We Buy Houses in South Carolina
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We'll Buy "As-Is"
Don’t hire painters and repairmen just for us. We’ll handle all that after we buy the house.
We Close Quickly
How does 7 days sound? We can close quickly or wait if you need a little more time.
We Pay Cash
When we make you an offer, the offer is for an all cash payment that’s available right away.

Looking to sell your property in South Carolina? We’re looking to make you a fair cash offer. Selling a home can be a difficult, even under idea circumstances. For people in South Carolina who don’t strike gold with the right buyer right away, the process is stressful. If you’re looking for alternative sale options, HBUSA is likely the perfect fit for you.

The Many Reasons People Sell Their Houses

Some people sell their houses simply because they want something new. These people can afford to wait and leisurely browse for their new dream home. Other sellers don’t have the luxury of taking their time. If there’s a pressing reason you need to sell, there’s always a solution.

Death in Family? +

If a family member passed away and left you a property, that property may need to go through the proper channels in order to be sold. This sometimes means a probate process is necessary. Once the law recognizes that the home belong to you, the property can be sold.

Unlike some states, South Carolina is not a state where so called “psychologically affected” properties require disclosure outright. Information about a loved one dying in the house only needs to be provided if a potential buyer asks specifically.

Money Trouble? +

The first step to fixing money trouble is to acknowledge the problem. If it’s getting hard to pay your mortgage, contact the bank. Tell them you’re coming into significant hardship before you start missing payments.

They may be able to help you create a solution that will allow you to keep your house. If they can’t, they can help you arrange alternatives like a short sale to avoid the foreclosure process.

Changing Neighborhood? +

Everything changes with time. Your neighborhood might have been perfect when you moved in. Landscapes shift. This is common in South Carolina when people purchase properties are initially somewhat rural. A city builds up around the neighborhood and it no longer feels as quiet, cozy, and safe as it did the day you purchased your home.

The worst part about properties in changing neighborhoods is that they’re hard to sell, especially to families. Waiting for the right buyer might take a while if you decide to go the traditional route.

Late on Mortgage? +

If you’re behind on your payments, chances are that your lender has already begun to draw up the paperwork necessary for a foreclosure. Rather than digging the hole deeper and allowing your home to enter foreclosure, you may want to investigate fast sale methods.

Upcoming Job Transfer? +

No matter how much your company is paying you for relocation assistance, it won’t be able to cover the mortgage you’ve left behind. Unless your pay is doubled, you won’t be able to keep up with the financial obligations of the property you’re leaving behind and the property you’re moving into at the same time.

You need to sell before you call the movers. Unoccupied properties are expensive to keep up with, and you’ll need to secure a reasonable offer right away in order to simplify your life and make your new start stress-free.

House Needs Repairs? +

Leaky roofs, rusty plumbing, threadbare carpets, water damage, and foundation cracks are a lot to contend with. When the repair estimates skyrocket, moving into an apartment or condo where maintenance is provided seems easier and cheaper.

Problem is, it’s pretty hard to unload a house that needs a lot of repairs without actually fixing anything. Thankfully, investors don’t care if the property needs a lot of work.

Terrible Tenants? +

Eviction is complicated in South Carolina. Many landlords find that the best way to handle terrible tenants is to wait for the lease to run out and forego renewal. Eviction courts favor tenants in most scenarios. Tenants have the right to raise defenses against evictions in court.

If they’re served notices for violating the lease and remedy the violation within 14 days, they’re allowed to stay. A tenant also has a grace period of five days to pay late rent. If the tenants are legally evicted through the court system, you can proceed to sell your property. If not, you may have to hold on for a while.

House Fire? +

Most people believe that fire damage will be covered by their homeowner’s insurance policy. They’re shocked when they realize that fire is almost always its own separate policy. Since fire damage is overwhelmingly expensive to repair, many families affected by it feel stuck. You don’t have to cut your losses and scramble for money to rebuild your life. You can sell your fire damaged property for cash.

Dealing with Divorce? +

Houses can be sold during divorces in South Carolina as long as one spouse doesn’t prevent the other from selling. With no court order in place, the home can be sold and the profits can be placed into escrow.

These assets will be divided in accordance with the court’s orders as the divorce comes to a close. The easiest way to sell a house during a divorce is for both parties to claim they don’t want it.

In that case, the court will recommend and simplify a sale. Talk to the other party about the best way to move forward, and if you both agree that selling is the best option, selling the property might be easier than you think.

Military Transfer? +

Military transfers sometimes lead to exciting and sometimes stressful new adventures for people in the service. They’re moved to a new state or even country as a part of their work. If you’re being transferred very far away, you only have a short period of time to determine what you’ll do with the home you’re leaving behind. A quick sale is an ideal sale when your transfer date is drawing closer.

Urgent Relocation? +

There are a lot of reasons someone might have to relocate unexpectedly. Family emergencies often leave people with a limited window of time to settle their affairs and move forward. Since you’re already dealing with an urgent situation, it’s ideal to keep your life as simple as possible. The cash you receive from the quick sale of your home might give you the resources you need to help mend the emergency situation.

Facing Foreclosure? +

Time is of the essence when you’re facing foreclosure. The South Carolina uncontested foreclosure process usually takes about 150 days. At the end of that time, the foreclosure is considered final and will follow you wherever you go. Getting ahead of the foreclosure and selling your home before the process finalizes can save you seven years of irreparable credit score damage. Move as fast as possible to save your financial future.

Loss of Employment? +

If you’re facing the loss of your job, you need to jump right in front of the problem. When you’re running behind and your savings are getting low, the best thing to do is make proactive moves that will prevent compounding financial hardship. The first step is contacting your mortgage company and telling them what’s going on.

If they’re made aware of the situation, they might be willing to entertain more options than just foreclosure. Many lenders find that short sale is a compromise that both parties can live with.

Inherited House? +

Inheriting a house is usually only a blessing if you have someone who needs a house to live in. If everyone is happy with their current living situation, an empty inherited house can be an expensive burden.

If the property was subject to probate, it can be sold as soon as the process is finished. Oftentimes, inherited homes are in bad shape because the elderly person previously living in them couldn’t keep up with the maintenance. You can either repair the property or sell it in its current condition.

Run Down Property? +

Run down houses often feel like a lost cause. In truth, they are. They’ll need to be virtually rebuilt before anyone can safely live there. Most people aren’t open to the idea of buying a property that might need to be torn down. Investors love these kinds of properties, because they’re in the business of building and reshaping houses.

Code Violations? +

Some code violations cost a pretty penny to fix, and if you don’t have that kind of money laying around, things only get more expensive when the fines pile up. A lot of buyers will steer clear of properties with code violations because they don’t want to assume the tremendous financial responsibility that comes with remedying them. You need to find a buyer who happily purchases homes in “as-is” condition.

Liquidating Assets? +

Many complicated financial matters, especially those surrounding bankruptcy and divorce, require people to come up with some fast cash by liquidating their assets. These court processes are lengthy and confusing enough – why add a realtor to the mix? An investor can offer you the fastest cash for your property, allowing you to start solving problems much quicker.

Expired Listing? +

Listings don’t often expire in South Carolina. If yours expired, that means your real estate agent likely won’t be able to help you. This can be due to a variety of things. People might not be too fond of your neighborhood.

Maybe your property needs a lot of work and the average buyer doesn’t want to worry about fixing it up. You can’t change the market, but you can circumvent it by opting to sell your property in an alternative way.

The Housing Market in South Carolina

South Carolina’s housing market is stable, if not a little slow. Home values have seen an upward trend over the past few years, and they’ll continue to make very modest climbs in the foreseeable future. Chances for collapse are slim to none, and the growth rate will remain predictable.

South Carolina as a whole is affected by some unique circumstances. Home values, on average, are rather low. The real estate is very affordable, inspiring people to purchase homes in the state. Most homes will sell within 80 days of listing, which is faster than in many other parts of the country. The special factors affecting South Carolina suggest that some families cannot afford to wait that long to move.

Negative equity and mortgage delinquency are very high in South Carolina. A lot of homeowners can’t afford to keep their properties or find themselves in a situation where they are “upside down” or “underwater.” This is when a property is worth less than its equity – meaning monthly mortgage payments have essentially become overpayment where the amount currently paid and the value of the home at the present time don’t line up.

Greenville, South Carolina

How Should You Sell Your Home?

Selling With a Realtor

Most people choose to work with realtors because it seems to be the simplest solution. It’s also a lot more expensive than most people expect. Realtors often generate a list of things that need to be done to the home to get it ready to list. Sometimes it’s as simple as painting all the walls a neutral color. Other times, it’s as complicated as replacing the entire roof or planting a whole new lawn. Depending on what the realtor suggests, this process can be expensive and time consuming.

Your realtor will ask you to pack away most of your personal items so the house can be generically staged. The realtor will schedule showings and open houses until a potential buyer makes an offer. You may be subject to a negotiation process where the buyer talks the price down. Then, the buyer needs to get approval from their lender for their offer. If they get that approval, the closing process takes a few weeks. If they don’t, you have to find a new buyer.

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When all is said and done, your realtor and the buyer’s realtor need to get paid. In South Carolina, the average commission is 6% of the full sale price. The median sale price of homes in South Carolina is about $173,000, so most people can expect to skim a little more than $10,000 off the profits to pay their realtors.

This doesn’t include what they already spent to prepare the home or anything they’ve agreed to reimburse their realtor for. In the event that the realtor cannot help you find a suitable buyer, the listing will expire. You can choose to renew the listing, work with another realtor, or sell your home in a different way.

Despite how popular the option is, working with a realtor is usually not the easiest or most cost effective option for many sellers. It’s hardest for people who need to sell quickly and people who are selling less-than-perfect houses.

Selling By Yourself (FSBO)

Choosing a “By Owner” sale puts you in the driver’s seat. The biggest advantage that comes with selling your home yourself is that you don’t need to pay thousands of dollars in commission. Conflicting schedules are less likely to be an issue, because you aren’t depending on someone else to do the work for you. In the end, this independence becomes a double edged sword.

You’re saving money on commission, but you’re spending money to do everything else. You do get to choose how much (if any) you’re willing to spend changing or updating your house to make it more attractive to potential buyers. The staging and the showing is all up to you. You might have to take time off work to show people the property, or to list and advertise the house. It’s a lot to do, especially if you already have a full life.

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South Carolina has a very competitive real estate market, mostly because the average property value is so low. Many people who sell by themselves don’t have the time, money, or resources to compete with professional real estate agents.

This leads many people who sell on their own to resort to price cut after price cut in order to stand out. In the end, many people who sell by owner profit the same or less than those who work with a real estate agent.

Working With an Investor

Working with an investor is the hands-down easiest way to sell your house. Investors don’t have a long list of requirements. They’re not looking to move into the property, so they don’t want you to paint or fix the plumbing or install new cabinets. Bad neighborhoods, code violations, structural damage, and overgrown lawns don’t matter to investors. They’re looking at your property for its potential, even if it means demolishing and rebuilding portions of the property.

Investors buy with cash. They don’t need to get approved for a mortgage loan, and this cuts the amount of time between the offer and the closing date significantly. From offer to closing date, the process can last as little as a week. Investors make their offers fast, and they’re ready to pounce. They understand how frustrated people can be when they unsuccessfully attempt other sale methods, or when they don’t even have time to give them a shot.

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The only drawback to working with investors is that they don’t often offer the full appraised price of the home. They’re planning to invest money into changing the property, so they need to keep some cash set aside for renovations and repairs. If you have a property that’s difficult to sell, the offer may not make that much of a difference. It’s quick cash on your terms, there are no associated costs, and you don’t have to do anything except take your check.

Working with Trustworthy Investors

A lot of people are trying to get their hands into home investment. You’ve probably seen hand-drawn signs on lampposts that tell you to call a number for someone to buy your house. You’re right to be skeptical of these signs. If someone has enough money to purchase properties in cash, they should have enough money to properly advertise their home investment business.

It’s almost impossible to research a potential investor too thoroughly. There are a lot of things you’ll need to look for before you decide who you want to work with. It’s easy to start your research online. Look for the investor’s website and see how much information they have available. Do they have an address and a phone number? Do they have testimonials from real people they’ve worked with, or pictures of properties they’ve bought or sold?

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Pay attention to the attitude the investor adopts. People who claim they’re trying to help you should really try to help you. Foreclosure is a common issue that investors help sellers to navigate. People attempt to sell their home before a foreclosure is completed in order to avoid destroying their credit history. The right investor will be able to guide you through the short sale process and attempt to work with your lender to purchase the property and avoid the foreclosure.

Someone who speaks to you too quickly, makes offers you don’t understand, or uses terminology that you’re entirely unfamiliar with is not the right person to help you. Spend some time talking to an investor before you decide to work with them. You need to be comfortable with every part of the process, and a seasoned investor knows how to facilitate that comfort. Make sure all of your questions get answered, and consider the experiences of others who have worked with the same investor.

We Help South Carolina Home Owners in Many Situations

FORECLOSURE

South Carolina utilizes a judicial foreclosure process, meaning that lenders need to file and win a lawsuit in order to foreclose. If the lender can prove that you’re significantly behind on payments, they will almost always be granted their foreclosure.

Since the state of South Carolina doesn’t require a pre-foreclosure notice, many homeowners are surprised when they’ve been presented with a formal notice that the foreclosure suit is in progress. This can happen in as little as 120 days after the mortgage payment is considered delinquent.

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Foreclosure intervention is an option, but it usually means having to pay everything that’s owned in a short amount of time. For most homeowners, that’s unrealistic. A short sale is likely the best option. If the bank gets the money they’re owed (or an alternative amount they’re willing to settle for), it never shows as a foreclosure on the previous homeowner’s credit history. A short sale is still a blemish, but it’s far easier to work off and much less damaging than a full-scale foreclosure.

BURNED OUT LANDLORD

Many burned out landlords want to sell their troublesome rental properties and wash their hands of the business. Unfortunately, evicting tenants in South Carolina is exceedingly difficult. The law is very strict. Anything that could be regarded as a “self-help” or “self-service” eviction is illegal. You can’t change locks or turn off the power to force a tenant out unless you want to pay them money in damages. You have to play the long game.

All evictions must be handled through the court, and it’s very difficult to find a reason to evict a tenant.

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Rent is not technically late until five days after the due date, and even then, tenants have more time to cooperate and pay. If tenants violate the lease, they must be served with a notice that states what the violation is. If they fix the violation within 14 days, you can’t evict them. In short, you can only legally evict tenants who are very set on not paying or not remedying their lease violations.

Rather than handling all the hassle, many South Carolina landlords prefer not to renew the lease. This means waiting out the term with the tenant and simply not offering to extend their stay. If your tenants were good but exhausting people, you probably see the merit of allowing them to stay the remainder. You can always tell your tenants that you intend to sell the property once the lease is up and offer to give them a great recommendation. Desperate landlords may even feel inclined to give them their last month’s rent back. Doing so might encourage them to move faster.

PROPERTIES IN PROBATE

Navigating probate on an inherited property can be a mess. Fortunately, South Carolina has options that offer leniency. South Carolina allows for informal probate the majority of the time. If everyone is getting along and there are no vastly different interpretations of the will, the court will allow the family to handle most of the matter themselves.

During informal probate, the family will draw up documents that prove that they’ve handled the process appropriately. This usually means sending out notices to other family members and debt collectors about their loved one’s passing.

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In most cases, you’re also required to publish a notice in a newspaper to alert creditors. Then, you take an inventory of all aspects of the estate and have the high ticket items (like property and cars) appraised. After that, you file the paperwork and probate is over.

Formal probate is different. This process is usually reserved for cases where discrepancies exist in the will, heirs aren’t clear, or people are arguing about the distribution of assets. During formal probate, you’ll do the same things you’ll do with informal probate. The only difference is that the court needs to be informed of everything as it happens and approve the decisions being made.

No matter which probate process applies to the house you’ve inherited, you’ll still need to wait for the process to be finished before you can sell the property.

HOMES IN BAD CONDITION

If a house is in bad shape or looks very dated, you might be considering what you need to do before you put the house on the market. If you have a budget for repairs and renovations, you might be able to increase the asking price of the property. It’s important to note that “might” is the operative word.

Repairs typically put a home back in working condition, which is exactly how buyers would expect to find a property. Some repairs, like an entirely new roof with a warranty, might allow you to raise the asking process. Other repairs, like fixing old water damage, won’t add any value to the house.

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Certain repairs will only allow you to ask for what the house would have been worth if it wasn’t damaged. Renovations are another story. People are usually willing to pay more for real wood cabinets and granite countertops, mostly because they feel luxurious.

The only problem is that the amount people are willing to pay might not stack well against the amount you’ll have to spend. If a renovation costs more than it adds, it may not be worthwhile to start spending money to make the property more attractive. You may technically come out profiting less.

ABOUT HOME BUYERS USA

Home Buyers USA is a team of home investment professionals that serves several states. Our experience has shown us that many people working with an investor need more than a quick solution – they need help to get out of a tough situation. We aim to be compassionate in our approach to home investment.

We’re happy to give sellers a play by play of the whole process. We’re always here when sellers have questions or don’t understand the specifics of the situation. You can contact us right away to get the process started, and we’ll be more than happy to help you create a selling strategy that’s tailored to your needs.

Moving quickly is important. Foreclosure dates roll around in the blink of an eye. It only takes one bad storm to turn a damaged property into a run-down property. The faster you get a hold of us, the faster we can help you.

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