Posted on 02/08/2020 8:40:39 AM PST by Mean Daddy
My wife and I are considering selling our existing home and building a new home. Our approach is to sell the house, rent a furnished house/apartment (we have a yellow lab) while the house is being built.
We don't want to worry about having two houses. My question is, what did you do to minimize the amount of moving? Store furniture in PODs? Store semi-trailer? What tips do you have? What would you do differently? Anyone sell & build at the same time? Did you use a realtor who'd purchase your house if it didn't sell after XX numbers of days/months?
After moving several times in the last few years I told the wife, the next time we’re gonna pile all of our crap in the front yard and burn it. Fortunately we’re pretty much settled now, but that’s my advice: Sell or get rid of absolutely everything you don’t need first.
If the builder says 8 months to build, expect a year or more. Add an extra 30% to the cost they quote you. It will NEVER be what you estimate.
Also, find someone that can coordinate paint, flooring, lighting, etc.
Been there done that. Will never do it again. Your mileage may vary.
I agree. We moved all of our stuff and regretted all of it. Does not fit the new house. Sell EVERYTHING you can!
Consider putting your unwanted stuff in the front yard with for a sale sign and price tags...and then leave the house for a while.
Most of it will be stolen before you return home.
Current house is paid off and we could carry both but I worked with someone who took a $40k loss doing this when the market took a downturn. We’d like to sell our house and roll the sale monies into the building of the new house. We’ll need to take out a new mortgage for the remainder.
Sell or get rid of absolutely everything you don’t need first.
Great advice.
It’s amazing how many newly moved into homes we drive by, that have - in addition to flattened moving boxes - TONS of junk piled, at their curbside (waiting for trash pick up).
I always say (to hubby) why did they even take the time/$$/effort to MOVE that cr@p??
Do you already own the building lot and have a builder selected?
Why not have two homes?
If you are renting and have everything in storage, you are paying out a lot for that so financially, you are not coming out ahead.
Plus, most leases for rental require a year commitment and a penalty if you back out early.
If you stay where you are, you can do a few things to make it saleable and go through your stuff to weed out what you don’t want.
Seems like renting would complicate things a lot.
I’ve done this twice. Count on delays. Building a house always takes more time and more money than you can anticipate.
I tried, Lord did I try, but the wife wanted none of it. I made plenty of trips to Goodwill to dump a lot of stuff, but there was still way too much she wanted to keep.
Builder is a neighbor and a realtor who we’ve known for ~15 years. Trying to avoid buying a lot until the house as sold as well. Don’t want to be saddled with a $50k lot either until we build. Looking to build in a growing development where we live.
Seriously weed out your belongings. If you haven’t used it in a year, you don’t need it, so don’t waste storage space on it.
Same goes for large furniture, unless they are high quality all wood pieces or heirlooms, they aren’t worth storing either.
With the boomers popping off, there is so much beautiful furniture being sold off cheap on facebook marketplace and craigslist. So you can replace what you get rid of with better when the house is done if you are patient and persistent.
Spot on.
Also, find someone that can coordinate paint, flooring, lighting, etc.
Don't most builders do this? Ours did.
When you sign a contract with the builder have a penalty for being late...
I would not move...if the the market is good and people are buying...check Zillow and see how long it takes to sell the houses in your area...
If you have to you can lower the price a few grand..that it will cost you to ove and store everything..
The lesson I learned, is that the longer you are in a house, the more obsolete it is, buyers are looking for certain things, and if the house isn’t “modern” they won’t want it, and it seems the things people want in a house change every couple years.
So if you don’t intend on constantly upgrading the house, best just to move every five years or so, so the house isn’t “out of date”, or requires you to spend tens of thousands of dollars just to get it to sell.
Why not indeed? Mean already says the first home is paid for. Keep it. Do not sell it. Put it in the rental market and use the extra income while the property appreciates in value each and every year.
Was thinking about this as well but I have to check our HOA to see if there is anything to keep us from renting it out. That’s another set of issues as we’ve never managed renters.
Agree. Contract building of a house (unless you are very lucky) will be nothing but headaches, delays, extra expenses, disputes, etc.
Find the place you want and POD your way over if you can. Don’t rush it.
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