Patience and Selling Your House Go Hand in Hand (especially During Winter)

According to a recent study, vearly 60% of homeowners don't wait to sell their old home before buying their new home. What's the rush? Afraid you'll lose a good deal on your next home? Or maybe it's that new job or desire to move on with your life. Not everyone gets the luck of the draw with a quick home sale. And those that don't wait can find themselves on the receiving end of some serious financial challenges.

And if selling your home was tough during the Spring and Summer months, try pulling it off during the Fall and Winter seasons. The winter months are typically slower than the rest of the year. With the possible exception of Flordia and the West Coast, real estate transactions start grinding down in mid-November and don't tend to pick back up until late February. Unfortunately, many home owners can't or don't want to wait for the market to warm up a bit.

So what's the solution?

Hiring the right real estate certainly can't hurt. One who will agressively market your house come rain or shine can mean the difference between getting nibbles and getting bites.

Ensuring your home is presented in the best possible light can make or break a sale as well. O-k, maybe your're not too keen on re-painting your house or re-paving your driveway. But if you're looking for top dollar than your home needs to look like it deserves top dollar. Consider buyer incentives, professional house cleaning prior to move-in, credits at closing for items that may need to be replaced. All this makes for a more presentable product.

And although it's true that the winter months mean less competition among sellers, it also means less people who are in the market to buy.

So....consider dropping the price.

You heard that right! No one wants to lose money on the sale of their home. But do the math: let's say put your house on the market, and while waiting you move into your new home. Right off the bat you're paying your new mortgage (which may be higher than what you were paying before) with money that you don't have (cuz you haven't sold your house yet) and that means you're digging into your savings. Let's say this goes on for 5 months and you're new mortgage is 1200 bucks (a conservative estimatefor some new home purchases) a month. Whew! $6000.00 dollars out of your pocket at the get go. Hey, maybe it's NOT so bad an idea to drop your sale-price early on - especially if it means a quick sale that puts money in your pocket.

Of course you could just plan your strategy differently and sell first, and then buy. I know what you're thinking - "...So I sell my house and then I have to stay in a motel for 6 weeks until I purchase my next house, and I wind up spending the same amount of money!" A valid enough point. But if you have to spend money - at least your spending your principal and not your savings.

And speaking of buying and selling, why use a realtor at all?

Well, it goes without saying, that real estate transactions involve one of the biggest financial investments (and committments) most men and women experience in their lifetimes. So unless you're Donald Trump and well-versed in the "art of the deal", consider the folowing:

- a realtor can help you determin your "buying power" - meaning your financial reserves and your borroiwing capacity.
- a realtor probably has access to more resources that you know about when it comes to selling or buying a home
- a realtor can help negotiate such things as price, financing, date of possession and the inclusion or exclusion of repairs.
- a realtor can guide you through the closing procedure.

And while one realtor is helping you sell, another can help you with your purchase of your next home. So who said you can't start looking? You don't think that the person who's selling the house you want to buy isn't dealing with the same challenges as you? They want to sell their home as well! And just like you - they are probably open to any number of concessions that will enable you to lock in the sale in lieu of you selling your home first. A realor can help with that and a lot more.

I could labor on about other assets of a realtor when it comes to selling or buying your home, but I think you get the idea.

in the meantime, consider selling first, and buying later. It could prove to be a blessing in disguise and in the long run it wouldn't surprise me inf you saved some money in the process.