Sell, then buy? Or vice versa?

We have done this twice, and I don’t recommend it based on the stress factor alone!  However, it can be done.  We basically didn’t put our place on the market until we had an accepted offer.  Then we took out a HELOC to act as a bridge loan, allowing us to make the downpayment on the new place before we sold the old place.  In both cases, we were lucky enough to find a buyer quickly and closed on both properties within weeks of each other.  In this economy, however, it’s risky, so you would have to be prepared to carry both properties for as long as it took or look into renting out your old place for a while (also not ideal).

elmo

in Real Estate - Sales 13 years and 10 months ago

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Tiny | 13 years and 10 months ago

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Hi,
This might be a silly question, but do people generally recommend putting your current apartment on the market BEFORE attempting to purchase a new one? My husband and I are definitely thinking about moving, but we’re not in any big rush, so we’re sort of looking and figuring that if we see something compelling, we can try to sell our current place after placing an accepted offer on the (hypothetical) new place. However, I know that listing brokers and owners don’t necessarily find this to be ideal (and I’ve heard that contingencies are frowned upon). But we’re not desperate enough to sell our place first and then hope to find something good–we could easily stay in our current place for another year or two, and we don’t want to have to move unless we have somewhere we love to move into. Advice? Thoughts? I know this can’t be an uncommon dilemma. What is the prevailing way of doing things in Brooklyn 2011?

elbow | 13 years and 10 months ago

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Most sellers, no matter where they’re located, don’t like to have a contractual contingency that another property has to be sold before they can finalize a sale with you.  So, unless you have sufficient income to support payment on both properties (the contingency wouldn’t be in the contract), I’d recommend selling your place first.   I know this is tough because you’d only sell if you came across a compelling alternative.  I’ve always ended up having to place both ends against the middle – sometimes I’ve owned 2 places simultaneously, other times I’ve rented for a while.