When we put our condo on the market, we left it furnished, staged, absolutely clear of personal items and spotless every single day. We never said no to a viewing. Even the little things like that make a HUGE difference if you’re trying to sell.

Several of the homes we looked at buying have been taken off the market now after months with no offers - and if they’d just price more aggressively, they could have sold.

But at about the same time, a friend & her husband arranged to have a house built. They decided not to sell their existing home at that time, because they didn’t want to have to move twice.

This was just as the bubble was picking up speed.

What with Contractor Standard Time, the bubble was starting to deflate when the new house was finally built. They put their house on the market and didn’t get so much as a nibble. That was three years ago. They’re still paying two mortgages, heaven only knows how. They’ve managed to rent the old place for short periods. In the interim, the grocery store onto which the old house backed has closed, leaving a ghost shopping center…hard to know which is a worse neighbor: a 24-hour supermarket or an empty strip mall. The value of their house is now somewhere in the sub-basement–they effectively have no chance of selling.

Watching that debacle has led me to think I’ll never buy another house without selling the old house first.

In the current market, you might be okay. Just be careful of any advice that starts with ‘always’ or ‘never’.

You should do a post about your brother’s house situation - that would be pretty interesting.

Mike

What we ended up doing was to approach the builder building a new “semi-detached” across the street and working trade. We swapped our home for lot value plus a little extra cash. The builder takes our house when the new one is done. This has several advantages, not the least of which is that both of us save the real estate fees (60k plus). We essentially sold at wholesale and the bought at wholesale. We also got in early and made some changes that saved some money. (I don’t need 4000.00 in lighting.)

Not relevant to every area but if you are in an area that is being redeveloped it is worth a try. It does require getting builders to think outside the box.

The one regret I have during my experiences is that I did not keep my first home when I moved away from Jacksonville, Fl almost ten years ago. I sold that property at a slight loss (couple grand). Today it’s worth more than double what I paid for it. I let fear of the unknown drive me into a $2K loss and away from a $100K profit.
Well, I have another move coming up in the Spring of 09. This time from Virginia Beach to Boston. The stress and decision-making will still be there, but this go round I’m going to do everything in my power to keep my current home AND buy a new one in New England.

I’ve been fortunate to have made $250K in appreciation and possess a mortgage payment that is $500-$700 less than neighborhood rents. I’m not going to pass up on positive cash flow, a second property at owner occupied financing rates and the opportunity to NOT sell during market lows.

Just my two cents.
-Jeff
I’m Minding My Own Business, are you minding yours?

Of course, this is more of a silver lining than actually a great thing, but I’m trying to look on the bright side.

I would get really aggressive and creative if I was in that kind of situation. I’d do pretty well anything, including taking a big loss on house number one just so I wouldn’t lose both houses!

Our neighbors moved to Florida almost two years ago and their house has still not sold. However, they have been leasing it out fairly continuously for the last several months.

It’s scary and sad to think about how much stress they’re feeling paying two mortgages.

I know initially he tried to sell the house “by owner” but things must have gotten tighter since he recently signed on with a realtor.

I was almost planning a move myself, but after seeing these houses just sit around, I’ve decided to focus on how to improve other things locally.

We are in the midst of building a new house, and we just closed on our old house. The last thing I wanted to do what move twice. (Old house to storage, storage to new house). While the PODS company is a but pricey, we found a local company that was a good deal cheaper. It is a local move, so a local compnay worked for us. The per month storage rates are not much different than normal storage. The pickup/delivery charges are the difference. We felt it was worth it, especially since I did not have to rent a truck to get our stuff to/from the storage unit.

Here’s how we did it:

We had 12 months worth of condo mortgage payments in savings.

We had fully renovated our condo so it showed REALLY well. (We’d owned it for 4 years w/a 30/fixed plus a home equity renovation loan.)

We priced very aggressively and sold at 96% of our asking price in just over a month. We were prepared to sell for a loss of up to $20K.

We left nearly all our stuff in our condo to show it furnished and basically had 2 plastic chairs and a mattress on the floor at the new house. The buyers bought about $1000 worth of our stuff!

We negotiated aggressively on the purchase of the house - starting almost $100K below asking.

We negotiated aggressively on the sale of our condo. The first offer was from a bargain shopper that didn’t want to even put it on paper. We told him to take a hike after our reasonable counteroffer got a weak response. Within a week of that conversation, we had a second offer that was written, with a deposit, and realistic (same day as their first viewing). It was SCARY to say no to the first offer, but we knew our condo was priced correctly to sell higher.

We had a great realtor too. He brought both of our prospective buyers in — they weren’t just drive bys or random open house people. He got really aggressive when we told him after one month we were going to take it off the market and rent for a loss to wait things out. (which would have meant he’d have lost out on potentially thousands) All of a sudden, we had 2 offers.

It can be done, but you have to have a high tolerance for risk and stress, and you really have to know the local market.

Think of all of the things that have to add up: two new jobs (or a transfer), sell old home, buy new home.

Terrifying.

I have seen people ruin there finances by buying a house and not having a firm deal on their old one.

We found a great house that is perfect for my daughter and I at the end of October, 2006. I settled at the end of December (hint: if you celebrate Christmas, do NOT move right after Christmas! I’m just saying…). We were very lucky that housing was still relatively hot at that time because I put our new house on the market on 1/10/07 and accepted a contract for it on 1/14/07. Our agent was fantastic with lots of good advice and a reasonable approach to pricing - not too hight but also not too low. I also used a “handyman” company that fixed up all the little things that we had lived with for years but which needed corrected to sell, hired professional painters to just paint the entire interior off-white, and had new carpet professionally installed. It was all worth it because they saved me a lot of time and stress and I was able to sell quickly. If we had not sold it, we would have rented it out.

I purchased my current home before my previous home sold, and at the bank’s suggestion, ended up using the old house as a rental for a year and a half. What a nightmare. The first tenant I had (a family) destroyed it. My second tenant (a single mom with one adorable son) loved the house and finally made me a purchase offer I couldn’t refuse…$30k above my previous listing price and no listing agent! It worked out well in the end, but the stress of having my beautiful home and yard destroyed by the first tenants, combined with the expense of having to restore it to it’s previous state, wasn’t worth it. Next time I will sell my house first and trust that the perfect new location will present itself.

That way you also know exactly how much money you have to go shopping on the next place.

Tim

My wife and I lived in two homes in the past 10 years and have loved both of them. With that said, however, we recognized after both purchases and the emotional dust settled, that we could have found something we loved even more for possibly a lower price if we had managed our emotions (aka “house fever”) a bit better.

As for the balance of buying a new home while selling an old one, this scenario is another potential emotional trap. Financially and logically, it makes sense to sell your existing home first and do the “double move,” if necessary.

As a buyer with cash and no urgent closing deadline, you will have much more negotiating leverage and more space and time for logic to take precedence over emotion…

“It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.” ~ Seneca

Kent