Sunday, 1 February 2015

Sell first or buy first; that is the question

Market conditions will assist in determining your plan
When you decide it's time to move; it's time to say good-bye to current home

By Mark Schadenberg
Perhaps your current home no longer meets your needs. As time evolves, this may become the reality.
If that is the case, you’re likely craving more living space and an extra bedroom as the family grows. You may also desire a better den/office situation as many home owners truly do require a dedicated spot for the computer and combo scanner/printer/Kuerig.
Over recent years, your mortar and bricks have served you well as a roof above your head and as an investment. Even though you have improved the main bathroom and made modest adjustments to the homes effective age (one of my favourite appraisal terms versus actual age) with new shingles, furnace, vinyl windows, brand new flooring in the bedrooms, and a terrific board-and-batten 14’ x 10’ stained pine garden shed with brass hinges on its swing-open doors – you have drawn a conclusion that it is time to upgrade.

Along with your Realtor (preferably yours truly) you have studied the marketplace trends and have decided to start house hunting.  Let’s inject here that the search goes very well.
With this preamble concluded, do you offer on your just-found dream home, or do you first list your current residence and cross your fingers your present house sells quickly? There is no correct answer to this question except to say, be prepared to close the doors on your current address (de-clutter, apply some paint, and clean up, and display it as a present with a bow on it). No matter what the scenario is, place your home on the market with the correct asking price. Firstly, keep in mind, most of the depreciation items (replaced) mentioned above are about 70% maintenance and 30% improvement to your home, and those improvement factors are attached to the energy efficiency of a new furnace and windows more than any other aspect.
The link below from the Globe And Mail newspaper discusses a family plot where the goal is to move from one hectic GTA market to another. The decision there is very easy – buy your new home with as few conditions in the offer as possible (especially if you are in a multiple offer picture) and list your current house ‘asap’.  Then, if there is a calendar gap between closing dates you simply arrange for bridge financing.
The story is different here in Woodstock as even a properly priced home may be ‘on the market’ for three months, and if your price is too high you may end receiving less than a (educated guesstimate market analysis report) correct value if you had listed at the optimum price initially.
 In the Woodstock-Ingersoll (WIDREB) trading area, offers ‘condition on sale’ are still very much considered the norm.
In  other words, I haven’t answered your question, except to say that if you have found the house you want, it’s time to say good-bye – place in the rearview mirror – the house your currently call home.

The National Post as included below concludes with this line:
Ultimately, it comes down to your view of the market. You want to buy first, you have to be pretty confident you can sell. Are you?

The Toronto Star publication included this idea:
The biggest benefit of selling first, aside from removing the risk of owning two homes at once, is you’ll know how much money the sale brought in, which will help determine how much you can afford to pay for the next place. As helpful as that is to know, the challenge is that you’ll find yourself in a race against the clock, with your closing date looming.
CURRENT HOME (?)

NEXT HOME (?)

LINKS:


Mark Schadenberg, sales representative
Royal LePage Triland Realty Brokerage
Woodstock: 757 Dundas Street
Call or Text: (519) 537-1553

Twitter: markroyallepage

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