Real Estate: Sell first; buy later. Or Buy First Sell later

[Teacher Terry]

The last 3xs we have bought and then sold because it’s impossible to rent with 4 dogs. Only once did it take longer than expected to sell and was stressful.

 

[davebarnes]

Just be aware that the greater Denver market is really tight.
https://www.dmarealtors.com/dmar-real-estate-market-trends-report-jan-20

Where our daughter lives (just south of Stanley Lake in Arvada), it is see it at 0801 and make an offer at 0820 on the first day.

 

[travelover]

T.........it’s impossible to rent with 4 dogs. ..........

That a good point. Even with one large dog, potential landlords give you a lot of grief.

 

[Bamaman]

If you can sell your current home at the absolutely top retail price, go for it and rent at the other end.

If you just get a normal price for your home, go ahead and prepare to move and recondition your current house to improve the selling price.

We bought another house 65 miles away 3 months ago. And I've been hauling furniture and boxes ever since. We're going from 5200 square feet to 3900 square feet, and we're finally close to getting everything out of the old house. Then the reconditioning starts. We are fortunate not to be strapped with mortgages, but homeowners' insurance and utilities are eating my pocketbook. I'm just hopeful the last home will be a quick sale as it's a fabulous home.

 

[kgtest]

The house needs to be sellable, livable, and clean. It does not need the latest trends and trinkets (granite and travertine, AI enabled tech etc).

Just needs to be presentable. The market will dictate your selling price. It's either trending up, or down and you can expect something similar to the comps in the area because others will expect to pay near the prices the comps went for.

I was "lucky" I bought my first home (with a bank loan) on that obama First time tax credit. So I instantly saved $8,000. Then, I snagged an excellent interest rate. Stayed there 2 years, spend about 10k in improvements and sweat equity and sold it for $50k more than we paid due to a job change. Had the job change not forced us to move maybe we still live there today...who knows.

When I came back from that job change...for ANOTHER job change 1 year later, I tried to replicate the same thing with a more expensive home. Bought the home...lived in it 2 years, then listed it...

Barely any showings in a HOT seller's market. All the mid-level homes were selling in 1 to 2 days, ours sat for 3 months and we took it off the market before Turkey Day. Still here today. We will own this sucker outright before we move the next time. We might even be cash buyers for our next home, who knows.

The first rule of Real Estate, Location. The Second rule of Real Estate, Location... and the third rule of Real Estate is... you guessed it, LOCATION! Schools, and wal-marts.

 

[camfused]

...The house needs to be sellable, livable, and clean. It does not need the latest trends and trinkets (granite and travertine, AI enabled tech etc)...

Ok Boomer! Just kidding. It depends on who is buying houses in your price range / area. If it is mostly older people, then I agree. But, if mostly younger people, then you are competing with what they see on HGTV, and you need to make it attractive to them. So, you need to put in some of these things to be competitive.

 

[NH Hiker]

I sold/bought for my current house. I bought/sold for my prior house.

I would never sell/buy again for the following reasons:

- the market was hot. It took forever to find a house we liked. My daughter bought a house in Denver a year ago - almost every house had multiple offers, etc. Unless you aren’t picky, it might take awhile.

- all the money from the first house just sat around making no interest while finding the new house. Meanwhile I was paying expensive rent.

- I was paying for storage as we were in an apartment.

- moving twice sucks.

Find your perfect home, buy it, then sell your old home. Any time between buying and selling can be used to paint it/fix ups. Any money spent on having two houses will probably be less than rent and moving expenses.

 

[camfused]

^^^^ +1. We will be selling/buying soon, for many of these reasons.

 

[pjm-7]

I'm looking at the same situation. I have available cash to buy first and then sell my current house in the Colorado Front Range area. The location that I am looking at is way cheaper than Denver metro.

Like they say "take the money and run".

 

[FreeBear]

We’re hopefully closing on our new house in the sunny SW today. We both grew tired of the dark and cold from mid October until April or even mid June, as we saw last year.

We ruled out any place with humidity and winters below 60 F. Our budget ruled out San Diego and Hi. Not many cities of decent size left, and we didn’t want small town or rural. It’s a sellers market, so not many choices.

Visited 2 open houses the day we hit town, after google stalking a few dozen and facing financial reality. Our dream house on Zillow was a nightmare fix up in reality, so we went with house 2.

Will spend a month or two remodeling, then back to our former home just to pack and evac.

Not much of interest has listed since we contracted. Tons of out of towners buying everything, good, bad and ugly. Glad we could make cash offer. You snooze, you lose.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

We’re hopefully closing on our new house in the sunny SW today. We both grew tired of the dark and cold from mid October until April or even mid June, as we saw last year.

We ruled out any place with humidity and winters below 60 F. Our budget ruled out San Diego and Hi. Not many cities of decent size left, and we didn’t want small town or rural. It’s a sellers market, so not many choices.

Would you mind sharing where you decided on? (Or, if you don't want to name the city, could you say something like "SW New Mexico" or something?)

Thanks!

 

[FreeBear]

Would you mind sharing where you decided on? (Or, if you don't want to name the city, could you say something like "SW New Mexico" or something?)



Thanks!

Southern Arizona, suburban. Still is affordable with warm sunny winters. Just have to survive June through August heat wise. We’ll see...

We’re now learning about scorpions, in the middle of “winter”. Can’t have everything.

 

[Livin Large in MT]

Hello to all who were kind enough to respond to my inquiry re: sell first and buy later.
All these years later, I can share my experience. I write this from my new home in Salida, Colorado in the beautiful Arkansas River Vally just west of Colorado Springs.
In the end the Montana real estate market took off and we were able to sell our beautiful MT home with no trouble.
Last November, in the midst of COVID< we found this dream irrigated 10 acres with a remodelled turn of the century farmhouse and bought it knowing that the MT real estate market would help.
Despite all that, it was an unnerving process. We did get our asking price which turned out to be more than what we paid here, something I never would have dreamed possible when I wrote this post way back in Jan 2020.
All your advice was correct: it was a ton of work, way worse than I could have expected with many stressful twists and turns.
I am so glad we took this on when we did as this work would have grown impossible as we aged. You think you are cleaning out your house as you go...but there is so much you pass over or skip because you can do it later. Selling truly made us clean everything out and it was WORK. Now today I have a much smaller easier to care for home in a location closer to our kids and closer to things we want to do in winter. We know this our perfect "mid retirement" home and we also know the next move will be so much easier given everything we have done to scale down.
THANKS ALL! Now, on to have fun: Sept we are doing our bucket list trip of a lifetime, three weeks on a guided float down the Grand Canyon!!!!

 

[braumeister]

I write this from my new home in Salida, Colorado!

One of the best fly fishing areas I have ever enjoyed. Congratulations on the successful move!

And you're seriously going to love the Canyon trip. I've done it twice.

 

[W2R]

So glad this all worked out, and that you are now living in your perfect mid retirement home!