Buying and Selling at the Same Time Part 1

Selling your old home and buying a new one at the same time can be difficult and stressful. If you buy a new home first, you run the risk of potentially paying two mortgages at once, or if you sell first, you could end up with no place to live until you find your perfect home.  Doing both at the same time, however, can be done! Here are a few tips for buying and selling a home at the same time.

Find what your options are

Work with an experienced Realtor. Get everything you need to sit down with your agent and lay all your cards on the table. Your Crown Point Realtor will guide you in finding out what your home is worth, what equity you have, and find a lender to help you with your qualifying options. These will determine if you’re able to purchase your next home without selling your current home or vice versa (you need to sell first, and then buy). Because you can do it either way, once you get all the cards on the table, you can see what your options are. A lot of sellers won’t have the ability to buy their next home before they have to sell their current home. But for those that do, it can be a great approach.

How to sell your current home first

If you need to sell your current home first, we will work hard and try to get you a “lease back” on a home for 30 to 60 days, ideally just a little longer than escrow. This allows us to get your home under contract and hit the ground running for your next purchase.

Once we get past the “elephants in the room”, like inspections and appraisals on your current home sale, then you are in a position to write a better offer. You stay in your current home, you close on the new one and you still have days or weeks to move. This helps you avoid having to make payments on two mortgages. The only problem is you are at a negotiating disadvantage because you are writing an offer contingent on the sale of your current home. The great thing is you are only moving once so there’s still a lot of benefits there.

Watch out for part 2 as we discuss the pros and cons of buying before you sell.

If you have additional questions, give us a call at (702) 930-9551. Curious what your home is worth? Click here to find out! If you would like to look at all current properties, click here. You may also check other home buying or selling related blogs here (buying, selling).