Do I buy or sell a house first?

Hello everybody, Abe Safa here with Century 21 The Harrelson Group here in South Carolina.
Hope you are well; I want to show you a quick video to answer one of the most common questions that we get here as a real estate agent, it is “Do I sell a home first or do I buy a home first before I put mine on the market?”. So it’s a very commonly asked question and believe it or not a lot of sellers actually do the opposite of what they should be doing. A lot of them, and you can understand this, they want to be at peace that they have a place to go to, they want to feel comfortable that they’re not stranded and being homeless. So let me tell you what the best scenario is, I work with a lot of sellers and get a lot of offers on a property so I know how a seller thinks, so the best way to do this is as follows. If you are in a position that you can afford to have two (2) homes, and money is not an issue, time is not an issue with you then what I would do is get a home that you like and purchase it, after you close, move everything over, be nice and comfortable and then put your home on the market. That’s going to be a small percentage of people out there, the majority of you guys out there can’t afford to do that, can’t get two (2) mortgages or don’t even want the headache or the risk of having tow (2) mortgages at two (2) homes at one time having to take care of, this is for that bulk of people that are in that scenario. Now the best scenario for you to do is as follows is to get ahead and get your home ready, get your home that your living on on the market with the right agent. The reason for that is this, before you even purchase as I’m working with sellers, the majority of sellers will not even consider an offer on their property from someone who is looking to sell their home and is not under contract with another buyer it’s just too risky to get ahead and take your home on the market, too risky to go under contract with that one buyer and potentially lose some serious buyers or other buyers that could purchase your home and honestly, there’s too many variables. Deals could fall through, the buyer could change their mind, so many things that could happen. It’s just too risky for someone to go under contract with a buyer with too many unknowns out there, so want to get your home on the market, now if you’re with the right agent, they’ll know in the first 21-30 days based on the online and activity based on showings, based on feedback of how close you are to getting an offer. So once you get yours on the market, you can start to window shop and look at other properties, look at communities you want to be in, even look at specific homes and see what you like and maybe have one, or two, or three homes that you want to purchase or even consider purchasing. Now once you get an offer on yours then at that point, what I would do is go ahead and make an offer on the home that you want and then negotiate both deals at the same time so you can coincide the closing so you can make it as easy as possible for you to move. But going to that home that you’re going to buy, going to that seller and saying “we’ve got an offer we’re ready to accept, this is the closing date, these are the terms, we’re ready to make an offer on yours” that’s going to come at a lot more power behind that offer that you saying “no, let’s get ours on the market as soon as we get an offer” that seller would not even consider at that point. So, ideally is find the right agent to get your home on the market, while window shopping and as soon as you start seeing activity go up and it look like you’re about to catch a buyer, at that point you get real serious on finding the right property. Again negotiate both at the same time and you can do that. There’s a lot of things you can also add within the contract as far as contingency that give you out in case the deal falls through, there’s a lot of different ways in doing it. But by listing your home first, you’re trying to secure a buyer for that home so you know that you’re getting in to with the next home and it also gives that other seller that you’re looking to buy from, it gives them some confidence “that this people are serious” they got their home on the market, it’s going to sell. That’s going to work for most of you out there if you are in a unique situation or quite not sure exactly what’s best for you, please reach out to me, I would love to answer any question that you might have. My number is 843-360-2145. Take care.
www.abesafa.com