No one likes noisy neighbors. They can disrupt family gatherings at your home and keep your kids up at night. If you live in a congested city, you’ve likely experienced this at least once.
Dealing with noisy neighbors as a homeowner is one thing. You can play calm background music to act as white noise in an attempt to cancel out your neighbor’s loud banter. Another option is to simply spend less time at home. Those are two quick solutions that could potentially work for you while you’re living at your property.
What about trying to sell a house with noisy neighbors? It is a realtor’s worst nightmare to hear loud neighbors during an open house that they’re hosting. Noisy neighbors can completely ruin the relaxing atmosphere that a home provides.
You wouldn’t want to sell your house to a friend if you knew the neighbors were a huge hassle to live near. No one wants to deal with loud and obnoxious neighbors.
Fortunately, there are options to prevent and decrease the noise surrounding your home.
Here are 3 practical tips that will help you sell a house with noisy neighbors.
Buy Them a Gift
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer? Just kidding. This is meant to be a genuine effort to make peace with your neighbors. Depending on how long you lived there and your relationship with them, you might also want to say goodbye and let them know you’re moving soon.
By bringing your neighbors a gift, you can say your goodbyes and also show that you appreciate the space you shared with them. Additionally, this is a great opportunity to let them know when open houses and showings are happening.
Consider writing them a card with your gift or handing them a pamphlet that your real estate agent created for the open houses. This will make it easy for them to be aware of the dates and times that potential homebuyers will be walking through your home. You can emphasize that you are letting all of your neighbors know to be quiet during these times.
Let them know that you appreciate their efforts for being quiet in advance.
Between the letter and the gift, they will hopefully feel enough gratitude to be quiet during those times. You won’t know until you ask. If a small gift and letter make the difference between you receiving an offer on your home or not, it is worth it.
Replace the Windows and Doors
If you don’t have a good relationship with your noisy neighbors, you most likely don’t want to buy them a gift. We completely understand that.
For home sellers who won’t have much luck quieting down their neighbors, you can do your best to soundproof your property. A quick solution to making your home more soundproof before selling it is to replace the windows. Does your house have older windows that are single pane? If so, noise (and air) likely flow through the cracks relatively easily.
By replacing the windows throughout your house, you help noise from the outside stay outside. This will make a huge difference when you host open houses and bring potential homebuyers through the property.
Cheap or old windows tend to be thin. They are not very effective in keeping noise from neighbors out.
In addition to the windows, you can consider replacing the doors or at least resealing the frame of the doors. This may not make as big of a difference as replacing the windows. I would ask myself how much noise comes through the door itself.
If you live in a condo with a noisy neighbor right across the hallway, it could make sense to improve the soundproofing quality of the door.
This can also be the case if you live on a busy street in the city and have loud neighbors that hang out outside. Replacing the door can help deflect noise from entering the home, which will make it easier to sell once potential buyers are walking through.
Check out some additional thoughts on repairs versus selling your house as is.
Sell Your House to an Investor
Typically, real estate investors are less picky about the aesthetics and other details of a home when they buy. An investor wouldn’t be living at the home themselves, and therefore won’t care as much about noisy neighbors. You can often sell your home as-is cash to an investor.
A first-time homebuyer who plans to move in with their family – on the other hand – will prioritize noise level and overall comfort when buying a house. Certain investors plan to do their own renovations to a property after they buy it. They may intend to rent it out eventually.
In this case, they may have renovation ideas in store that will help mitigate the existing noise levels coming from the neighbors.
How do you find an investor to sell your house to?
Talk to your real estate agent to see what connections they have in town with investors and house-flippers.
They may pocket buyers in mind that would be a perfect fit to buy your property. That would make the process of selling your house with noisy neighbors even easier because you wouldn’t have to host an open house. Your real estate agent can simply connect the dots and line up an investor that is ready to buy your house.
There’s also a chance that you won’t need to fix up as much in your home before selling it to an investor. As mentioned before, they aren’t quite as picky as buyers that plan on living in the property.
Conquer Noisy Neighbors and Successfully Sell Your Home
As scary as it can be to try selling your house with noisy neighbors, it is possible.
Start small and simple when trying to mitigate the situation. You can bring them a gift and ask, from human to human, for them to be respectful for upcoming open houses.
Maybe they don’t even realize how loud they are being if you haven’t brought it up to them yet. You could be doing the next homeowner a huge favor by helping your neighbors realize their noise levels. Use these practical tips when preparing to sell your house with noisy neighbors.
