Relocating to Atlanta before your house sells.

Can you buy a home in Atlanta before your current house sells?

Yes, if it's planned from the start. Begin the search months early. Keep searching between visits with live video tours. Write an offer with enough time built in for your current home to list, sell and close. And put your agent and lender on the same plan from day one. If your new loan depends on selling your old home, as it did here, the two closings are tied together.

Here's what that looked like for buyers relocating from Ohio.

Two homes, one order they had to close in

They were moving from Ohio to Atlanta. They still owned their home in Ohio, and it had to sell and close before the loan on their Atlanta home could fund.

So they had two problems at once. Find the right home in a city they didn't know yet, from another state. Then win it with an offer that depended on a house that wasn't even on the market.

A relocation is two transactions that have to land in the right order. If one slips, both fall.

Everything that follows was about getting that order right.

Buying a home out of state: months of remote searching

We started months ahead of the move.

They would fly in, and we'd see eight to ten homes in a single day. Then they'd fly home. We did that three to five times. In between, when they couldn't travel, I went to the homes myself and walked them through on FaceTime, room by room, so the search never stalled between trips.

Why the wish list changed

The list you start with is rarely the list you buy with.

Their requirements changed over those months. Some of that came from walking homes in person and seeing what photos leave out. Some came from homes I showed them that weren't on their list at all. And a lot of it came from the market, neighborhood and community information I gave them along the way, so they could judge each part of town on what living there would actually be like, not on a map from Ohio.

By the time the right home came up, they knew it. That certainty mattered, because the next step was a hard negotiation.

Making an offer before your current house is even listed

The right home turned out to be a 2020 townhouse at 899 Society Circle SW, in the Cascades community in southwest Atlanta, with four bedrooms and four baths.

The catch: their Ohio home wasn't on the market yet. An offer that depends on selling a house that isn't even listed is the kind plenty of sellers pass on.

I negotiated hard for a 60-day close, enough time for the Ohio home to list, sell and close in the right order, and got the Atlanta home under contract before the Ohio home was even listed.

Keeping both closings in order

Then the second transaction had to hold up its end. The loan couldn't close until the Ohio sale did, and underwriting raised issues along the way that pushed the closing past the original 60 days.

I work with this lender routinely, so when the file hit tough scenarios we worked them together instead of letting the deal unravel, until it was clear to close.

It closed at $278,725. Both transactions landed, in the right order.

Relocating to Atlanta with a home to sell first

If you're moving here and still own a home somewhere else, start earlier than you think. Make every visit count, and keep searching between visits. Expect your wish list to change once you see the area in person. And get your offer structured around the order your closings have to happen in, with an agent and lender working the same plan.

If you're planning a move to the Atlanta area, start your search here, or text me and tell me where you're coming from and what you still have to sell. We'll plan it backward from the day you need to be here. Here's how I help relocating buyers, start to finish.