Smart advice/listserves/etc sought for buying/selling a house...

[Regular Guy]

Anyone either have any special wisdom, practical knowledge, or direction to one or several smart list-serves that take up the topic of strategies for buying and/or selling your home (I do know the garden web site, and have begun to browse)?

My wife and I are in the process of doing this, are principally motivated by our desire to find improvements for our children's school districts, and find the process somewhat daunting.

Questions that particularly challenge (my wife and I are 46 and 50 respectively; children 10 & 7):

- How to coordinate the process of buying and selling so that we might have a hope of "coming" at the same time (sorry, let's keep this clean). Previously, having been in our current house a dozen years, we were renters prior, so this is the first time we've had to put both ends together (of trying to have the timing of buying & selling be the same time)
- Insist on a "contingency clause," that would keep us satisfied, but the buyer at loose ends, so in this even intermediate market, they're bound to either reject it, or constrain it severely to 30 days or so

- Strategies for managing when coordinating the two interactions doesn't work:
- If buy first, bridge loan type strategies (instead, I've just applied for home equity line of credit) Also, if we don't sell with any good speed, the double mortgage cost will really hurt
- Should we wait to sell first, we might miss the house that would make this concept work, and would be out on our ear, to boot.


- Forget the whole thing (we do rather like our current home), and just go for a private middle school (the high school may be OK)
- (edited to add) or keep our current home, rent for a dozen or less years, coming back to a paid for house (although we previously had a hellish experience renting out a condo for many years, and trying to manage that while out of the country has left a very bitter taste in my wife's mouth)
- Or go forward, take on a substantial mortgage, requiring a 30 year cost basis (right now we're at 4.5 percent, 15 years, and would be paid before I'm 64), and then...
- how to properly contemplate paying for the second half of the life of the mortgage, when I could otherwise contemplate retiring well before the mortgage is expired...despite the fact that the lender will not be worried particularly about this, and will give us the loan anyway

- though we find ourselves right now trying to zero in on homes in the right area with an only intermediate boost in cost to us (oops, my wife just called with bad news about the home I had hoped might let us do this)...we do find lots of questions.

Any magic HCA type solutions are of interest, and more than welcome. With a price tag in the neighborhood of 100 fold that of an engagement ring, one would think the "golden mean" could be contemplated here with even greater vehemence that had been given to that universal stone used for popping the question.

Thanks for your attention. The process is certainly engaging, meanwhile, with all puns and good will, intended.

 

[Waited2Long]

Sorry I can''t be of any help with the sale, but the thought of keeping the home on top of buying a new one seems risky to me. I know you''re looking long term, but horror stories abound. You would then have 2 large assets subject to the whims of the housing market. If housing goes up, then double great. If it goes down, thene double darn. Unless you''re absolutely certain you would not be forced to sell one of them at a bad time, then keep it in mind. The market seems likelier to be closer to a top than to a bottom, but my disclaimer is that I''ve been saying that for years now.

 

[MissGotRocks]

When we moved from our first house to our second, we sold our home first. This enabled us to be non-contingent to purchase another home. We knew exactly how much money we had to work with and could go to the next seller - happened to be a builder and we built another house - with money in hand so to speak and no risk to him that we would have to back out due to not selling the first home. We were fortunate enough to have sold the first house to someone who could wait to move in so we agreed to an early settlement date so that he could take advantage of good interest rates and then we rented back from him. Otherwise, you could be forced to move out into a rental - first they are hard to find and you always have to put stuff in storage. Those additional moves and storage incurs more cost.

My best advice would be to consult with a realtor. There are many ways this works out - sometimes to your advantage and sometimes not. Sometimes the way it works is just pure luck. A financial planner may be able to give you advice on whether to stay put or go. I would assume that if you retire you would be living on less income than you are now - would you still be able to swing a higher mortgage payment than you have now? I am a big proponent of public schools if you live in an area with decent schools. Better to have a larger mortgage payment with interest and taxes that are tax deductible than to sink money into private school tuition IMHO. Upon graduation, the diploma will be the same. Taxes pay for one - additional money in tuition the other. With college costs escalating yearly, I would not want to pay for years of private school and then look at college tuition.

Just some input from my own experiences. Everyone is different - and so are their circumstances. The first decision you need to make is whether or not you really want to move. The second is just plain economics - whether or not you can afford what you want and whether you will be able to afford it on retirement income for the course of a 15-30 year mortgage.

 

[fire&ice]

I recomend selling your own home when things are clean - i.e no contigency etc. But, in your case - I''m with missgotrocks - consult a realtor.

I''m with looking into private schools if you like your current neighborhood & mortgage payments. You can really start to see a difference in the jr. high/high school age. You are going to change schools regardless. So, investigate private first. It maybe more cost efficient in the long run. It may not be though.