# New house closing date April 2012. OK to list current house in January 2012?



## canabiz (Apr 4, 2009)

Folks, we have recently signed an agreement to purchase a new build with a closing date of April 2012.

We will sell our current house prior to moving into the new place. I am thinking of de-cluttering and moving some stuff into storage in December (holiday month so it would be slow for real estate anyway) before listing our current house in January of 2012. We will try to sell on our own before listing with an agent, if necessary.

That only gives us a window of less than 3 months. Do you think it is a bit tight? I am confident our house will sell due to its location and we will put a very competitive price but you never know what's happening in this market. I hope the mortgage rates continue to stay low to entice buyers. 

Did any of you close your new house in the spring and if so when did you put your previous house up for sale? I am hoping for a late March closing date as we only need to crash at our friend's place for a few weeks before moving into the new dig (if all goes well with the new build, mind you) but for now we are just taking it 1 day at a time.

Thanks.


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## steve41 (Apr 18, 2009)

I think that is what 'conditions' are all about. In this case, the conditional aspect of the sale is occupancy date.


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

I see you are in Ottawa our market is much softer than a few years ago due to gov cut backs etc.

If your current house is in the $200-300 range I think that is plenty of time. $300-$400 range, that's about the right amount of time, $400+. Prepare to stress!


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

we closed new house april 2010 and had to carry both houses 10 weeks as the buyer had to sell their house.We listed in February as well.Too many factors to guess but be sure to get your bank to approve you for both mortgages so you won't stress too much.


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## joncnca (Jul 12, 2009)

if i was in your position now (as i once was) i would probably list now (ASAP), and put in conditions or figure some other way to bridge the gap, because personally i think it's emotionally draining and totally stressful to think about carrying both residences, if you're not in a position to do so. i deal with stress at work every day, but it's not like the kind when you're holding onto a paperweight worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, which may as well be worth nothing unless someone will buy it from you...meanwhile, you owe someone ELSE hundreds of thousands of dollars!

i listed a lakefront condo in toronto in march 2010, expecting it to sell quickly. it did not. i also had a new townhouse (new construction) entering occupancy in november 2010. i didn't expect to take nearly 5 months to sell, i was on the 31st floor, lake view, amenities, the works. the whole thing weighed heavily on my mind because...well, frankly i couldn't afford to carry both (and didn't want the added stress).

the condo finally sold in august, and it was a huge load off my mind,i didn't even care that i was homeless! (cause they wouldn't wait 2 months to move in) 

anyway, i called around and rented a room for 2 months before the new townhouse was ready for occupancy in november. this kind of depends on your personal family situation, i was 26, unmarried, and comfortable with renting a room in a house with 3 others. it was only 2 months, and i actually got some great roommates, and got the roommate experience that i never got in university! win-win! haha


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## canabiz (Apr 4, 2009)

Good advice everyone, thanks.

Jon, can you elaborate on your post a bit if you don't mind? 

1. Did you try to sell the condo on your own? If yes, looking back, did you wish you went with a realtor from the get-go instead?

2. Did you sell it close to your original asking price? If not, again looking back, did you wish you priced it differently from the get-go?

3. Did you get any offers (conditional or otherwise) during that 5 months that you refused? If yes, again looking back, did you wish you should have accepted said offer(s)?


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

Some notes from my experience.

Do not accept someone else's purchase agreement on condition of sale of their house, it's basically a get out of jail free card.

Price competitively VERY competitively, you won't remember a $5k loss.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

James we got full price by accepting their condition , they did offer $10,000 under list but we would not agree to the condition on that price.If somebody wants to put a conditional offer in they have to be prepared to pay for it.


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

I got bit by 2 offers with conditions as they backed out, it's a get out of jail free card just don't forget it.

They can just say "We can't sell forget it" and now you are stuck holding the bag....


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## canabiz (Apr 4, 2009)

You brought up a good point james. This will be my first home sale so I obviously don't have any previous experience doing that but my colleague told me his realtor advised him to never take that conditional offer as that may put other more serious offers away and like you said you could be dealing with time wasters.

Obviously, if an offer is conditional upon inspection and/or financing then it's a whole different kettle of fish.

That being said, I do have a couple of questions for you (or anyone else who knows)

1. When you accept a conditional offer (regardless of the type of conditions), can you still entertain other offers (conditional or otherwise) or are you *locked in* to the first offer until it goes or does not go through? 

2. If the answer is No to #1, what prevents us from entertaining other offers ? Will the buyer with the conditional offer give us a written agreement and said agreement is considered legally-binding contract?

I hate to leave people hanging but if I do accept a conditional offer and something else more concrete and straightforward comes along, I will have to evaluate my options.


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

You can put conditions of your own in, so yes you can still entertain offers.

Typically how it works is that the seller may offer the home for sale with first right of refusal to the purchaser. Typically you give 48 hours to the original purchaser to waive their conditions.

Sounds all great in practice, but as soon as someone finds out you already have an offer they typically don't want to make an offer because they figure the other people will get it. Most people do not want to get attached to a home if they think they won't get it. We found as soon as we had a conditional the phone stopped ringing.

I got bit pretty hard with these time wasters. I lost 2 months of selling to them!! Next home I sell I will not accept any conditions, except inspection and even then 48 hours no 7 days! Even inspection is basically a get out of jail free card as well.

We had one couple do the inspection 7 days after offer and refuse the home because they felt the paint was not to their taste.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

This is all sounding familiar to me  Most people will want 7 days financing conditions , I do agree with you that to see SC(SOLD CONDITIONAL) turns off the showings ,many agents will skip them when showing houses.


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## joncnca (Jul 12, 2009)

canabiz said:


> Good advice everyone, thanks.
> 
> Jon, can you elaborate on your post a bit if you don't mind?
> 
> ...


i had a real estate agent. on top of that, i ran my own open house almost every weekend in the summer, kept it spotless, even bought a few accent decorations (although most of the condo was unfurnished, as i knew i wasn't going to stay there forever, and didn't really care at that age, and wanted to save money). i saw the listings for many other condos in my building, some of them were on the market for over 100 days, so it wasn't just me.

my original asking price was a bit high, but not outrageous compared to other units in my building. i eventually sold for about 25k below asking, as it appeared that all the other listings had to decrease their prices substantially around that time to get sold. it was shortly after the mortgage rule changes...i should have sold in april, i did actually receive one initial offer the first week i listed, but thinking it was moderately lower than my asking price, i declined....then, no offers for 5 months. my final selling price was actually 10k below that initial offer, so.....i was a little disappointed, but oh well, life goes on.

from the getgo, i might have priced about 5-10k lower initially, but not much more, it was a reasonable price at the time.

oh, when i received the offer in august (which i ended up accepting), i actually also received another offer at the same time, although it was lower than the other one (in august). i gave the second offer a chance to revise and increase cause they seemed like nice people, but they declined, so i went with the first one (in august).

also, when i was looking around for a new place before i decided on the new townhome, i looked into resale properties too. i agree, that SOLD CONDITIONAL marker was kind of a turnoff, didn't want to bid with others, didn't think i'd be able to get the best possible price.


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## canabiz (Apr 4, 2009)

Thanks for the feedback, jon. I found the asking price to be the most important factor (or maybe second most after location).

My colleague listed his house at $499K in July and only got it sold this past week at $443K. Add in 4% commissions (he was able to negotiate) and other closing fees and you are looking at about 85% of the original asking price. He still did well as he bought the house at $280K a few years ago but it goes to show you the old adage always rings true: *A house will always sell, at the right price*, or something along that line.

We have decided to list our place in mid-January. We can hurry and put this up on the market in mid-October but you are then entering the holiday season. Another factor is I hope there is no delay for our new house. Our builder has a pretty good track record when it comes to closing house but you can't rule anything out. I know our window is pretty tight but I believe if we price our house competitively, we can get a deal done quickly. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Cheers!


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## joncnca (Jul 12, 2009)

I hope everything works out for you!

Selling an existing house to buy a new one is pretty stressful, i wouldn't want to go through it again. I've read that the market picks up a bit in the autumn, cools over holidays, then picks up in the spring, but don't take my word for it.

my wife has these friends who bought a pre-construction condo together before they were married, and after several years, they were expecting their first child and wanted to move into a detached house somewhere farther from the city. by that time, the original condo had been delayed so long that it still had not finished construction by the time they bought their detached house! 

i'm sure this wont happen to you, i just found that whole situation ridiculous.


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