Many of us reach a time in our lives where we need to upgrade from the current home that we are living it. This can happen when going from a townhome to a single family home, a single family home to a larger home, or from a larger home to your forever home. It’s a common problem! It can be difficult to juggle time-tables so that when you sell your current home, you can get into a new home without a week, month, or even several month gap where you have no actual place to call your own!
So, let’s talk about that awkward gap- how to avoid it and when to prepare for it!
Let’s talk the townhome to single family transition. If you are selling a home and looking to buy another home for under the average market price (which is currently 330,000), you will have a much harder time getting a seller to accept your offer. This is because there are many people who are looking to buy a home in that price range that WON’T be needing to make the purchase of their home contingent upon the sale of the current home. It’s harder to compete with that, so this is one time where you might want to PLAN on there being a gap between selling and buying. There might not be… but it’s most likely to happen when in this scenario!
Now, how about transitioning from a single family home to a larger or more expensive home? If you are looking to sell a home around 350,000 and transition to a home that is 450,000-500,000, MOST, if not all, of the competing buyers around you will also have to sell a property in order to purchase the more expensive home. This makes it more likely for a seller to accept your offer, which will be based on the sale of your current property.
If you move up from that price bracket, you’ll encounter the same scenario. Nearly everyone looking to buy in the 600,000+ range will also be selling something to make that purchase, so you are much less likely to have trouble getting your offer accepted based on the sale of your current home!
Many builders in these upper price ranges are also willing to give you 45-90 days contingencies where you have time to sell your current home while also planning to purchase their newly built homes.
Knowing what to expect when selling AND buying a home in the same time range can help you prepare for what is to come!
As always, good luck in your real estate adventures!
