Step 17 To Selling a Home: I'm Selling and Buying At the Same Time -- Am I Going To Be Homeless?

For our clients who are selling a home in order to buy their next home, there may be a period of time that feels very unstable and uncertain. We definitely understand. 

The process of selling and buying back-to-back, especially in a market in which inventory is low and where you may get an offer very quickly on your current home, can be stressful. Rest assured, we help clients through this very scenario all the time and we have a number of strategies for helping you through.

We likely discussed in your initial appointment that you are in the market to sell and buy. We will have had you fill out our Buyer Questionnaire in addition to our Seller Questionnaire and we will have discussed your home purchase needs and wants with you already, so that we can set up your home search for the purchase of your next home before we even list your current home. While you're getting your current home ready to list and preparing for market, we're setting up your search and making sure that we're keeping an eye out for the right house to be your next home. We might even go out and look at a few properties before you're ready to make an offer, just to give you confidence that, even with a low inventory of homes on the market, there will be homes for you to choose from.

We also have you get pre-qualified for your mortgage during this time as well. The more you can do to prepare for your purchase, while also preparing to sell, the better off (and the less stressed) you'll be! Your mortgage lender will be able to discuss your purchase with you and pre-qualify you, contingent upon your current home selling. We will even prepare an Estimated Net To Seller sheet for your lender, so that you can have an educated conversation with him or her about how much of your proceeds you think you'll be using toward your downpayment.

We recommend you familiarize yourself with our Steps to Buying a Home if you're considering selling and buying simultaneously. There's a lot of information there to digest, but once your current home is under contract, we will need to act quickly to find your next home, make an offer, and get you under contract. That means that a lot of the steps from here forward -- due diligence and home inspections, financing and appraisal -- may be happening concurrently for you, both as a seller and a buyer.

The good news is that we have a lot of experience juggling multiple transactions, and it's our job to keep you on track and informed throughout the process. And we're very good at our job! The even better news is that you definitely won't be homeless. The majority of the time, closings line up seamlessly, and our clients enjoy the deep breath of relief they can take when they have back-to-back closings and they walk away with keys to their new home.