sequence for selling home & buying another

Lots of questions from me today...

Just wondering is anyone can advise on the best sequence for selling one home and buying another.

We've had our house valued and are currently getting our paper work together for the mortgage application. We were thinking we should get mortgage approval first and once that's secured then go about putting our house up for sale. But the broker we have spoken to advised we get moving on putting our house up for sale now.

While we're currently looking around and at one property particular now I worry that given we have so much yet to do on our end, its too early to be looking.

On the other hand, with so little out there right now, we don't want to put our house up for sale and sell it off without having anywhere else to go to.

Can anyone advise?

trux said:

On the other hand, with so little out there right now, we don't want to put our house up for sale and sell it off without having anywhere else to go to.

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I think you have to be prepared to sell and move out.

The seller of your new home will only consider an offer from you when contracts are signed by both parties for your current home, and you have whatever additional finance needed in place.

I once managed to sell and get contracts signed with a fairly long closing date, and then buy with a short closing, moving from old home to new on the same day, my solicitor advised I was lucky, things do not usually go that smoothly.

I had alternative accommodation lined up for a few months, should we have needed it.

I had a similar dilemma recently. One EA advised me to put my house on the market & explain to potential buyers that I had not yet found something to buy myself. Another EA told me that my house would go sale agreed very quickly & to wait to bring it to market until I had found something myself.
A good EA could get a house on the market very quickly. Make sure that all the jobs that need to be done in your own house have been done so you are ready.

Seek mortgage approval on a house of similar value to what you hope to buy in your area - then you at least have mortgage approval in principle.

It might make sense to sell your house first and rent if necessary - you are then ready to move quickly which is attractive to sellers. But what happens if you sell now at today's market price & you can't find something to buy in the next six or nine months? If you want to buy where supply is tight & prices are rising then you risk losing buying power.

In my own case bids on the house I was interested in went above what I was willing to pay. I think we've decided to wait until something we want comes along & to be ready to bring our house to the market quickly. I think supply will eventually increase in my area - and I am prepared to wait & not rush into buying something's thats not right just because supply is tight.

Good luck!

My advice put the house on the market ASAP if you want to move. A house sale will take approx 12 weeks to go through. Get mortgage approval at the same time it doesn't take long.

No seller will entertain you if you still have your own house to sell. No buyer will entertain you if you are only going to move out if/when you find somewhere to move to.
You have to be prepared to move out and rent if that's what's required.

Sell first, rent, buy again. I know the renting is another painful step, but trying to sell and buy yourselves again at the same time is a lot more pressure than selling, renting and then buying.

thanks all.

Its a difficult one. We're moving ahead with the mortgage application process to have that in the bag and are trying to decide on an estate agent so we can get the photos, brochure ready to go only to press the button to put it on the market. We've been told our house will sell quickly as its a 3-bed semi in south Dublin. Until we've those thing sorted we can't really get serious about looking at other places, although there is very little out there generally at the mo anyway...