4 Tips For Successfully Buying and Selling at the Same Time

Posted by Dan Miller, REALTOR on Thursday, June 4th, 2020 at 2:57pm.

You may be thinking it would be great to buy a new home. Perhaps you could use more space. Or, maybe it’s time to downsize from a two-story to a ranch-style home or condo. The catch is, you have to sell your current home first! Our team of full-time real estate agents helps clients with this scenario all the time. In this article, we'll share a few tips to consider that can help make the process less stressful. Coordination and some additional planning can go a long way to helping you sell and buy at the same time.

couple searching for their new home

Tip 1: Focus on your home-selling plans first. It may be tempting to start looking for your dream home before you have prepared your home for sale. However, you risk finding the perfect home and being unable to write an offer because your current home isn’t ready to sell. It’s exciting and fun to think about the future, but focusing on buying your next home first actually delays the process. Use this time up front to come up with your selling strategy and prepare your listing. Then, you can turn your focus to buying your dream home.

Tip 2: Hire a team to coordinate your buying and selling plans. Buying and selling at the same time can be a lot for one real estate agent to manage at a high level. Many times we dedicate one agent to focus on the sale of your current home, and another who is in charge of helping you buy a new one. Then we all work together to carry out one carefully coordinated plan. We’ve worked with dozens of clients like this, with tremendous results.

Tip 3: Talk to your lender about financing options. For most people, buying a new home is financially dependent on the sale of another home. The best case scenario is to sell your current home and close on your new home on the same day, and that is definitely possible. But, it is important to consider all your options in case the two transactions don't line up perfectly. Perhaps you will be able to carry two mortgages for a short time and buy your new home before selling. Or, you may be able to tap into your current home’s equity to come up with a down payment for your new home. A lender can help you determine what options work for your situation so you have a strategy in place when you start searching for your dream home.

Tip 4: Consider the timing of listing and offers. In some cases, you can list your home at the same time you submit your offer on your next home. The idea here is to have everything ready to go for your listing, including staging and photos, before you place an offer on a different property. Then, the listing agent can start marketing your current home right away so it sells quickly. This increases your chances of scheduling both of your closings on the same day. Talk with our team to come up with the timing strategy that works best for your situation.

Want more practical tips for buying and selling? This article covers some additional tips to think about.

There are more things to consider when buying and selling at the same time, but it's definitely possible to make it happen. We’re here to help make the process as seamless and easy as possible. Contact us to discuss your plans, and we’ll help you craft a winning strategy to help you buy your dream home (and sell your current one!) We’re happy to answer any questions you may have about the market or how you can coordinate two transactions simultaneously.

This article is published courtesy of:
Dan Miller, REALTOR
Mad City Dream Homes & RE/MAX Preferred
1619 Monroe Street #1, Madison, WI, 53711

Leave a Comment

Format example: you@domain.com
Format example: yourwebsitename.com

Sign up for email updates