Episode 5 | Selling your current home and buying another

Hi everybody. Tom Pietsch with Tom and Cindy and Associates with Long and Foster and I’m here with my associate Jim Patrick. And we’re here today to tackle the subject, how do we handle it when one of our clients wants to sell their home and then buy another property.

Do you actually need to sell your home in order to buy the next one?

This area historically has been a great place to invest in. Prices go up over time. Great economy. So if you are actually able to keep your home as a rental, that’s obviously a fantastic choice as well. So figuring that out, maybe talking to a lender, and seeing if you actually need to sell in order to buy is a great first place to start.

One of the things that we want people to always be comfortable with is price.

So it’s always, if you’re gonna sell and buy you want know what’s your comfort price-wise. We don’t want to go out and show you a home at $600,000 if you end up buying at $550,000 because obviously most people are going to like a correctly priced house at $600,000 more then want one at $550,000. To us, that’s the that’s a key factor in getting ready to sell and then there’s getting your home ready for sale.

Something that we can help with, is getting the home ready and doing a walk through to let you know what work to do, and offer some staging advice.

Start looking at some neighborhoods and see what’s available in the market.

Even if you’re not buying for a few months, there will be similar homes, similar sizes in those neighborhoods, condition, things like that. So make sure that with your next home you’re going be able to find what you want. It might not make sense to move if you’re not able to get something that will work for you and your family.

You want to be really looking forward to that next move and so getting out there and seeing what is out there is key. The house that you see is probably not the one you’re going end up with because you’re gonna have to get your house on the market. And so you’re not quite ready to make an offer on that home but it’s great to be able to say, gee we know three different neighborhoods that we would be thrilled if we could buy in and so when the time is right and every week in our area new things come on the market. And so there’s a whole new crop of things to look at. So that leads us into the discussion of home of choice contingencies and also what we call coinciding settlements.

Home of choice contingency

Since we’ve been a sellers market for a while now, usually this is the option that makes sense if you do need to sell in order to buy that next home.

What that is is you’re putting your home on the market and hopefully getting a quick offer from a buyer that you like, and then negotiating this home of choice contingency. That is saying, you don’t need to sell, you have x number of days to find your next home, get that under contract, or you’re not obligated to sell your current home. So basically you’re not going to be out on the street without having somewhere to go.

If a buyer loves your home most of them will at least give you two weeks to 30 days to find a new home and hopefully have the flexibility to work with you and give you the time you need.

And by that time, you know, nothing’s happening in a vacuum. You’re still continuing to look even when your house is on the market. So that you’re ready to jump.

Coinciding settlements

What this means that we’re protecting you on both ends. We’re protecting you if you don’t find a home that you absolutely love for your next property. You don’t have to sell the one that you’re in. And once you do get your home under contract and you find that next home that you wanna put an offer on, that offer, you’re not obligated to buy that house unless the home that you currently own that contract that you have successfully goes through the settlement.

Final thoughts

So once you’ve done all the previous steps we’ve talked about, figuring out your price point, getting your home ready, doing some discoveries far as neighborhoods then it’s time to get your home on the market and really put yourself out there. Start to make that move happen. Taking the first step as far as getting that going.

And a lot of times people are worried about this timing. Well even when you get an offer on your home that you’re happy with and that you accept, the buyer is typically gonna need what 30 to 45 day on average to get their financing in place and go through the settlement. So that’s going to give you time to get your financing in place and everything for the new move.

On a future video we can talk doing rent backs and how that can give you time so you’re only making one move which is always our goal.

So whether you’re moving up because you just had another kid and you are in a one bedroom condo or whether it’s time to downsize and get something smaller, if you need to sell and buy, just give us a call, we would love to help you out and make that a smooth process. Thanks for now. See you next time.

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