Want to sell your home but worried you won’t be able to find a new one? READ THIS.

The 3 step plan to getting into your next home. 

The key to success in finding your next home is not only taking action on these steps, but also completing them BEFORE you list your home. Work with your Realtor to navigate each of these steps and make sure the plan is completely solid before you put the home on the market and you’ll be ready for a smooth sale on both transactions. 

Step 1: Get Pre-approved

Buying your next house all begins with securing the proper funding. If you don’t plan to buy your next house with cash, then you will need to work with a lender to understand what you will be able to realistically borrow. Doing this early on in the process gives you proper time to address any feedback that the lender has for improving your lendability and also allows you to put numbers behind the conversation in step 2. 

Step 2: Understand what your money will get you

Once you have an idea of what you will realistically be able to borrow, it’s important to work with a Realtor to define your next home’s criteria. Once that is done, I think the best way to understand how realistic your criteria is, is to have your Realtor pull recently sold homes in your desired area with your criteria applied. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Viewing this information before you list your home will let you make sure that the homes within your budget will actually work for you – something you don’t want to be doing after you already sell your property. 

Step 3: Pick a post-sale housing strategy BEFORE listing your home

This could be the most important step of them all. No matter how you look at it, finding your next dream home isn’t an easy process and timelines are unknown. The ultimate goal of this step is to make sure that you always have a place to call home and that you aren’t scrambling for a place to live after you sell. There are a few strategies that can be deployed to help with this. 

Strategy 1 – Demand a leaseback: When you sell your home, you can request that the buyer provides a leaseback to you for a predetermined amount of time. The goal of this is to give you extra time to find a replacement house without having to move out of your current home. This, in my opinion, is one of the best strategies out there, but it takes the right market (like what we have been in since 2021) to command terms like this from a buyer.

Strategy 2 – Purchase a home before you sell: If you are fortunate enough to have enough cash or borrowing power, you may find that you want to purchase a new home before you sell your old one. This is a great strategy as far as securing a new home goes as you shouldn’t have any “disruptions” to worry about. However, depending on your situation, it could be a vulnerable situation to find yourself in if for some reason you had to carry two mortgages for a significant amount of time. You will need to work with your Realtor to evaluate the best decision for you.

Strategy 3 – Line up a friend or family member’s home to stay in until you find a home: This isn’t an ideal situation, but it is a fantastic backup option in my opinion. Having a place lined up at a friend or family member’s house is a secure and affordable option to consider should you need extra time to find a new home after you sell your old one.

Strategy 4 – Short term airbnb or rental: Similar to Straetgy 3, this is another great backup option should strategy 1 and 2 not work for you. Securing a short term rental will give you some extra time to make sure you find the right home in your buying process.