By | buying and selling, home buyer, home seller, real estate
Think you’re crazy for trying to buy a new home while also selling your old one in the process? This is more common than you’d think. There are many others like you who have had to endure the immense stress and fatigue that you feel. To make this process less painful and worrisome, there are a few guidelines you should follow. Here is a short guide to buying and selling at the same time:
1. Prepare Your Home in Advance
Before you begin a serious search for a new home, make sure your old one is ready for the market. Do an inspection and see what needs to be improved or fixed. This is something that many people who buy and sell at the same time put off mistakingly, and it ends up being problematic in the end. You don’t want to be making an offer on a new home before you have even prepped your current home for listing. That would cause lots of unnecessary stress and/or panic for you.
2. Have a Backup Plan
In a perfect world, you can move out of your old place and into your new one on the same day. However, this doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, things could get delayed, or even worse, canceled altogether. For these reasons, make sure you have a back-up plan so that you don’t wind up homeless. This could include staying at a hotel or using a storage unit for a brief period of time until your new home is ready.
3. Get Pre-approved
While you may be set on upgrading to a larger home, it is always a good idea to get pre-approved for a loan. This way, you will know exactly what you can afford and can look for homes within your price range. You also won’t have to be disappointed when you can’t afford a home you fell in love with.
4. Have Plenty of Money Saved Up
The housing market is ever-changing. Don’t be surprised if the offer you get on your home is lower than what you expected. You do not want to depend on the money you get from your old home to afford the new one. Therefore, it is best to ensure you have plenty of funds saved up, so you can still afford the down payment on your next home – no matter what.
5. Use One Real Estate Agent for Both Transactions
In most cases, an excellent way to make your experience more complicated is by using two different real estate agents – one for buying your new home, and one for selling your old one. It can be very difficult to maintain a mutual level of understanding with both in terms of the important dates in each process. Using a single real estate agent for both transactions can help everything go smoothly and ensure that both transactions will be complete at the same time.
6. Be Willing to Compromise
Finally, an important piece of advice to leave you with is to treat the buyer of your old home and the seller of your new home as you would like to be treated. If either of them needs more time or won’t be able to fix an issue like promised, be as understanding as possible. If you do this to a certain extent, you can expect a more positive experience for both transactions.
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