Should You Buy Before You Sell?

If it makes sense for you to buy another home before selling your current one, here are a few tips to make the process easier.

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Should you buy a new home before selling your current one? The answer can depend on a few different factors, so here are some tips you can follow to help guide your decision and make the process easier.

First, talk to your lender to see if you can afford to purchase another property before selling your current one. If that’s the case and you feel comfortable with the numbers, feel free to make an offer on the property you want.

If you need to get the equity out of your current home in order to purchase your next home, it makes sense to list your current property right away and then make an offer on the next property after you’ve received an offer on the first one.

Talk to your lender to see if you can afford to buy before you sell.

You can also make an offer on a property that’s contingent on the sale of your first house and then list that house for sale. I don’t recommend this option, though, and there are three reasons why.

First, most sellers won’t even consider a contingent offer if you haven’t listed your property yet. Second, most agents urge sellers not to accept contingent offers because they don’t want to wait for another offer to come in and have to mark their listing as “contingent” instead of “active” and possibly lose out on a large number of buyers. Third, you risk having your offer turned down as soon as a non-contingent offer comes in.

If you have any questions about this or any other real estate topic, don’t hesitate to give me a call or shoot me an email. I’d be glad to help you.