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About Buying a Home Before Selling a House in Sacramento
It is very doable to pursue buying a home before selling a house in Sacramento today.
For some lucky sellers, it is definitely possible to pursue buying a home before selling a house in Sacramento. How one goes about this depends on basically two things: the type of real estate market you’re in and your financial ratios. At the moment, we are experiencing a strong seller’s market in Sacramento. This means sellers are in the driver’s seat. We have low inventory and high numbers of buyers. It’s the principle of supply and demand at work.
Sure, we have buyers who say, my house is so beautiful, it will sell right away, so why can’t I look at buying home before selling? As Sacramento Realtors, we have to bring these buyers into reality. Move them outside of their own situation and get them to look at this through the eyes of the seller. I say to them: Ok, pretend YOU are the seller of this house and YOU have 5 offers. Four of those offers are from buyers who don’t have a house a sell, they have no contingencies. They can get a loan and close right away. And then there is YOU. You who have not even put your home on the market, and you who wants the seller to wait while you get around to it.
If you were the seller, whose offer would you take? The buyer who is ready to go into escrow and doesn’t have a house to sell? Or the buyer who has a contingency to sell her home first and doesn’t have an offer yet? Buyers stare at their feet, shuffle toes in circles. They draw their own conclusion: Um, I guess the other buyer’s offer? Right! So, why do you think the seller will want YOUR offer, an offer that could blow up in their faces? I hate to be the bad news messenger, but there it is.
If you’re thinking about buying a home before selling, you’ve got to see this from the other side to understand.
Now, say you’re in escrow already with a buyer on your house. The seller’s listing agent will want to know if that buyer has removed contingencies. Until that happens, there is no solid commitment. If you’re just gone into escrow, the buyer has by contract default 17 days to change her mind. That’s still an iffy proposition to a seller who has offers from buyers without a home to sell.
We’ve been working with quite a few buyers lately who have had homes to sell but decided in this limited inventory market that they might sell their home without finding another home, which they don’t want to do. They don’t want to be homeless. I don’t blame them. So, for them it makes sense to focus on buying a home before selling a house. Conventional wisdom says to do it the other way around, just so you aren’t tempted to dump your old house for peanuts. Contrary, in a strong seller’s market, the risk of that happening is very low to nonexistent. The hard thing is finding another home to buy. You can leave the sale up to your Sacramento Realtor, a listing agent like Elizabeth Weintraub, who concentrates on sellers and maximizing their bottom-line profit.
If you have good credit and the financial means to carry two mortgages at the same time, you can look into buying a home before selling. Bottom line, all sellers need a place to go. That’s the first question I ask people who are selling. Where will you go? Because if you’ve got no place to go, you’ve got no good reason to sell. This way, sellers are assured they will get the home they want by buying that home first.
Home Closing in Sacramento and Out of State at Same Time
Home closing in Sacramento and out of state at the same time is easy for this Sacramento Realtor.You might think that home closing in Sacramento and out of state at the same time is pretty much impossible to do but it’s a cakewalk for this experienced Realtor. It doesn’t mean I am not aware of the stress and anxiety that selling a home in one state and buying in another state can bring on because I’ve done it myself, been there and done that personally. In addition, I help clients all the time move in and out of California.
Yes, it’s a little tricky, but I’m extremely organized, and I know where the pitfalls are. I know what little innocent mistake can make your transaction blow up or get delayed. When there is more than one sale happening at about the same time, each dependent on the other, it can be a little nerve-wracking for agents without a lot of experience at this. Imagine their poor clients!
I tell my clients the last thing they want to see happen is to be sitting on top of their packed boxes, waiting for the mover, and find out the transaction is not closing on one end or the other. Chewed fingernails. Empty bourbon bottles littered about. People who didn’t smoke could be driven to take up smoking because they listed with the wrong agent and not Elizabeth Weintraub. Not a pretty sight. Cigarette butts.
Don’t let it happen to you. Hire the right person upfront. Eliminate the horror stories from the get-go. I know how to get things done. If you’re doing a home closing in Sacramento and out of state at same time, I will make sure your transactions close. I look for little problems that could occur and prevent them.
For me it is easy. For another agent, maybe not. I probably do 20 things other agents do not upon receipt of a purchase offer, stuff nobody even thinks about. I do the worrying for you. I am always planning ahead and putting together strategic plans. If you are home closing in Sacramento and out of state at the same time, I’m your Sacramento Realtor. Call Elizabeth at 916.233.6759.
The Amazing Story of a Sacramento Real Estate Miracle
A Sacramento real estate miracle does not happen every day.
No Sacramento Realtor expects her client to call, late on Sunday no less, just as The Oscars are starting, to excitedly announce he has written an offer on her listing with another agent. Yet, stranger things have happened in Sacramento real estate. Things that can make clients believe this is the way they always occur, and anybody can do it. When my client first uttered those words last night, I thought he was joking. We closed escrow in 2013, but I recall his transaction like it was yesterday, even though I’ve sold hundreds of homes since but few are a Sacramento real estate miracle.
This guy was originally a referral to me by another agent. He claimed to have overpaid for a home he owned in north Sacramento, which he needed to sell, and yes, it wasn’t worth what he owed. He also wanted to buy a home in Elk Grove during a super-heated real estate market. Selling and buying concurrently is a delicate balance, but even more so in a hot market. That scenario typically requires careful planning, including contingent offers. I took him on as a client as a favor to the referring agent, and because he needed a miracle. Fortunately, I can perform miracles.
I sold his home in north Sacramento for a lot more than it would likely appraise at to a cash buyer from San Francisco. That buyer’s agent did not know the neighborhood. Negotiated a 6-month rent back at less-than-market rent for him, so my client did not have to move. At the same time, I helped him buy my short sale listing in Elk Grove through my team member. The sellers received a number of offers for this short sale but they decided to take my team member’s offer for this client because they believed, even though it was contingent upon selling his home, that I would sell it. They had faith in my abilities. Some other agent, maybe not, but I perform. I can do a Sacramento real estate miracle.
Ordinarily, you cannot submit a contingent offer for a short sale to the bank because the bank will say come back when the home is sold. But I calculated by the time the bank raised that particular objection, I would have sold his home. And that’s what happened. Basically, this was a guy who was underwater, and I moved him from north Sacramento into a four-bedroom, two-story home in Elk Grove. All the stars aligned. It was a Sacramento real estate miracle.
You can imagine my shock when this guy said he had written an offer through another agent on one of my listings. The agent is his buddy, a long-term friend, says he, the guy who had initially sold him the home in north Sacramento. Then he apologized, said he was sorry. Well, that makes two of us. Of course, I immediately realized that he did not write an offer for any of my listings. I’m not sure which home he is trying to buy, but it’s not one of my listings, and he confused me with some other top Sacramento agent. Not only that, I checked MLS and his home was not on the market, it is not for sale, so he is not buying anything. Sellers generally do not accept offers from contingent buyers if that buyer’s home is not for sale.
I don’t see a Sacramento real estate miracle happening here.
I am very successful with selling and buying a home at the same time, in part because other listing agents in Sacramento know I will perform as well. They know my reputation. If you need to both sell a home and buy a home, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
