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About to sell my house without having a new one lined up....


cbrsilv15

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My wife and I bought our first home when I was 22, 10 years ago. It’s a 2 bedroom, 3 bath and a 1.5 car garage. It’s been an awesome home with everything we’ve added to it. New roof, windows, carpeting, furnace, whole house insulation, water tank, main electrical feed, etc.  With two small kids, we’ve outgrown it. We got the house on the market this past Wednesday and have had many showings and now competing offers on it. It’s going way faster than we expected. We’re about to sign the contract today, but we have nothing to buy. There’s zero houses that we are interested in because it’s still winter time. Anxiety level is through the roof. We’ll have to put everything in a storage unit and fortunately my sister will let us live with her until we find something. Has anyone been in a similar situation before?  Completely uprooted from something 100% reliable to the unknown?

 

Im not a big fan of change so this makes it difficult for me. Lol. Living out of a “suitcase” while everything is in storage. 

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You'll be fine until you find your new house. I've done just the opposite in the past, bought a new to me much larger home before I had my starter home sold, now that's anxiety for you, 2 house payments!   Fortunately I was able to sell the starter home in another 4 months, but this approach is not for the weak-kneed or faint of heart.

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Well, what did you think would happen when you put your house up for sale?  lol

 

I guess it's too late now, but you could have asked if the buyers would let you rent the house for a few months after closing.  

 

 

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1 minute ago, bndawgs said:

Well, what did you think would happen when you put your house up for sale?  lol

 

I guess it's too late now, but you could have asked if the buyers would let you rent the house for a few months after closing.  

 

 

We put it up last year and had little interest for 4 months. Tried again now and had showings on the first day it hit the market. That’s why it shocked us. No interest before, and now multiple offers. It just happened so fast. 

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Are you working with an agent to buy a house? They may know of properties that will be for sale before it hits the market.

Get yourself a reliable agent and make sure they know exactly what you need in the new house so they know what to look for.

Its better to go little over vs settling for something smaller than what you would like, keep that in mind. Also see if you can rent the house from the new owners, they may not need the house right away.

Good luck

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I sort of did the something you did put the house on the market without a really solid plan, and we received a lot more interest in the property than we expected. Luckily our agent was quick to draft an agreement to keep us in the house till we move to Jacksonville in July, and just pay rent as tenants.

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Yeah, we have a good realtor. They have separate buying and selling agents. The buying agent has been looking hard for us, but there’s just not much on the market in the winter time. We got the closing from 30-45 days, so that’s good. We asked for an additional 2 weeks if we truly needed it for $200 a week. They countered with $50 a day. We can’t spend $800 for an extra 2 week stay. No thanks on that. We can’t complain at all though. We are getting above asking price with them paying EVERYTHING except for the $399 home warranty. That’s rare to find a buyer like that. We didn’t really have much wiggle room anyways. I guess it’s fate, just scary. 

 

Its better this way though. Last year we fell in love with a house but couldn’t do anything before selling our house. At least now we can make an offer on something if we find it. 

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I was in a similar situation when I separated from the military. I was living in a nice home, was renting though. Left town, packed all our stuff in storage and moved in with my parents. It was a bit difficult at times but well worth the wait. We were there for exactly a year when we finally closed on our home.  

 

As said, do not settle on a home. Better to go a little bigger. Also, you could be paying two mortgages, that would suck! 

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On 05/02/2018 at 2:57 PM, cbrsilv15 said:

Yeah, we have a good realtor. They have separate buying and selling agents. The buying agent has been looking hard for us, but there’s just not much on the market in the winter time. We got the closing from 30-45 days, so that’s good. We asked for an additional 2 weeks if we truly needed it for $200 a week. They countered with $50 a day. We can’t spend $800 for an extra 2 week stay. No thanks on that. We can’t complain at all though. We are getting above asking price with them paying EVERYTHING except for the $399 home warranty. That’s rare to find a buyer like that. We didn’t really have much wiggle room anyways. I guess it’s fate, just scary. 

 

Its better this way though. Last year we fell in love with a house but couldn’t do anything before selling our house. At least now we can make an offer on something if we find it. 

If you have a checklist of what you want & see a house you like, in a neighborhood you like, at a potential price that would be in your budget, it never hurts to approach with no expectations & ask the owner if there's a remote chance that they might be thinking of selling, or moving. You never know! :)

Sometimes the world works in funny ways; They might say no initially, then 2 weeks later they get offered a big promotion at work, or get transferred, or the wife/husband decides they now want a divorce, Or they have a friend, associate with a similar house that is thinking about selling...or who knows???  All of a sudden your phone number & interest becomes quite valuable to him/her. I know of people that have done this and got a house.

Do that a few times and you might get just what you want...... Better than just stressing about it, or waiting for a realtor to come up with something.

Edited by Nanotech Environmental
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I'm hoping to be in your shoes in 1 year. We are drafting plans to build a new house, but the same problem persists: when to sell the existing house. Sell it too early and I don't want to be stuck moving everything into storage. But it would be worse to not sell it and have 2 payments. That's still 12-18 month away and I'm already nervous about it, haha. So good luck. I'm happy you got what you were asking.

 

Zillow.com is full of information about houses on and off the market, price history, etc. If you aren't already using it, check it out. We have used that almost exclusively for real estate research.

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Two kids in college, we no longer needed 3400 sq ft (didn’t need it five years ago, honestly).  Signed a contract to sell on a Thursday, asked realtor to wait til Monday before putting a sign or MLS listing.  Tuesday we had a signed contract for 98% of my asking price.

 

WHAT DO WE DO NOW?!.

 

We rented a month ($1500) and after a diligent search, found a great place that’s home.  It’ll work out.  Have faith.  (Real faith!)

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