Trying to buy a new house and sell your existing home? Watch this. from Mike Novak on Vimeo.

Buying or selling a home are both huge, life changing processes

But doing both at the same time? It may seem like a headache, but trust us - it can be done smoothly.  We help our clients through the process all the time, and the trick lies in the planning. Let’s take a look.

Should I buy or sell first?

There’s a lot of variables that go into buy/sell situations:

• You don’t want to get stuck with two mortgage payments

• You don’t want to sell until you’ve found the right home to purchase - and are positive that it’s going to work out!

• Contingent offers - meaning offers that are only valid if your house ends up selling - are seen as very weak in this market. In a competitive market like this, they'll get brushed aside, making it difficult to buy a home if you don’t already have a buyer for your own.

This leaves buyers with the question should I focus first on finding a new home or selling my current one? The reality for most cases in today’s market is that you’ll want to list first to get a buyer in order to place a pending-contingent offer on the home you want to purchase. This means that you’ll need to strategically list your home first and create a lot of demand. With an offer pending, you can show sellers that you already have a buyer for your home, making them more seriously consider doing business with you. Basically, this method puts you in the driver's seat. It removes a lot of the risk on your side of things.

Manage Your Timelines

Of course, one of the biggest factors to consider in buy/sell situations is the time crunch. This is where planning is HUGE! You don’t want to just casually list your house and hope that it gets an offer so that you can place another offer. You’ll want to create massive demand for your home (through our mega open houses and strategic pricing strategies, for example) and have a plan in place to then buy the right home.

30% of houses that go under contract don’t end up going through, so there’s not a lot of room for mistakes here. With great planning, the process will go smoothly. That’s why we get with our clients months in advance (especially in buy/sell situations) so that we can go over our home marketing/sales plan and come up with a strategy specific to your situation.

Are you thinking of moving to a new home? Get in touch with us by filling out the contact form below. We want to make the process as smooth as possible for you!