4 Ways to Buy and Sell an Indianapolis Home at the Same Time
In a perfect world, this process is simple. You purchase another home with no issues and you start your move. You make enough money to handle two mortgages and once you are done moving, you list your other house for sale. Once that closes, you are back to only having 1 mortgage. Win-win right? If only it were that simple. The thought of having 2 mortgages can cause enough anxiety, but there are ways around this.
Here are 4 ways you can buy and sell your house at the same time!
1) Buy a home first and move. Sell your current home after the fact. If you can swing this, this is a way of doing it without causing too much chaos in your life. You would first want to talk with your lender to make sure you can get approved for the 2nd mortgage before you go out looking at houses. Once that is cleared up, you should have a good idea what your new monthly payments will be, etc. Once you close on your new home, you can peacefully move into it and when your other house is ready to market, contact your real estate agent and let them take it from there
Pros
Makes packing and moving easier.
You don’t have to move in one or two days if you don’t want to.
You don’t have to deal with cleaning and leaving for showings and your 1st home will be vacant which makes it much easier to show.
Cons
You have 2 mortgages.
What do you do if your 1st house doesn’t sell? You can always rent it out if that happens. You would want to find a good property management company that can assist you with that.
You have a vacant home that you have to worry about. Anything could happen. It could get broken into, pipes could freeze, it could catch fire. I’ve seen all 3 of the above!
You have to deal with utilities and lawn maintenance on this house while it's vacant which can add up.
2) Sell your home first. This is the most common method. What you would do before you go out and look at new homes to purchase, you need to get a solid marketing plan set up for your current home. I would set a list date and go from there. Your agent should be able to set you up with a new search for your next home. I wouldn’t really start looking at too many houses until you are getting activity on your home.
You will also want to pay attention to the closing date that the new buyer put down on their purchase agreement. You will probably need at least 45 days-60 days to close. This allows you some time to go out and find a house that you can move into around the same time.
You may also want to request that you have possession for 2-3 days after closing if you can. This will give you 2-3 days after you close to actually move. If you have a place you can go stay at and store your belongings, that would be another option. Once you get an accepted offer on your house, it’s time to start actively looking.
Once you have found your new home , time to to make an offer on it. Assuming you don't want to have 2 mortgages, you would have to make your offer contingent upon the successful closing of your current home. This protects you here in case your current deal falls through.
Most seller’s would be willing to work with you on this as long as they see that you do have an accepted offer and things are looking like they are going to close. I would set your closing date around the same date that you close on your current home. In a perfect world, you would close on your current home first, and then immediately close on your new home second with the same title company. That is common, but a lot of things have to fall in place for this to happen.
Pros
You only have 1 mortgage
You don’t have to deal with a vacancy
Sometimes your house will show better with your furniture in there.
Cons
A lot can go wrong here. What if the buyer falls through on your current home. Guess what, that means your deal with your new home will fall through. And what if the seller of your new home wrote a contingent offer on another home...their deal would fall through too. This can cause a major domino effect!
This can add a lot of pressure on you to just pick a house because you don’t have a lot of time
You may have to put your stuff in storage and find temporary housing until you close on your new home depending on your situation.
3) List your house for sale, but do a first right offer on your new purchase. Let’s say you have every intention of selling your house, but you found a home you want to buy now before it’s gone. Sometimes in a slow market, you may be able to pull this one off. You can have your agent write up a first right offer.
Basically it’s an addendum that goes along with your purchase agreement. It states that you will purchase their home within X days after you sell your current home. In most cases, at this point, you don’t have an offer on your home. So you are promising to buy this home once you can close on your home. Usually, the addendum will run for about 60 days.
It is the Seller’s agent's job to do their homework on your current home to find out what’s going on in that area, and to see if you will have a good chance at selling your home. In some cases, this will work!
There will also be a clause in there that states the seller can continue to market their home and if they get another offer, they will come back to you and give you first rights to the property. Usually you will have so many hours (72 hours) to remove the addendum and move forward with purchasing their home.
If you can’t remove it because your home hasn’t sold or you haven’t received an offer on it, after 72 hours (or whatever is agreed upon here), the seller can terminate the contract with you and move forward with he new buyer.
If after 60 days (or whatever is agreed upon) you don’t sell your home and you can’t purchase their home, your contract should be void.
Each state may have different ways this is handled, but you want to check with your agent to get more info on how this will work for you, etc. Long story short, you are predicting your home will sell, so you write an offer on a home contingent upon selling your home that doesn’t have an offer on it yet.
I did a deal like this a couple of Christmases ago, and it worked out perfectly for all.
Pros
Gives you a piece of mind that you found a home to move into.
Helps you manage your closing date/moving dates better
Cons
The seller can still sell this home to someone else if you cant fulfill your portion of the deal.
You may end up paying more because of the inconvenience you are adding to the seller. All depends on what is agreed upon between you and the seller.
4) You can do what they call a reverse contingency. Normally you will see an offer contingent upon the buyer having to sell their house first before they can buy yours. But what if you haven’t found a place yet and you don’t want to go through the stress of selling your home and having no where to go?
You may be able to do a reverse contingency.
When you get an offer of your home, you can counter back to them that the offer is contingent upon you finding a home to purchase. You may put together an addendum that states you need 2 weeks to find a new home. Once you find a home, you can remove the addendum and move forward with the original purchase agreement. This allows you time to find a home that works for you. If you don’t find a home, guess what? You don’t have to sell your house.
The addendum should state what happens here in this scenario.
Talk with your agent about this. This is something that usually only works in a Seller’s market because it’s hard enough for a buyer to get their foot in the door. If you can find a buyer that is willing to give you a few weeks for you to find a house, then this may work out!
Pros
The ball is in your court.
Takes away some stress with buying and selling at the same time.
Cons
It puts a time limit on your home search.
In a tight market, this may be hard to pull off with such little time.
At the end of the day, there is no right or wrong way to do this. It really depends on you and the market. Sometimes things work out so perfectly while other times things can get delayed. Whatever the case is, your agent should be able to guide you here and help make this a smooth process. Is this something your going through now? If you have any questions or need help, please don’t hesitate to contact me! I would be more than happy to assist you.