Buying a new house before selling the current one
Finding a new home before the current one is ready to sell forces homeowners to juggle two house payments and unexpected maintenance costs on an unsold property. This transition leaves many stuck paying for two homes simultaneously or risking major financial loss on a hurried sale.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Making the offer contingent on the sale of the current home
- 2Using a HELOC or home equity loan on the current house to cover the down payment
- 3Taking out a bridge loan or a second mortgage to cover dual mortgage payments temporarily
- 4Lowering the selling price of the original home to sell it faster
- 5Renting out the original home or renting out rooms in both properties to generate income
- 6Selling the new home and moving back into the original home
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Now it’s been two months and it hasn’t sold so we are making two house payments, plus utilities etc….”source ↗
“If we sell the new house we will lose a lot of money and we’ll still be stuck in our existing home with no finances to buy another house for a long time and we are in our 60’s.”source ↗
“Every day we wake up to another problem ( pool pump & sprinkler system in our original house went out yesterday) and now we are trying to figure out a way to get out of all this.”source ↗
“We found a house that ticks pretty much every box. Beautiful exterior, updated inside, still in the area so my son doesn’t have to change schools, the works. The thing is— our house isn’t ready to be put on the market right now.”source ↗
“I’m in my first house (36M), we weren’t exactly looking to move now but it was in our five year plan. How do I go about tackling this?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5How to decide if we should sell our house first?
- 5Should I buy my retirement home now or wait 5 years?
- 2Should I fix sewer line issues before selling my house?
- 4Who to hire when buying out a co-owner?
- 11How to fix laminate floor damage before moving out without losing deposit
- 2How to buy a house with family without getting trapped