Moving / Second House Buying Help

[JBen]

Just noticed I had it backwards on closing dates.
Take possession of the new home atleast a few days before the sale of your existing home closes. The extra interest you incur for owning two homes for a week is minimal.

When you sell/buy on the same day, you are vulnerable to late movers or "slow" movers (pucking the dog to drag it out), the movers can get held up waiting for the purchase to close. The owners may not be out of your new home until 4, 5,6pm....There's no guarantees you will get the keys to the new home before 6pm, etc. You can be under enormous stress to clean rooms (most people like to clean kitchen cabinets, the fridge at the minimum) etc, etc, etc, etc. Having access to the new home the day before or 7 days before is worth every penny.

[DGearyFTE]

TR
Looks like you have lots of input on how to go about mortgage and selling. I think you need to establish buying criteria too. Please be careful since the banks will always give you more mortgage than you need. My wife and I decided how much we wanted the new mortgage to be, then we went shopping for a house in that price range.
The last thing you want when you get into your new home is to realize you borrowed more for the mortage than you really wanted to and find that the planned renovations to make the new house your dream cost more than you can afford with a hefty mortgage payment. There are plenty of mortgage calculators. Fixed rates for 4-5 yrs are available at 2.99% or less.
Make sure you pay the cost of a home inspector. This is not a fishing trip for you to lower the cost of the new house. It is a means to identify issues that will cause you to back out of a deal (my own experience was a seller that had altered his septic field and felt that I should swallow the $18K to repair it)
Having a list with your bride of agreed mandatory and desirable options in the new house is a real good way to help reduce the stress and keep the real estate agent from trying to show you homes you have no interest in.
If you are considering doing anything to your existing home to make it more appealing, focus on the kitchen and the bathroom. Any upgrades here will give you most return on your effort and dollars spent. Remember, even if the house comes with a man cave, fully stock beer fridge, tools and a quad bike as part of the deal, if the wife doesn't like the kitchen or finds the bathroom 'icky' then there is no sale and a broken man in the driveway crying in front of the loss of his "dream cave"

[B Wilson]

I agree with the above and will add in

Negotiate with the broker on the commission, especially if they double end the deal (they represent the buyer and seller) They should take 2% off as they don't have to share the commission with the buyers agent.

Listing agents will work for 3.5 or 4 % if you agree to list at a price that will sell fast.

And get ready for their famous line "your first offer is always your best offer" We are currently have one property listed and the agent brought us a low ball offer and used that line on me. I went online and found her highest priced listing at 1.2 M and told I wanted to make an offer for 80% of the asking price. She said I was being ridiculous and the people would not even consider it. So I asked why she thought we would entertain an 80% offer and follow it up with "your first offer is the best offer" comment.

Also put in the agreement, that showings are only available per-qualified buyers , this keeps nosy neighbors out.

You might also want to consider 12 hrs notice before showings, to allow time to get the dog out of the house and clean up / put away stuff.

Have a mandatory sign in / sign out sheet

I could go on for hours...

[B Wilson]

One more thing, when the agent shows you other 'comparable" property in your neighborhood , don't just look at the listing prices, look at the actual sale prices of comparable homes. This is a lot closer to what you can expect to get.

And being a techie, don't forget to find out what internet services are available where you move to. It would suck to go from fibre to the home back to DSL or cable.

[onelessarrow]

Your current house gets one chance to make a first impression, try to make it count. Things like cleanliness, removing clutter, new paint, etc.
Don't spend large amounts of money on any improvements on the house at this point as you will not likely recoup any of that money through the sale.