Can't buy until you sell. Can't sell until you know where you're going.

"What if we lose the house we want?"

You find the right home. Then you find out the seller won't wait for your house to sell, or another buyer with no house to sell gets there first. That's the fear that keeps most people from even starting.

The answer isn't to hope the timing works out. It's to know before you shop how you'll make an offer that can win: what your current home is likely to sell for and how fast, what you can afford to offer before it sells, and how the offer gets structured.

Done right, the order can even run backward. I've gotten buyers under contract on their next home before the one they were selling was even listed.

"Where do we live in between?"

The other fear is the gap: your home has closed, the next one hasn't, and you're living out of boxes somewhere. Sometimes a short gap is the right trade. Most of the time it's avoidable, if the two closings are planned together from the start instead of one after the other.

Same-day closings

Sell in the morning, buy in the afternoon. Your sale funds your purchase, and you never own two homes or none. On paper it's simple. In practice it means two closing attorneys, two lenders, a buyer and a seller who all have to be ready on the same day, and somebody has to hold every one of those threads. That's my job.

Staying in your home after closing

Your buyer gets the keys on paper, and you get a few more days or weeks to actually move. It has to be negotiated into your sale before anyone signs, not asked for as a favor afterward. Done early, it's often the difference between a calm move and a week in a hotel.

An offer tied to your sale

You offer on your next home on the condition that yours sells. When buyers have plenty of homes to choose from, it's far less of a deal-breaker than in a hot market, and plenty of sellers will accept it. When one won't, that's not the end of it. I have several ways of structuring an offer to get around it and still get it accepted. I won't list them here. They work better when the other side hasn't read about them.

Buying first

Some financing lets you buy before you sell. It costs more, and it isn't for everyone, so it's a conversation to have with a lender before you fall in love with a house, not after.

How I put it together

We start with your current home: what it will likely sell for in today's market, how long that usually takes in your ZIP code and price range, and what you'll net. That number decides everything else. Then we choose the option that fits, and plan both closings on one calendar, with a lender I work with routinely and the closing attorneys on both sides.