Learn Home-buying Tips For Moving Up or Downsizing
Changing homes locally can be a very exciting and challenging process. The average time a family owns a home is around seven years so around a lot of families who stay in an area end up selling their first home and moving to another, sometimes just a few miles away. There are many reasons people move locally: An addition to the family, a job change, divorce, children moving away from home, other life changes. If you fit into one of these categories you’ll be interested in the services of an Exclusive Buyer’s Agent. Let’s look closer at some of the dynamics of a local move:
Moving up or downsizing.
The primary reason people change homes is to have more space, but the move-up process also comes into play when a family wants to move to a better school system. Home buyers are also motivated to buy nicer homes when a job or career change makes a nicer home possible. Since you are already living in an area you often have a general idea about neighborhoods and home types, but you also benefit from having an inside line on the real estate markets in areas you consider. To choose the best home you want to have a real estate professional on your side.
The timing.
The ideal way to time a move-up purchase is to have a flexible buyer in place to buy your current home while you look for and negotiate a purchase of your new home. This way you have a good chance to be able to close on your current home and then rent the home from the new owner for a few days or weeks while you close on your new home. Unfortunately this is very difficult to coordinate.
If you are downsizing it sometimes makes sense to sell your large home and then move to an apartment or rental home briefly while you locate, negotiate, and close on your new smaller home. Even though this strategy has you moving twice it helps you clear your life of many of the belongings you might have aquired that you no longer want.
The financing.
Getting financing to make this project work is sometimes easy, however to make it work with the least total cost and the least inconvenience takes more thought and preparation. As mentioned above the best case is having a flexible buyer in place for your current home before you buy your new home. If you can arrange for the actual closing of your old home before the closing of the new home the loan process is usually easy. But, since the sale and purchase both have a lot of events which you don’t directly control it is usually a good idea to have a “plan B” in place. This would be a way to close on the new home before the old home closes. These types of loan arrangements vary by market and by lender but as an example a lender may give you a line of equity on your current home that you can use as a down payment on the new home. Alternatively a lender may allow you to purchase the new home with a large loan and a smaller second mortgage. The large loan you would keep after the sale of the old home is completed but the small loan you pay off with your proceeds from the sale of your old home. For the best answers to these decisions talk to an Exclusive Buyer’s Agent in your area.
Finding the “perfect” home.
As a second or third time buyer you face some challenges that didn’t exist when you bought your first home. The primary one is that you now probably have some very distinct ideas of what you want and what you don’t want. The problem is that a house with everything you want and nothing you don’t want may not exist. To find a home that is the optimal compromise you really need an advocate who will help you objectively review and analyze the homes you visit. That is exactly why exclusive buyers agents are the best help available for a local buyer changing homes. Since an exclusive buyer agent does not list homes and does not represent any sellers they don’t have the huge conflict of interest that regular real estate agents have. Exclusive buyer agents don’t push you into homes. They take the time to understand your needs, explore the whole market of homes, and explain all the tactical options you should know about to make your move a success.
via Changing Homes? Moving Up, Downsizing?.