pay any commissions or fees, and there’s no need to clean or make repairs. Southern California Cash Home Buyers is not currently accredited by the Better Business Bureau, however, it boasts a 5-star rating based on 10 Google reviews.
Pros and cons of selling your Riverside house for cash
The experience of selling a home for cash can vary from company to company. However, these are the typical pros and cons.
Pros
- Fast closing: A cash sale is significantly faster than a traditional mortgage-backed home purchase, often allowing you to close in as few as three to 10 days.
- No repairs needed: You can sell your home as-is, in most cases, with no repairs or renovations.
- No fees or commissions: Many cash buyers will cover closing costs and fees.
- No showings or open houses: You won’t have to stage the home for listing photos or prepare the property for showings or open houses.
- No obligation until you commit: After you receive a no-obligation offer, you can compare it to other offers. You can even consult a Realtor® for comparisons.
- Step away from a problem: With a fast cash sale, you can often avoid dealing with problem tenants or potential foreclosure.
- No contingencies: Cash buyers can waive contingencies that can make negotiations difficult, namely the financing contingency and appraisal contingency.
- No negotiating: You won’t have to deal with multiple buyers or the pressure of back-and-forth negotiating on price, credits, or repairs.
- Move on with life: If you inherited a home, are facing a divorce, dealing with a death, or having financial challenges, a cash sale can help you move on from the home and possibly resolve some issues faster.
Cons
- Lower sale price: Cash sales typically result in a lower selling price than a traditional sale with the help of a qualified real estate agent.
- Repair costs may be deducted: If the home does need major repairs, the cost of those may be deducted from the offer, depending on the cash buyer.
- May be harder to find a buyer: Depending on the condition or location of your home, you may have limited cash buyer options, especially if you have a unique property that will be harder for investors to flip.
- You’ll need to vet companies: It’s important to research “we buy houses for cash” companies to make sure they are legitimate and reputable.
- Transparency may be limited: Some cash buyers won’t share their home evaluation process or how they calculated their offer, which is sometimes reduced last minute.
- Hidden fees: As you vet cash buyers, watch for hidden or unexpected fees. Read your purchase contract carefully before signing.
Option 2: Work with a top agent to sell fast in Riverside
Do you have more time to devote to a traditional sale than a cash offer affords but still want to sell your house faster than average? Then consider working with a top real estate agent to help you maximize the return on your investment — whether you need to sell an inherited estate, convert your equity to cash, or split your home’s proceeds, so you can start fresh after a divorce.
With access to Southern California beaches, mountains, and desert, in-migration of company relocations, more space for the money compared to Los Angeles and Orange County, and some of the best high school sports programs in the nation, the Riverside area is a great market to sell your house fast through a traditional agent-assisted sale. When choosing this route for your home sale, make sure to recruit a top agent with local expertise to achieve the best results.
HomeLight data indicates that the top 5% of real estate agents in the country not only sell houses quicker than average but also sell homes for 4.8% more than average agents. These top performers can also sell homes 10%-50% faster than the average agent.
Riverside County agents Casey and Rachel Fieldhouse, part of the top-performing Brandon Hobbs Team, agree that “working with the top local agent allows [sellers] to meet their goals whether that’s a quick sell, or whether that’s getting top dollar.”
“Those things all require a strategy, and [a] top agent helps you develop that strategy,” says Casey. “This is one of those areas where you’re gonna get that return on your investment; we’re going to help develop a strategy for you that’s gonna end up netting you more money in the long run than if you try to shortchange yourself on the front end by saving money.”
How fast are homes selling in Riverside?
A top local Riverside agent can help an owner in many ways, such as formulating a pricing strategy, negotiating, marketing a home correctly, prioritizing upgrades and repairs, and presenting a house that appeals to a larger buyer pool, so it can sell faster than average. Working with a top real estate agent can fill you in on your local market conditions affecting how fast or slow your house will sell in your neighborhood.
One of the local market conditions Riverside is experiencing is a large in-migration from other states due to company relocations. “We’re getting a lot of families and business professionals whose companies are being relocated to Los Angeles or Orange County because the price point in Orange County and LA is so much higher, and we’re still a very easy commute in and out of those counties,” Rachel says.
Riverside real estate data points and trends
Here is a snapshot of current real estate and economic conditions in Riverside as of December 2023:
| Days on market (average time from list to contract) | 32 days* |
| Days to close conventional home loan | 47 days |
| Median home sale price | $607,500 |
| Supply of inventory | 3.3 months |
| Number of closed home sales year over year | -2.4% |
*Does not include time for buyer to close the loan
Data source(s): CAR, Ice Mortgage Technology
10 strategies to sell a house fast in Riverside
While “having a pool is golden” to sell a home fast, according to Rachel, sellers without a pool can implement other successful strategies to attract buyers and help sell a home more quickly.
1. Set your price competitively
In any market, pricing your home right is key to generating interest in a property and bringing in competitive offers. It’s even more important when you’re trying to sell quickly but want to balance proceeds with speed.
An experienced top agent will perform a comparative market analysis (CMA) to help you set the best price to sell a house fast in the Riverside market.
If you’re curious about your home’s current value, try HomeLight’s Home Value Estimator. While it shouldn’t dictate your final pricing strategy, an online home value estimate can give you a ballpark price range. You can get a preliminary estimate in less than two minutes.
2. Refresh your home’s curb appeal
Landscaping your home’s exterior with colorful, sun-friendly plants can increase a home’s sale value by up to 12%. This is an affordable way to spruce up your home’s exterior curb appeal to help make a good first impression with buyers. Top agents agree that buyers will judge a book by its cover — the outside of the home is a reflection of what the inside is going to look like.
3. Showcase your outdoor area
Riverside home shoppers love usable outdoor space. Extending your living space outdoors can be extremely appealing to buyers. Consider how you might transform your outdoor area into an attractive oasis. This might include adding a full furniture set, a cozy fire pit, and a television to watch the Dodgers game.
4. Increase your ROI with faux wood flooring
When it comes to upgrades that increase your investment, Casey recommends installing faux wood flooring. “One of the biggest return on investment upgrades that you could make is hardwood-look flooring, so like luxury vinyl plank or wood-look tile,” he says. New faux wood flooring not only looks beautiful in a home, but it also stands up to wear and tear.
5. Attract young professionals with light and bright materials
When choosing materials, it’s essential to consider the area’s buyer demographic, which according to both Casey and Rachel, includes many young professionals.
“I think younger home buyers tend to gravitate towards light and bright,” says Rachel. “So white oak wood, white cabinetry, things that are light and airy like that farmhouse look from Magnolia Farms is heavily influential for that age bracket,” she says.
Whether you decide to sell your house to a cash investor or work with a top agent, you’ll find that either option will help accelerate your home sale.
6. Make your home stand out
Similar to improving curb appeal and enhancing your outdoor space, it’s important to make your home seem “special” inside before you list it. Add fresh interior paint where needed, update outdated trends in the home, and do a deep clean to make sure the home is in top condition.
7. Wow buyers with expert staging and photography
Professional photos and expert staging can generate buyer interest. Casey talks about the positive impact staging and professional photos have on prospective homebuyers.
“When a home elicits desire among buyers, it can help a home sell more quickly, and staging goes a long way to driving interest in the property,” says Casey. “I know a lot of sellers are hesitant to spend money upfront to do things like staging and good photography, but those things make all the difference when marketing your product.”
According to a survey conducted by the National Association of Realtors, 41% of recent homebuyers say their first step in the home-buying process was browsing for-sale homes online. That means buyers’ first impressions of your home will likely be based on the photos and videos you include in your listing.
8. Advertise your neighborhood’s walkability
Walkability is important for many Riverside buyers. This makes it important for sellers to highlight parks, coffee shops, and local restaurants in the neighborhood.
9. Promote additional space for lodging
If your property has an auxiliary dwelling unit (ADU), such as a mother-in-law cottage, emphasize this in your listing. If you are selling a home with ample land or square footage, leverage this.
10. Take advantage of market timing
Along with the recommendations above, it can be helpful to know the level of market activity in your area during different times of the year. HomeLight’s Best Time to Sell Calculator uses housing market data for your area to show you the best and worst months to sell your home. See when is the best time to sell a house if you want to make the most money and which months are best to sell your house fast.
Looking to Sell Fast? A Top Agent Can Help
If you’re looking to sell fast, a top agent has the expertise in pricing, marketing, home prep, and negotiation to help make that happen, while helping clients earn more from their home sales than average agents.
Ready to sell your Riverside home?
As you can see, a top real estate agent in Riverside can help you navigate the many nuances that you might not otherwise discover until you’re swamped in the process. Their organization efficiencies and marketing expertise can help you sell your Riverside house fast.
If you need an even faster sale, HomeLight’s Simple Sale platform provides cash offers for homes in almost any condition in Riverside. If you don’t have the time or the means to prepare your home or move through the traditional listing process, you can skip the repairs and showings and close in as few as 10 days. Complete a short questionnaire and receive a no-obligation cash offer within 24 hours.
Header Image Source: (Nate Johnston / Unsplash)
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