Selling and Buying a House at the Same Time in Colorado

The house doesn't fit anymore. Maybe the kids are gone, or the job moved. Either way, you need to sell and buy a house at the same time, and the part that keeps you up isn't the listing or the search.

It's the gap. Two payments for a while, or no house for a while.

I've placed loans for twenty years, and I hold a Colorado real estate broker license. The people who get through this fine aren't lucky. They did things in the right order.

So one question first. If you had to pick, would you rather carry two payments for a stretch, or move twice?

Yes. The order is what makes it work.

Three steps, in this order. The loan. Then the listing. Then the offer, with the right contingency in it.

Most people start with the fun part. They find the next house, fall for it, and work backward. That's how the dates end up fighting each other.

Yes. Before anything else.

The first question isn't what your house will sell for. It's this: can your income carry both payments for a few months, or does the sale have to fund the purchase?

If you can carry both, you can buy first, move once, and list the old house empty. The sale pays off the old loan when it signs. Often the simplest bridge is no bridge at all.

If you can't, the money from the sale is your down payment. The sale has to sign first, or the same day, and every other date gets built around it.

A bridge loan, or a home equity line on the house you're leaving, can cover the space in between. Each one has a cost, and the lender still counts the old payment against you until it's gone.

So which one is you right now? Carry both, or sell to buy? And has anyone actually run it?

After the loan answer, and before you write an offer.

A live listing is what makes your offer believable. "We're going to list soon" reads like a buyer who may never show up.

Price it to sell, not to test the market. A house that sits drags your purchase down with it.

Think about a rent-back now, too. It lets you sign, get paid, and stay in the house for a short, agreed stretch while you finish the purchase. Colorado's contract forms include an occupancy agreement for it. You move once.

It says you'll buy their house if yours sells by a certain date.

Colorado's standard purchase contract has a section for exactly that. It keeps you from owning two houses by accident.

The catch is how sellers read it. When there are several offers, the contingent one is usually the first set aside. So the rest of the offer has to be clean. A real pre-approval. A short inspection window. Your listing already live.

The right contingency goes back to step one. If your loan carries both payments, you may not need a sale contingency at all.

If a seller had to pick between you and a buyer with no house to sell, what would make them pick you?

It depends on the dates you wrote.

Picture it. The week before signing day, your buyer's lender calls. Their loan isn't going to fund. Your sale is off.

Now what about the house you're buying? If your sale contingency deadline hasn't passed, you may be able to walk and get your earnest money back. If it has, the seller can expect you to buy anyway, and your earnest money is what's at risk. How your contract reads is a conversation for your attorney.

That's the uncomfortable part. A sale that falls apart late can take your purchase with it.

None of that happens by accident. Somebody has to be watching both contracts at once.

So if that call came next week, who would you call first? And would they already know?

That's how I do it.

A family in Eagle needed a bigger house before the school year. We ran the loan first. It couldn't carry both payments, so the sale had to fund the purchase. We listed their townhome, wrote a contingent offer on a house in Gypsum with the live listing behind it, and asked their buyer for a short rent-back. Late in the process, their buyer's loan hit a snag. The seller in Gypsum heard about it that same day and agreed to a short extension. Both signing days landed in the same week. They moved once.

Sell and buy with three different people, the listing agent, the buyer's agent, and the lender, and each one does their job. The timeline between them is nobody's job.

When three people each hold a piece, the gap belongs to nobody.

When three people each hold a piece, the gap belongs to nobody.

I list the house, I write the offer on the next one, and I place the loan. Both sets of dates and the loan conditions sit on one calendar. When your buyer asks for another week, I already know what that does to your purchase and your rate lock.

In the Vail Valley, I'm at the showings on both sides myself. In the Denver Metro, a showing team covers the ground while I run the listing, the offer, the negotiation, and the loan. See the sell and buy at the same time page.

And if the numbers say sell first and rent for a season, you'll hear that from me.