Q Should I wait to find a property before I put mine up for sale?
A: It is common to fear that you might sell your home before you find a suitable one to replace it. However, this rarely happens and unless you are looking for a unique property, waiting might end up costing you thousands of dollars.
For instance, you fi nd the right property this weekend at an open house, where you realize this is your future home. Assume that the seller is asking $175,000 for the house, and you want to try to negotiate the price downward a little. Now you have two jobs; you need to talk down the price but you also need to convince the seller to take the home off the market while you put your home on the market, find and qualify a buyer, and finally have the sale closed.
Your seller will probably agree to wait a couple of months, but will almost certainly demand full price for the home. At this point, you have missed a $5,250 price reduction (according to the 3 percent national average) and in order to sell your home in two months you must aggressively attract buyers, so you price your home for a quick sale. If your home is worth $100,000, you probably need to list it for $94,000 to sell in two months (going by the national average of six months to sell).
In this situation,waiting to list your home could cost you $11,250. So in order to have better negotiating power and be further along in the selling process you need to have your home on the market before you go looking for your new home.
Jennifer Grayson is president of the Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors