houses question ...

so DH and I are going to start looking at houses soon ... but how exactly does it work?

I mean, we already own the co-op we live in ... and we def can't afford 2 mortgages ...

do we put our apartment on the market first and THEN go look at houses? or vice versa? or do both at the same time?

ps: it's really random that we're starting ... we weren't really planning on moving just yet, but we did the math last night, and we might actually end up paying LESS per month than we're paying for this apartment (mostly because of maintenance costs).

Re: houses question ...

Bumping this to the top because I'd like to see the answer as well!

Re: houses question ...

We currently rent so I can't answer this question from personal experience BUT we've looked at a couple of houses. The market seems really tricky in the sense that its such a buyers market. I'd imagine it would be near impossible to line up a purchase/sale. Not sure what you do with the mortgage situation but I'm SURE the situation happens a lot in this market. Do you have an agent?

Re: houses question ...

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Posted by Byrne2Be

We currently rent so I can't answer this question from personal experience BUT we've looked at a couple of houses. The market seems really tricky in the sense that its such a buyers market. I'd imagine it would be near impossible to line up a purchase/sale. Not sure what you do with the mortgage situation but I'm SURE the situation happens a lot in this market. Do you have an agent?

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it probably will be difficult to line up the purchase/sale at the same time...

i would start going to some open houses and see what style of house you want and then do some research on MLS or go through a realtor to find the houses in your price range...

Re: houses question ...

I'm not a realtor, but I work in real estate.

I'm going to hopefully be in your situation soon (we own a coop and want a house), so what I would do first is get an idea of how much your coop would sell for, get an idea of where you would like to move and how much of a mortgage you can afford and how much of a down payment you can afford.

I would work on selling the coop first. Coops can be extremely tough to sell (depending on your building and location) because of the coop application process and the fact that they require usually higher down payments and are usually more strict when looking at finances.

If you find a home you like before you have a buyer for the coop, ask the buyer if you can hold the closing off to accomodate your closing on your coop - they certainly don't want to sell to you if you don't have all your funds, and sometimes, the person you are buying from is waiting on their place to move to, so it could work out in the end. It just takes work.

Is there anywhere you can live temporarily if you sell the coop first?