As the summer slowly fades away and the cool breeze starts to roll through the house, the real estate market also changes with the seasons. This time of year, we tend to see overall sales activity pick-up for a certain type of buyer – the “move-up” buyer. These home purchasers generally have owned an existing home for between 2-7 years, and they are ready to take the next step of their real estate investing journey, to find their long-term or “forever” home, a step up in some way – whether that is to a more ideal location, on a bigger lot with more privacy, more square footage, etc. For whatever reason, these homeowners no longer feel that their existing house meets their needs, and they want a change. If this sounds like you, keep reading.
The fall is an ideal time for these buyers due to less overall purchaser demand and offer craziness compared to spring real estate, meaning that homebuyers can now take a few more days to think about their purchasing decision. Instead of having to compete with 5+ offers, they may now have a shot at getting an offer accepted with a home sale contingency or an extended closing timeline – to allow adequate time and logistical planning for the big move. These little things can make a big difference to a busy person or family looking to make the transition to a new residence as smoothly as possible.
When going through the process of buying AND selling real state in parallel, there are a lot of moving parts and deadlines to manage, not to mention the physical tolls of packing up years of memories and hauling furniture to clear out space and de-personalize. I just went through this myself the past several months. It can be a time-consuming and overwhelming process, but when it is planned for (at all) in advance, it makes the toll of moving not too scary anymore…and exciting!
I have a few lessons learned from my experience as a Move Up Buyer this past month. These are especially relevant if you know you’re going to move sometime within the next year or two.
1. If you have outstanding home projects to complete, get those projects done and out of the way. Our dream home came on the market unexpectedly, and then we had a very tight timeline to finish our basement remodel that we had started years ago! That was a stressful few weeks.
2. Plan ahead- When it is time to list your existing house and start searching for a new home, the biggest factor as to how the timelines need to be managed comes down to your financing. Do you need to sell your house first to use your equity to purchase your new home? Can you pull a line of credit to make a cash offer? Can you write an offer without a home sale contingency? These are questions that your Realtor can guide you through and pull in other local professionals to discuss what your options are.
3. It’s never too early to start purging – We have a dwindling number of fair-weather weekends left this year, and it is certainly enjoyable to clean out the house and garage with the windows open and music blasting on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Now, even when you’re inside in the winter, try to tackle one small project per week. Week 1- Collect items to donate to Goodwill and St Vinny’s, Week 2- Tear down and dispose of the many Amazon boxes in the garage, Week 3- Complete exterior yard clean up and re-mulching, and the list goes on. You’ll be surprised how much you can get done if you take it one step at a time, and when you work with the Husky Homes team who will manage every step for you.
Posted by Alison Crim on
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