Buying A House While Selling One

[metalskins]

So, my wife and I are getting ready to put our house on the market. I have never been in the situation where I find a house I want to put an offer in even before the current house is officially on the market, but lo' and behold, we did just that yesterday. Of course, I think our contingency offer had very little chance of getting accepted since there were multiple offers put in for the same house.

That being said, has anybody here been in the situation where they haven't yet quite sold their current home, but put a bid on a new home? Or, did you make sure your first home was completely sold before even entertaining ideas of putting offers in on the next home?

[TheMalcolmConnection]

My wife and I did this a few years back because we fell in love with the house we currently own. If you have any possibility of NOT owning two homes at once, stop what you're doing right now.

Was easily the second most stressful time of my life behind my brother dying in a car accident.

I don't know your finances, but we sat on our old house for about a year (we bought during the boom, so bought high) and then ended up selling it making $1,000 TOTAL after living there for years and doing tons of upgrades. I stress this to everyone I know in this situation, if you can help it (or you have tons of cash) do NOT own two homes at once.

[Giantone]

Originally Posted by metalskins

So, my wife and I are getting ready to put our house on the market. I have never been in the situation where I find a house I want to put an offer in even before the current house is officially on the market, but lo' and behold, we did just that yesterday. Of course, I think our contingency offer had very little chance of getting accepted since there were multiple offers put in for the same house.

That being said, has anybody here been in the situation where they haven't yet quite sold their current home, but put a bid on a new home? Or, did you make sure your first home was completely sold before even entertaining ideas of putting offers in on the next home?

LOL, yup we did it 28 years ago on our present home. We were selling a town house and having our present home built,the builder was fine becuase even if our townhouse deal fell through he could always sell the other house. We sold out TH so fast 5 days that we had to rent back for three months while the other was built.

[metalskins]

Yeah, the house that we wanted, we're not going to get anyway. There was four other offers made, and those offers didn't have any contingency attached (just straight up cash offers), so we're likely out of the running for this home. Which, in a way, I'm a bit relieved. Loved the house, but it was going to be a bit further out in the other direction from which we truly want to live, and there wasn't a lot of space available for our 3 year old to play. So, it's probably a blessing in disguise.

Plus, we really, really, need to get our house ready to sell. We live in a very sought after area of NC. Everybody wants to live in Northern Greensboro, because the schools are tops, it's "country" living, and for the most part, extremely low crime right and very peaceful. I hate that we need to move, but we're doing it for a few reasons. One reason, our in-laws live directly behind us. You just walk through the woods about twenty yards and they're right there. Now, I have never minded that, because I could always walk through the woods and borrow tools (and likewise with my father-in-law), or walk my son through the woods and let the grandparents watch him for a few minutes if the wife was out and I needed to work on something, but having my wife's parents, namely her mother, so close has been stressful on my wife's relationship with her mom. Long story on all of that, but it was finally determined that we needed to have our own neighborhood and we at least needed to be about 15 or 20 minutes away.

Another reason is that they are grading out the land right next to my in-laws, which, again, is pretty close to us. We're hearing that low-end apartment buildings are going up there, so it's time to move. It may not, technically, affect us, because we will still be at the end of our road, but you'll be able to see the apartment buildings through the woods.

The final reason for us is, we want to get out of debt. Since my wife and I had gotten married, we have had one medical bill after the other. I mean, two weeks after we got married, I went to the emergency room (yes, wife already tried to kill me then, LOL!! j/k) And since then, it's been my wife having surgery, giving birth, son being in the hospital, wife having more surgery, wife going to the emergency room, etc...So, selling our home would completely get us out of all debt. It's almost like hitting the reset button on our finances. We have planned to buy an "in-between" home for just a few years until we've saved up enough to buy the "real" home we plan to stay in for the long haul. Our ultimate goal is to have a nicer house in the area (this area, although not necessarily the same neighborhood again).