House Hunting: How to ‘Buy Before You Sell’ With HomeLight

When considering whether to buy a new home before selling your current one, it’s essential to weigh the advantages and disadvantages. Each approach has its unique set of benefits and challenges.

Let’s explore the pros and cons of buying first, a strategy that prioritizes securing your next home before parting with your current one. This can offer remarkable convenience, but it’s not without financial and logistical considerations.

“Unless you have the help of a ‘buy before you sell’ program, buying first can be risky,”  Marion explains. “Sellers need to be comfortable carrying two mortgages until the main home sells. And when you’re selling your home, sometimes you’ll get a contingency on sale when somebody is offering to buy your house and also selling their house. You’ll want to carefully assess your financial situation to make sure that you can handle those two mortgages and have a backup plan in case your home doesn’t sell as quickly as you hope.”

On the other hand, opting to sell your home before buying a new one also presents a distinct array of pros and cons. This game plan can give you some financial confidence, but may lead to temporary housing challenges and rushed decisions in your subsequent home purchase.

While there are benefits and drawbacks to both these options, there is a modern way to streamline the entire transition and reduce obstacles and concerns. HomeLight Buy Before You Sell can give you the best of both worlds.

How does HomeLight Buy Before You Sell work?

HomeLight’s Buy Before You Sell program simplifies your transition to a new home. It allows you to purchase your next home before selling your current property.

“This balancing act of trying to sell and buy at the same time affects nearly every homeowner,” Sloss says. “We’ve made the process of ‘buy before you sell’ super streamlined so you can focus on finding the right home and getting the best deal possible — without worrying about contingencies or moving deadlines.”

Here’s how it works in three steps:

1. Apply in minutes with no commitment: Find out if your property is a good fit for the program and get your equity unlock amount approved in 24 hours or less. No cost or commitment is required.

2. Buy your dream home with confidence: Once you’re approved, you’ll have access to a portion of your equity in your current home. You’ll be able to submit a competitive offer with no home sale contingency at any time — regardless of how long it takes to find your dream home. Our near-instant Equity Unlock Calculator lets you estimate how much equity we can unlock from your current home.

3. Sell your current home with peace of mind: After you move into your new home, you will list your unoccupied home on the market to attract the strongest offer possible. You’ll receive the remainder of your equity after the home sells.

“When you’re hunting around for your dream home, you may find it tomorrow, you may find it in three weeks, or it may take six months or a year. You don’t know,” Sloss says. “But if you get pre-approved for Buy Before You Sell, and you hold that in your tool belt or in your back pocket, you’re ready to go as soon as you find that perfect home. And that is going to give you an edge when you need to make an offer in a competitive situation.”

»Get started today at this link: homelight.com/buy-before-you-sell

Benefits of HomeLight Buy Before You Sell

• Flexibility in timelines: No need to match up the sale and purchase dates of your move perfectly. You’ll have breathing room to plan without feeling rushed or pressured.

• Financial peace of mind: HomeLight Buy Before You Sell can remove the stress of potential double mortgages or dipping into savings to bridge the gap between properties.

• Enhanced buying power: In a low-inventory or competitive market, a non-contingent offer can stand out and get the seller’s attention, increasing your chances of landing the home you want.

• Sell for up to 13% more: After you move, you can list your old home unoccupied and potentially staged, which traditionally leads to a higher selling price, according to HomeLight home sale data.

“Staged homes sell for more than homes that are sold with the people still living in them,” Sloss says, referring to a recent HomeLight survey of more than 1,000 top agents across the country. “And you can imagine that because if you’re going to buy a home — and you see a beautifully staged house or even just a clean house that’s totally vacant — you can project what you want onto it rather than viewing someone else’s house that they live in.”

Sloss also notes that the benefit of enhanced buying power is especially valuable in a low-inventory market. “If you are looking to buy a home, you want your offer to be as competitive as possible no matter what,” he says. “You want to remove as many contingencies as you can. And the most important impactful contingency that you can remove is your home sale contingency.”

HomeLight was founded in 2012 and has an accredited A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. The company has earned a 4.8-star Google Review rating from past clients. You can read more customer testimonials at this link.

Curious What Your Home Is Worth?

Get a near-instant real estate house price estimate from HomeLight for free. Our tool analyzes the records of recently sold homes near you, your home’s last sale price, and other market trends to provide a preliminary range of value in under two minutes.

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Along with HomeLight’s trusted and proven platform, there may be additional companies that provide Buy Before You Sell programs in your area. A few examples include:

• Knock: Knock’s Home Swap program assists homeowners with the complete buying and selling process, from helping clients locate and finance a new house, to covering preparation costs so clients can sell their old property for the best price.
• Orchard: Formerly known as Perch, Orchard provides a program called Move First that lets customers buy and settle into their new homes before they sell their old ones. The company promotes the process as the “modern way to buy.”
• Flyhomes: Flyhomes strives to help clients buy a home with less stress using their integrated mortgage and brokerage programs, such as their Cash Offers platform and Trade Up services, which are designed to help customers buy before they sell.
• Homeward: Homeward also offers a buy before you sell program advertised as “Move now, sell later.” The company works to provide a broader window to sell customer homes for the best price, along with an offer that gets homebuyers into a new home faster.

See company websites for specific program details, fees, and service locations.

Start your home-hunting journey with confidence

As you stand at the threshold of buying a new home while selling your current one, HomeLight’s Buy Before You Sell program can help you step forward with confidence and peace of mind.

“It helps you secure your dream home before someone else does without having to sell your current home first,” Marion summarizes. “You can possibly get a higher price for your home, or you might just want the peace of mind of knowing that you can move into your new home without the stress of selling your original home.”

The right strategy and support can transform the challenge of buying and selling simultaneously into an opportunity for a smoother and more rewarding transition.

At HomeLight, our commitment is to help make your real estate journey simple, certain, and satisfying. Whether you’re looking to buy before you sell or just want to consult with a top real estate agent in your city, we’re here to help

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