I am writing a letter to several owners in a certain neighborhood of interest to one of my clients whose property is for sale. This is another strategy for trying to find the replacement home before it goes on market. If someone is thinking of selling now, and we can identify who that is, that gives everyone a little more breathing room.

Will let you know how that goes…

Well, you need to turn that around “What would you consider a prudent course when the purchase of you next home is dependent on the sale of your current home?”

For the most part, houses are not selling as quickly as they used to sell and this time of year, sellers would not be prudent to tie up their house in a contingent sale during prime selling season. Sellers should be willing to rent short term if needed. It’s difficult, but it’s a very bad time to buy the wrong house just because your house just sold.

A prudent course would be:

1) Get your house ready to sell and in tip top showing shape, and preferably on the market, before even looking at homes to buy. There’s no way to judge these days how long it will take a house to sell. Some sell overnight with multiple offers, but very few.

2) Be prepared to do a seller lease back in order to have your proceeds in hand, rather than a long close. You don’t want to ask for 60 days or more, only to find that the buyer can’t close. With this ever changing mortgage market, don’t risk a long close. That someone can get a mortgage today is no guarantee that they can get one, and fund, sixty days from now.

Depending on where you are selling and where you are buying, the advice would vary. If you are selling in Monroe and buying in Redmond…sell first. If you are selling in Redmond and buying in Monroe…the odds are more in your favor and a contingent offer could make sense.

The scary thing about contingent offers is that most always you will be overpaying for the house. Sometimes that is a small price to pay for the convenience of knowing where you are going. But unless you are pretty sure you are going to stay for 10 years or more, better to be prepared to rent if need be and sell first.

I still frequent RCG and enjoy reading your posts.

I’m no longer in the industry, and all is well with my daughter.

I have a question…

“It is wise not to depend on a certain sale price when buying, only to find that your best hope is not going to pan out as you had thought it would”

What would you consider a prudent course when the sale of your current home is dependent on purchasing another?

As an aside, one of the big benefits to having a Trafficgauge is that you don’t have to listen to KOMO or KIRO to get traffic information.

I often call Seattle Bubble “our sister site”. We won’t always agree, but then we don’t always agree with one another either. We often have more in common with other bloggers than with other industry professionals who don’t.

+1 to both of you for giving Tim Ellis some respect for what he has done. When it comes time to buy, many of us bubbleheads will remember who acted professionally and who acted belligerently when the status quo was challenged.

I always ask my client (buyer or seller) what sites they look at. I like to understand where they go for information and what sites they use to for their home search.

It’s fun to get their views of the different pubic real estate sites…..and gives me useful insight some of their incoming perspectives and attitudes.

I appreciate your giving me the heads up that Tim was on the radio, via email, when you heard him live. That email prompted me to head over to find the link to the show today…so thanks!

Homebuyers and home sellers want to know what’s going on out there. They stumble upon seattlebubble and find a different voice than what’s presented by industry press releases.