S/O home buying..
Feb 13, 2017 19:22:29 GMT -5
Post by k3am on Feb 13, 2017 19:22:29 GMT -5
Talk to me about buying/selling a home when you already own one?
Total TL;DR - I have no summary, but if you're willing to bear with me, that'd be awesome.
We own a home. It’s a starter home, and we’d like to move before DD starts kindergarten in 2018. We’ve got roughly $425k of equity in our home.
We’d like to move about 5 miles west of where we are now, which is going to increase our price tag pretty significantly, but avoid us paying for private school for two kids. And gets us out from under the flight path, and into a bigger home. DH and I are only willing to move if it checks off significantly ALL of our boxes. There is less inventory in the area we’re looking at that meet our criteria, so finding houses isn’t a given. In the last 10 months, we’ve seen TWO houses that would have been compelling enough for us to even want to put an offer in on – one sold for significantly over asking price, and the other was so recent that the sale isn’t finalized yet. (We also admittedly haven’t been actively searching, since we’ve got some time to make a decision. We are ideally at least 1 year out from wanting to make a move. If we bought today, we wouldn’t be saving very much until DD starts school, after which we’d be saving an additional amount.)
We’ve worked with a realtor for about a year and a half now. Their strategy is that we sell our home first, then get a 60-day lease back, and find a home in that time. I get where they’re coming from – any offer we put in on a home would be contingent on us selling our home, which makes our offer less competitive. They’ve suggested with every visit to our home (3-5 maybe?) that we don’t need to do any work to the house to put it on the market and that we’d basically list on a Thursday and have an offer accepted by the next Wednesday.
My primary concern is that.. What guarantees that we FIND a home that meets our requirements during that time? If we’re going to be forced into finding something in that small of a time frame, I worry that we’ll end up having to settle or move twice.
My secondary concern is.. I think there IS work we need to do on our home. Nothing major, but I think a couple rooms need to be repainted, and that staging would help. (ie: our rooms are VERY small - DD’s full size bed takes up ALL of her room, our dining room table is falling apart and looks like shit, etc). Would it make sense to bother fixing these things? Most homes selling in our neighborhood are fixer uppers – our home is DONE, so maybe people have higher expectations?
We’re flirting with the potential of moving into an apartment, then selling our home and taking time to find a new one. But I'm not sure if this makes sense logistically or financially.
Total TL;DR - I have no summary, but if you're willing to bear with me, that'd be awesome.
We own a home. It’s a starter home, and we’d like to move before DD starts kindergarten in 2018. We’ve got roughly $425k of equity in our home.
We’d like to move about 5 miles west of where we are now, which is going to increase our price tag pretty significantly, but avoid us paying for private school for two kids. And gets us out from under the flight path, and into a bigger home. DH and I are only willing to move if it checks off significantly ALL of our boxes. There is less inventory in the area we’re looking at that meet our criteria, so finding houses isn’t a given. In the last 10 months, we’ve seen TWO houses that would have been compelling enough for us to even want to put an offer in on – one sold for significantly over asking price, and the other was so recent that the sale isn’t finalized yet. (We also admittedly haven’t been actively searching, since we’ve got some time to make a decision. We are ideally at least 1 year out from wanting to make a move. If we bought today, we wouldn’t be saving very much until DD starts school, after which we’d be saving an additional amount.)
We’ve worked with a realtor for about a year and a half now. Their strategy is that we sell our home first, then get a 60-day lease back, and find a home in that time. I get where they’re coming from – any offer we put in on a home would be contingent on us selling our home, which makes our offer less competitive. They’ve suggested with every visit to our home (3-5 maybe?) that we don’t need to do any work to the house to put it on the market and that we’d basically list on a Thursday and have an offer accepted by the next Wednesday.
My primary concern is that.. What guarantees that we FIND a home that meets our requirements during that time? If we’re going to be forced into finding something in that small of a time frame, I worry that we’ll end up having to settle or move twice.
My secondary concern is.. I think there IS work we need to do on our home. Nothing major, but I think a couple rooms need to be repainted, and that staging would help. (ie: our rooms are VERY small - DD’s full size bed takes up ALL of her room, our dining room table is falling apart and looks like shit, etc). Would it make sense to bother fixing these things? Most homes selling in our neighborhood are fixer uppers – our home is DONE, so maybe people have higher expectations?
We’re flirting with the potential of moving into an apartment, then selling our home and taking time to find a new one. But I'm not sure if this makes sense logistically or financially.
