Buying and Selling a House at the Same Time: 5 Projects to Promote a Quick Sale

When selling a home and buying a new house at the same time, a quick sale is critical. If you're using equity from your current home to put a down payment on your next house, you can't afford to wait months for a buyer to make an offer. You need a fast sale and high offers, but that doesn’t come without a little effort. Here’s what you can do to make it happen.

How Buying and Selling at the Same Time Works

Sellers have a few options when buying and selling at the same time, but in buyer's markets, settlement contingencies are a popular choice. With a settlement contingency, your offer on a future home is contingent upon the closing of your existing home. If your sale doesn't settle within the contingency period, you can pull out of the deal.

Settlement contingencies can put you at a disadvantage in certain markets, but it's an attractive option because it lets you use sale proceeds to pay the down payment on your next home. To do that effectively, you have to know how much you'll make from selling your home. To calculate sale proceeds, subtract your outstanding mortgage balance, agent commission, fees and taxes, and other expenses from your home's estimated sale price.

How to Improve your Home So It Sells Faster

If your current home doesn't sell within the contingency period, you could miss an opportunity to buy your dream home. That's why it's so important to attract serious buyers and secure a quick sale when buying and selling at the same time.

As Time points out, the most important thing you can do to sell your home quickly is to price it right. However, focusing on pricing alone could land you in a race to the bottom with disappointing results. To sell quickly without taking a financial hit, improve your home so it appeals to serious, qualified buyers. Not sure which projects make an impact? These five suggestions are a great place to start.

1. Fix Major Issues

Repairing a leaking roof or ailing HVAC system may not drive up your home's listing price. It will, however, prevent your home from scaring away serious buyers or attracting lowball offers. In addition to repairing costly structural and mechanical problems, scan your home for minor repairs to complete before listing. Spending a day tightening loose door knobs and sagging gutters ensures your home makes a good impression on buyers.

2. Clean and Declutter

Cleaning and decluttering are regularly cited as the most important things to do when selling a home. Clean, clutter-free homes show and look bigger than homes that appear lived-in. When selling your home, go beyond standard tidying and pack up extraneous furniture, knick-knacks, books, and decorations to be stored off site so your home looks open and spacious. You’re best off hiring a cleaning service to get your home really sparkling. Depending on the service, you may even be swayed toward hiring a local housekeeper for your new home, which, unlike a one-time deep cleaning service, maintains general upkeep of the property. The average cost of hiring a housekeeping service is around $100 per session.

3. Paint

Repainting isn't just about covering up a gaudy accent wall or scratches in the paint. Freshly painted walls look cleaner, brighter, and more inviting than walls that have faded and dulled with time. As Lifehacker explains, fresh paint also covers up odors that settle in the walls of a home.

4. Improve Curb Appeal

Your home's curb appeal makes or breaks its first impression. To wow buyers and get them in the front door, spend time greening up your lawn, laying fresh mulch around landscape plants, power washing driveways and walkways, decorating the front porch, and completing other projects to increase curb appeal.

5. Modernize the Kitchen

The kitchen tops lists of rooms buyers care about most, but if your kitchen is sporting builder-grade cabinets and outdated appliances, it's unlikely to impress serious buyers. Updating kitchen cabinets, appliances, lighting, and hardware (expect to pay $2 - $20 per knob) brings your kitchen into the modern era without the expense of a full remodel.

Selling and buying a home at the same time can be disastrous if your home languishes on the market for too long. If you need to move but can’t sell, you’re stuck paying for two homes or dropping your price. These five projects help you create a stronger first impression and eliminate deal-breakers so buyers don’t have to think twice about buying your home.

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