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Tips for Transition Homes After a Residential Sale

With a highly competitive seller’s market in the Seattle Metro area, homebuyers have had to get creative to find and secure homes.

However, many home sellers that wish to move into a new home are also faced with similar challenges. For example, what do you do if you sell your home before you have secured another place of residence? Well, if you find yourself in this predicament don’t panic. Here are a few different ways to handle this situation:

1. Negotiate a Lease Back: What does this mean? Well, typically sellers are expected to vacate the property prior to closing, however we are seeing more buyers offer a faster closing, but then allowing the seller to live in the house for up to 120 days. This is a great option for buyers that don’t need to move in right away and for sellers that want to sell their property but haven’t found a new place yet.

2. Find a Short Term Rental: Though the prospect of moving twice is rather daunting to most folks, it might be worth it. If you can get top dollar for your home now you should consider this move. Consider putting your possessions in a rental space and crashing with a relative or close friend for a bit. You want to avoid imposing yourself on these people, so make sure that you are welcome to do so and perhaps even offer to pay them rent for your time of residency. If you can work this out it puts you in a great position while negotiating on your next home.

3. Write a Long Contract: Typically, the under contract period, or the time between a Seller and Buyer executing a mutually acceptable contract and closing, ranges from about a month to 45 days. However, in order to give the seller a greater comfort zone we are seeing more and more contracts with ‘Accepted Contract and Closing’ periods ranging from anywhere from 90 to a whopping 120 days. This is a great way for buyers to appeal to sellers that have multiple offers on their home but have yet to find their next home. The more flexible you are with a seller in this situation the better.

If you’ve sold your home or are about to sell your home but have yet to land your next home, don’t worry. You have options and should consider some of these methods to handle this stage in the process.


Andrea Kinnison is an analyst for Better New Homes: http://newhomes.move.com/