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Anyone sold a house you just bought?


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This is just in the consideration stage... in case anyone I know IRL stumbles across this. :)

 

We bought a house last summer. So obviously, we have no equity in it yet. We bough it with a VA loan, so no money down and rolled some of the closing costs in. We were not intending to sell for several years at the least, so we weren't too worried about it.

 

Now... we just found out that my husband's dream job has opened up in the city we moved here from. It is very, very likely he will get the job- the decision makers want him to come back, didn't want him to leave when we did, but the job just wasn't available then. We have close friends there, the homeschool resources there are overwhelmingly good, our church family there was the best ever- so lots of reasons to go back.

 

Really, the only major holdup is our new house. Fortunately, the house we bought is updated, and in a good neighborhood. We put an offer on it when it had only been on the market for less than a week. This was after home searching for eight months, having two other offers fall through (because of the sellers), and most homes on the market having been there for a long time. So, we think that our house is resellable.

 

Mostly our concern is how to do it, when we owe as much as we'd sell it for. I guess we'd need to come up with cash to pay our realtor and for closing costs? Has anyone been in this position- selling so soon after buying? How did it go for you? Any other issues we need to consider?

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Any other issues we need to consider?

 

Did you take the home buyer's credit? You'll have to pay that back if you sell the house within 3 years of purchasing it.

 

I agree that you might consider keeping it as a rental investment and renting in your new location until you can purchase there. We have a rental house that we're planning to use to help pay off our permanent house someday. It'll take a big chunk off our mortgage and the sooner we can be payment free, the better.

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You've been given good options here, I just want to encourage you to not let worrying about the house keep your dh from accepting that job. Sounds wonderful for all of you! You will find a way to work it all out, even if it costs you a bit of money to do so...

 

AuntieM (who has relocated too many times to count...)

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You've been given good options here, I just want to encourage you to not let worrying about the house keep your dh from accepting that job. Sounds wonderful for all of you! You will find a way to work it all out, even if it costs you a bit of money to do so...

 

AuntieM (who has relocated too many times to count...)

 

:iagree:

 

I have also relocated too many times to count. It all works out in the end!

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The shortest time we owed/sold a house was 15 months. We were able to sell for slightly higher than we bought it for, but then once we added in the realtor's fees and closing costs, we barely broke even. At the time, we were young and naive. Today I would have done some things differently.

 

Have you considered renting your house in order to buy time? Once you have owned it long enough to have built up some equity, then you could put it on the market. If you are moving too far away to manage the rental yourself, you can hire a rental management company.

 

Just a thought.

 

This would probably be our last resort. If we rent out the house, then our VA eligibility will be tied up in the house, and we wouldn't be able to buy again. We'd really prefer to buy now while the rates are still so low, plus we can get more home for our money by buying vs renting.

 

I broached the idea of renting out the house to my husband last night, if we just aren't financially able to seel now. He's pretty resistant, because (long story) we had a similar situation a decade ago, and had a renter trash our house.

 

Try to get the employer to pay closing costs and part of the Realtor fees. Or a lump sum as part of the moving package, that you can use for movers or selling costs or whatever.

 

This is a good idea. If we did the move ourselves over time, we could use moving expenses toward the gap between sales price and the fees we'd need to pay.

 

Did you take the home buyer's credit? You'll have to pay that back if you sell the house within 3 years of purchasing it.

 

I agree that you might consider keeping it as a rental investment and renting in your new location until you can purchase there. We have a rental house that we're planning to use to help pay off our permanent house someday. It'll take a big chunk off our mortgage and the sooner we can be payment free, the better.

 

Fortunately, we didn't qualify for the home buyer's credit. I was really annoyed at the time (we qualified by close date, but not by date of contract), but now it may be a blessing!

 

You've been given good options here, I just want to encourage you to not let worrying about the house keep your dh from accepting that job. Sounds wonderful for all of you! You will find a way to work it all out, even if it costs you a bit of money to do so...

 

AuntieM (who has relocated too many times to count...)

 

Thanks for the encouragement. We want to make a wise decision, but we also don't want to pass up a great opportunity just because of a house. Well... and all the hassle involved, LOL.

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We owned our last house for 14 months. We moved to a new state, expecting to be there for years. We lived in the house for 11 months. We put a good sized downpayment down when we bought it, so we were able to sell it and still walk away without owing money, but took a huge loss on it at the same time. We sold it for slightly less than we bought it for, too. (This was 2 years ago, at the beginning of the sinking housing market there.)

 

We now rent. There's no way we could purchase while selling that one, and there's no way we can think of buying again for a number of years.

 

If you are thinking you can claim all of your moving expenses on your taxes, make sure you read those regs first.

 

If you want more details, PM me.

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How much would closing cost? I'd be hesitant to rent in your situation because you've just got it. Assuming you aren't extremely rowdy, it should still be in saleable condition. Who know what work it'll need two years from now when you've had renters. I'd probably wait until spring and try to sell it. It it's not sold by fall, reassess then.

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