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When you move to a new city with new job, when do you sell your old house?
When do you put it up on the market?
The day you get the job offer, the day you arrive, or after few months of living/working in the new city?
What is your typical house sell/buy schedule?
Well...Spring and Summer are good times to do it. When I last moved, I held my house for 2 years and rented it out. I had to as the housing market sucked. There's a lot of variables to consider though. A lot depends on the neighborhood, school district, taxes, what you owe on the mortgage, salary, etc.
I put mine on the market a couple of weeks after I had an accepted offer on my new house. I was still living in my old house on the weekends. I think this was about three weeks or so after I had started my new job. In my case the new job was two hours away, so I was able to do the drive back & forth on the weekends for a while. It got old pretty fast though.
It depends on the situation, but I would say the way we just did things is the most hilariously backwards way of moving that I've ever heard anyone attempt.
To start the year, I knew we wanted to move to Vegas this year and it has been a goal of mine for about a decade, but we decided we're doing it this year regardless of anything else. So I started selling stuff on eBay (more than $10,000 and counting), giving stuff away, and generally decluttering, organizing everything I had, even scanning all paperwork to digital to reduce what I'd need to move physically. It was a massive project that is still ongoing but has taken literally all year doing it almost full-time (I run my company remotely and I'm more passive in its day to day operations by this point).
I then hired a moving company, made the deposit, and set a date for August 1 pickup with 5 months of storage, figuring we'd end up in an apartment first and then buy a house, but need our stuff stored meanwhile. Keep in mind, I hired the moving company... before I had anywhere specific in mind to move to.
Then I went to Vegas, bought a house in Henderson when we went specifically to see a new housing community, and the house is finished with construction in August.
After I had already agreed to buy the house, then I got my house ready to list and listed it yesterday. So I would say if you could possibly do anything more backwards than that, I don't know, it seems unlikely! I wouldn't recommend this strategy to most people, though, it was kind of like "ready-fire-aim!"
Well...Spring and Summer are good times to do it. When I last moved, I held my house for 2 years and rented it out. I had to as the housing market sucked. There's a lot of variables to consider though. A lot depends on the neighborhood, school district, taxes, what you owe on the mortgage, salary, etc.
This.
OP, there's no single perfect answer. A lot depends on what stage you're at in the job transfer and whether you already know where you're moving. The times I've done this it was different each time, but here's an idea of an approach I'd take. Remember, there can be a hiccup at any point that could shift everything.
1. Decide to transfer/get new job and started looking. Start sorting and getting the current home ready to list. You'd have to do this regardless, so why not get ahead of it? This could go on in the background during the rest of all this.
2. Once a job seems likely, start looking at the real estate market in that location. What you want/need, what you may need to spend to get it. Also, check in to the real estate market where you are to get a sense for how quickly homes are selling and an idea how marketable yours is.
3. Accept the new position, decide whether to rent or buy. Considering the real estate market in your current location might play in to that. If buying, get loan pre-approval to know the budget. Getting financing takes longer these days so don't forget that.
4. List the current house. Depending on the new job report date and when you actually have to move your belongings, decide if you will leave it furnished or empty, whether you need to store belongings or not.
5. If buying in the new location, contact a realtor with a list of possible places already found that were in the budget to look at.
6. Here's where everything gets really variable.
a. Whether or not your current home has sold or not.
b. Whether you've found a new house or not.
At least you are prepared to jump once something shakes loose. Your current house is listed and ready to sell and could at any moment. You know when your household stuff will need to be moved or stored. You have possible places to buy, or if not, you know where you could rent in the mean time.
One time I did this my current house sold in 20 minutes after hitting the market. I was free to buy in the new location and did. Another time I did this I knew my current house wouldn't sell quickly due to a very quiet tiny town market. I had to be prepared to keep paying that mortgage until it did. I left it empty, belongings were stored. Mortgage wasn't too steep, but it affected what I could afford to rent. I rented a cheap furnished place in the new location. It took just about a year to sell. In the mean time, I kept an eye on the real estate markets in both locations through realtors. Once the old house was under contract I got ready to make an offer on a place in the new location.
Last edited by Parnassia; 05-04-2019 at 01:39 PM..
Hmm, I've actually found from what everyone has said financing is faster than ever. I remember back in the day, if you sold a house, it wasn't sold money in hand for about 60 days if it wasn't a cash offer, now they're approving financing in 30 days or less. I was shocked how fast it is. One reason I loved to pay cash in the past was I could close in 14 or 15 days, compared to 45-60 with financing, but that's no longer true. I'd say they're working faster than ever, and I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's more automated now.
I agree though it's always good advice if you're even THINKING about moving, even just a 20-30% chance, why not start the decluttering process now? If you don't move, you'll still be thankful you minimized your stuff and got down to a more manageable inventory of things. I haven't regretted doing it at all, even though I started months before we were looking to buy, and it has put an extra $10K cash in my pocket. Not that much compared to all of the expenses, but every bit helps anyway and I got rid of all that stuff I didn't want, so it was kind of a win-win (except for "lose" on my time! LOL). You could also start boxing things you know you want to keep, but don't need access to, if you think you are definitely going to move in the next year or two. There are collectibles I have that I'm not willing to part with, but I didn't care if they went into boxes / storage.
The best thing I did and what has made this process so much less stressful -- even though it has been incredibly stressful still -- is I started decluttering, selling, and even boxing in January, even though I knew we weren't going to be looking at homes until at least April and possibly not until October! I wasn't sure, though, our timeline was dependent on a bunch of moving pieces. So I decided, let's just start this early because I won't regret being over-prepared. I am really thankful I did that because by the time we decided to list our house for sale, I was already 70% packed and by the time we actually listed this last Thursday, more like 80% packed. The remaining 20% is mostly necessities and kitchen stuff.
Hmm, I've actually found from what everyone has said financing is faster than ever. I remember back in the day, if you sold a house, it wasn't sold money in hand for about 60 days if it wasn't a cash offer, now they're approving financing in 30 days or less. I was shocked how fast it is. One reason I loved to pay cash in the past was I could close in 14 or 15 days, compared to 45-60 with financing, but that's no longer true. I'd say they're working faster than ever, and I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's more automated now.
The "financing" I was referring to was getting a mortgage in place for a new house, not getting the proceeds from a sale. If the place you sell generates more than the cost of the new house, great. Doesn't always work that way. Last time I did this was 2017. Despite excellent credit, solid income, no questions on any financial report, and for an amount that was modest, it took weeks just to complete all the lender's ever-expanding paperwork requests. But, YMMV. It's a good idea to consider that it may take longer than you expect.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Financing is faster than ever. Ask anyone who works in that field. Lennar literally gives you 30 days to secure financing and most lenders will approve you in a few weeks. It’s WAY faster than it used to be, so to tell someone the opposites is bizarre. Not only do we have more online sources but lenders always respond under 30 days now or you need to switch lenders. I spoke to both of my real estate agents about this too and told them, I thought 60 days? They said no, it’s gotten much faster, 30 days now.
Hmm, I've actually found from what everyone has said financing is faster than ever. I remember back in the day, if you sold a house, it wasn't sold money in hand for about 60 days if it wasn't a cash offer, now they're approving financing in 30 days or less. I was shocked how fast it is. One reason I loved to pay cash in the past was I could close in 14 or 15 days, compared to 45-60 with financing, but that's no longer true. I'd say they're working faster than ever, and I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's more automated now.
I agree though it's always good advice if you're even THINKING about moving, even just a 20-30% chance, why not start the decluttering process now? If you don't move, you'll still be thankful you minimized your stuff and got down to a more manageable inventory of things. I haven't regretted doing it at all, even though I started months before we were looking to buy, and it has put an extra $10K cash in my pocket. Not that much compared to all of the expenses, but every bit helps anyway and I got rid of all that stuff I didn't want, so it was kind of a win-win (except for "lose" on my time! LOL). You could also start boxing things you know you want to keep, but don't need access to, if you think you are definitely going to move in the next year or two. There are collectibles I have that I'm not willing to part with, but I didn't care if they went into boxes / storage.
The best thing I did and what has made this process so much less stressful -- even though it has been incredibly stressful still -- is I started decluttering, selling, and even boxing in January, even though I knew we weren't going to be looking at homes until at least April and possibly not until October! I wasn't sure, though, our timeline was dependent on a bunch of moving pieces. So I decided, let's just start this early because I won't regret being over-prepared. I am really thankful I did that because by the time we decided to list our house for sale, I was already 70% packed and by the time we actually listed this last Thursday, more like 80% packed. The remaining 20% is mostly necessities and kitchen stuff.
Spot on with the decluttering. What a hassle! I'm moving in 4 weeks and feel overwhelmed with all the crap I have to get rid of. I'm not moving to another city, so that makes it easier, but it is a ton of work. I'm vowing to minimize my stuff after this move. I can't keep dragging around stuff I don't use. Besides, I have to leave room in my new house for a significant other if I ever meet her.
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