6 Ways to Buy Your Next Home Before You Sell
Selling first feels safe, but it can rush you into the wrong house. These are the strategies that let you buy your next Phoenix home first.
If you’re thinking about selling your property to buy a bigger home, downsize, or relocate to a different part of Phoenix, I want to walk you through the biggest mistake most home sellers make: selling their house first.
It sounds safe, right? For many people, it even feels like the only option because they don’t have extra money to buy first and sell later. But you might have more opportunities than you realize. Let me walk you through the options to buy first, and if none work, how to sell without rushing into a home you’re not excited about.
1. Buy with cash. If you’ve got the money saved up, this is the simplest path. Buy the new property, then list your home. Homes almost always sell better vacant. We can stage it and let buyers show it anytime. A vacant, staged home that shows beautifully tends to bring more money, so if cash is available, this is a great way to go.
2. Home equity line of credit. If you’ve got equity in your current property, this is usually the cheapest and quickest buy-first strategy. We work with lenders who offer low-cost lines of credit, and some can approve in about a week. You pull equity out as a line of credit and use it as the down payment on your next home. After you’ve bought the home you love, we sell your old house. With the proceeds, you pay off the line of credit (HELOC), and the extra equity can go toward a loan recast on your new mortgage.
A recast applies that lump sum to your new loan and reamortizes it, which lowers your monthly payment at the same interest rate. We just have to set you up for it correctly at the start, and our lenders handle this regularly.
3. Bridge loan, or buy before you sell. This works if you have equity. We partner with companies that take one of two forms: a loan, or they buy your house for cash. With the cash-offer version, you get your home sold up front, typically around 70% of value, so you can write non-contingent offers on the home you want. Once you’ve bought, we list your old property, sell it for full market value, and you collect the rest. The convenience runs about 3% depending on the lender, but because we fix it up, stage it, and sell it vacant, sellers usually net more than that.
If you don’t have much equity or can’t qualify, that’s okay. This is where we get creative and lean on 2,500 homes sold over 25 years to negotiate strong terms for you.
“Selling first feels safe, but it’s the one move that quietly boxes most sellers into a home they don’t really love.”
4. Negotiate a rent-back into your sale. We list your property and start shopping at the same time. As offers come in, we negotiate a lease-back, maybe a longer escrow plus 30 days after closing, which can buy you around 90 days to find the right home. The trade-off is that we either need a buyer who isn’t in a hurry or we take a small discount for asking them to wait.
5. Sell, then bridge into temporary housing. Another route is to sell your home first and move into a short-term spot while we find your next one. We’re well connected to month-to-month and furnished rentals all over the valley, and in Phoenix, you can sometimes get those affordably, especially in summer. It’s a little more hassle since you move twice, but the numbers often come out slightly better, because the buyer gets the home when they want it and tends to pay a bit more.
6. Close on both at the same time. The last option is trickier but doable: a simultaneous close, where we sell your home right as you buy the new one. This works especially well with new builds, where the builder is flexible and we know the closing date in advance. It also works if you’re buying a home that isn’t hard to find and you have some flexibility.
If you’re looking to sell and buy at the same time, the right option depends on your equity, your timeline, and what you qualify for. Let’s figure out which fits you best, no charge. Call or text me at 480-378-6700, email me at contact@gluchgroup.com, or visit www.gluchgroupusa.com.
