These are the best strategies for buying and selling a home at the same time. Here’s what you need to know.
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When homeowners go to sell their home, many seem to think that they need to rent a home after selling their old one before they can go buy a new one. However, it is possible to do a simultaneous transaction where you can buy a home even while you’re selling your current one.
First, your agent needs to be looking at the average days on market for the property you’re selling. If we’re looking at a 45-day sales time frame and we’re trying to get you the maximum amount of money without being super aggressive, then that’s how long we have to find you a home.
Next, be sure you know what funds you’ll buy your next home with. Many people tend to use the equity they have in their current home to go toward the purchase of their next home. It’s wise to remove as many contingencies as possible when it comes to selling your home; this will give you a smooth transaction when you go to buy a home.
If a lot of people don’t know that they can buy and sell a home at the same time, then even more probably fail to realize that they can use the same agent for both transactions. Your ability to do this comes into play especially when it comes to purchasing new construction. People often think that a traditional agent can only help them purchase resale homes, not new construction.
The problem with trying to use a different agent for each transaction is that you don’t have one person overseeing the whole gameplan. There’s also the potential for one of them to be bitter about not being asked to do both transactions so they don’t communicate as well with you.
A benefit to using one agent to help you with both transactions is that, at least on our team, we offer a trade-up program. Because we’re streamlining both transactions into one, we can provide our services with a slightly lower commission. This gives our customers more equity to use when purchasing a home. Not every team will do this, but ours does as an incentive not to get more money, but rather to allow us to ensure a smoother transaction for you.
When we participate in one of these dual transactions, we usually advise you to allow us to get all of the marketing done up front. That doesn’t mean we’ll put it on the MLS early or anything, but we do want to get the house staged and photographed and have a package ready to go so that you’re not stressed out. Once we have all that done, we’ll go shopping for properties until we find one you like. Once you pull the trigger on a home you like, we can start adjusting how we’ll put your home on the market. This will also help reduce the pressure you might feel if the home you’re looking to purchase has a specific timeframe—you don’t want to make financial decisions for emotional reasons!
If you have any questions about participating in or managing a simultaneous transaction like the ones we’ve discussed today, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We have instant-offer options you can take advantage of to help with either side of the transaction.