Sell cheap, buy cheaper

July 9, 2008

White Gables Summerville homes for sale I had the occasion to show some buyers from out of town who were considering relocation to the Charleston area several homes in my neighborhood.

White Gables is located in Summerville, a very popular Charleston suburb. White Gables is a traditional neighborhood with sidewalks, front porches and alleys behind the home to access the garage. It’s very old fashioned and very cute and it was the only neighborhood they were interested in seeing after viewing lots of homes online for the past few months.

But they have to sell their home in order to buy.

A few years ago, they started thinking about moving and did get a contract on their home but they backed out of the sale because they just didn’t feel right about selling and moving at the time. As is the case in many areas around the country, their home isn’t worth what it once was. But as I suggested to them, if you sell high, you’re going to buy high and that’s how it was several years ago. And if you sell for a little less, you’ll certainly be able to buy for a lot less.

They looked at several preowned homes but as I mentioned to them, if you write a contract contingent on the sale of your home, it won’t mean anything to the seller because the home will effectively be off the market awaiting the sale of your home. Think about how you would deal with an offer on your home that is contingent on the sale of your buyers home. And you can’t really make a really advantageous purchase when you are writing an offer contingent on the sale of your home.

As to new homes, the builder had several in inventory that had nice discounts because construction was complete and they were sitting unsold. But you can’t take advantage of that either because you might not want to have 2 mortgage payments.

So go home and sell. Price it right. Sell it cheap. Buy cheaper.

By the way, the home pictured above is the new Andover floor plan, one story living and a little larger than the popular Georgetown plan.

This one is a steal! If you are an unencumbered buyer.

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