How To Buy And Sell At The Same Time

"I would list my house, but where would I go?" With record low inventory nationwide and especially across South Florida, this is something that we hear a lot.

According to Altos research, we're about 1 million listings shy of being even in a balanced market, yet alone, a buyer's market that many have been waiting, hoping, and praying for.

One of the biggest factors right now is that people feel trapped in their current home that may not be right for them anymore because they have an ultra low mortgage rate in the 2% to 4% range, and they don't want to move into a more expensive house at a 6% to 7% rate. This has prevented a ton of people from selling further reducing inventory that would otherwise be on the market and driving up prices due to supply and demand imbalance.

But most agent strategies is to put their would-be sellers and buyers in an MLS strip email and send them the same properties that show up on all the portal websites and say, call me if you see something you like now while that may work and if you wait long enough, you will likely find a house.

How do you navigate the buying and selling process at the same time? That's the question that isn't as easily answered. So here are our solutions to help you buy and sell a house at the same time.

Buy new construction.

Land values and construction costs are really expensive especially in South Florida, so it only makes sense for builders right now to build luxury homes. If you can afford to buy new construction our team can help you buy a new construction home and you can time the sale of your current home with the closing of the new one.

You can also accomplish this easier if you're moving to a less expensive area that has more building opportunities like Port St. Lucie, Arden Westlake, or even the central Florida.

Buy first before selling.

The only way to know if you can do this is to speak with a mortgage lender even if you don't have the entire amount you'd want to put down available without selling. If you could swing just a 5% down payment and qualify on paper to hold two mortgages you can wait until you find the new house, move in and then list the old one and when it sells you can do what's called a recast recasting.

The loan means you take all the money from the sale put it towards your new mortgage and you re amortize the loan so your payment resets based on the new lower balance as if you had put down that much larger down payment from the start.

We also partner with some finance companies that will give you a bridge loan against your current home equity but those do come with some fees. If that's something you're interested in or wanna learn more about, feel free to reach out to us.

Sell first and then rent until you can find the right house.

Buying a home is a huge commitment and you shouldn't feel rushed and get buyer's remorse later. Selling first and going into a rental either for a year or a short term, Airbnb for a few months can alleviate the stress and put you in a position to buy, not contingent which will make your offer much stronger.

The downside is that you're gonna have higher moving costs since you're moving twice.

Get an offer accepted contingent on the seller finding suitable housing.

So the buyer of your home is probably gonna want a specific timeframe, but you can usually get 90 to 120 days for you to find the next house. If it's a competitive home and it's priced competitively in the market.

Many buyers in today's market are just simply anxious to find the right home, so they'll be more Flexible with the seller situation if they have to. It's still a seller's market. The advantage to you is that you won't have to move twice and you've built enough time to look for the next place.

Lease back.

You can require the new buyer of your current home to lease back the home to you, the seller at closing.

The pitfall here is that you're gonna likely be paying the new Buyer's mortgage payment which may be substantially higher than what you currently pay for the same house. You also have a set number of days for the leaseback so you're still on a time crunch to find the new house.

Find off market opportunities.

Now, this is your best strategy, but one of the most complex. This requires a lot of time and energy on behalf of you and us as your agent and a lot of people don't know how to do this properly. You need to find an agent that markets heavily and gets listings in the area. You want to move regularly so you can let them know what you're looking for.

Alternatively, you need to find an agent that knows how to find off market homes. For our team to do this, and we do do this all the time we require a signed listing agreement on your current home saying that we are gonna be the listing agents on your sale when you do find the new home.

If you don't find it, we rip the contract up and you're obviously not listing your house. But we do have to have that in place.

We also have to get super specific about what you want in your new house. This strategy doesn't work well when you say I just want a four bedroom home in Broward or Palm Beach county. You need to be able to give a lot more details like specific neighborhoods or school districts, square footage minimums, lot sizes, and as many other characteristics as possible. This will allow our team to go to work for you and prospect by sending letters, calling, door knocking, networking, searching older expired or canceled listings, For Sale By Owners, and other opportunities with divorce and probate attorneys that we work with.

This is a very time and labor intensive strategy and we don't just do this for anyone for free but for our clients that are committed to having our team help you, we've been very successful. If you need help navigating how to buy and sell at the same time give us a call today to discuss your options.