Your Guide to Buying and Selling a Home at the Same Time

Unless you are a first-time homebuyer or opting to sell your house and rent instead, chances are you will need to navigate buying and selling a home at the same time. According to Zillow, roughly 71% of buyers and sellers end up going through this process. 

Househunting can be stressful, and so can prepping your house to go on the market—but people manage to get through it all the time. While there is no guarantee that the sale and purchase will go off without a hitch, there are things you can do to ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible.

In a perfect world, a homeowner accepts a great offer on their house at the same time their own offer is accepted on another house. The closings for both houses happen within a few days of each other, and everyone lives happily ever after. When this happens, it is part luck, but most likely there was some preparation—and a dedicated agent working tirelessly to make everything come together. 

Many times, though, (despite having a great agent), things can happen to delay closing for one property or the other. Perhaps a homeowner can’t sell their house, or they struggle to find a new one that suits their needs. Even with a willing buyer, financing might fall through, or a house might not pass an inspection. 

The better prepared buyers and sellers are for the possible pitfalls, the easier it will be to push through to a successful closing for both the old and new home.

There is always risk involved when buying or selling a home. Homeowners need to consider which scenario causes more stress: Buying and not being able to sell, or selling before finding a new place to live.

Pros and Cons of Buying Before Selling

Pros:

• Knowing you have a place to land when your home sells
• More time to complete repairs and improvements to the old home before it goes on the market
• Easier to clean and stage a house once it’s empty

Cons: 

• Two mortgages 
• Two properties to take care of 
• Difficulty qualifying for a mortgage while money is tied up in the first home
• You might accept a subpar offer to unload a property

Pros and Cons of Selling Before Buying

Pros:

• Safer financially, knowing you’ll have a down payment
• Only one mortgage
• Will know exactly how much you can spend on the new home

Cons

• Possibly having to rent or live with friends/family
• Expenses of renting a storage unit
• Will have to move twice
• Might get impatient and settle for something that isn’t quite right

Thinking about how to deal with the “worst case scenario” is not negative; it’s realistic. Understanding which situation is most manageable for your family can help determine whether to focus more time and energy on buying or selling.

Seller’s stress is different from buyer’s stress, but doing both at the same time doesn’t have to mean doubling the anxiety. There are things you can do to reduce the worry and prepare for navigating two real estate transactions at once.

1. Understand the Real Estate Market

In the St. Louis region (as of August 2025), it’s hard to say if it’s a buyer's or seller’s market. Home prices are up, but not as much as the frenzy of a few years ago, when homeowners had multiple offers on their homes. But interest rates are high, too, so some homebuyers might find it difficult to qualify for home loans. 

So while your house might sell easily and for an amount above the asking price, the market conditions could frustrate your efforts to get financing for a new house. 

Knowing where the market stands—and where it is expected to go—can help in formulating a strategy for both sides of the transaction. An experienced realtor can help make sense of it all.

2. Don’t Wait on Projects

Statistics show that selling a home can take twice as long as buying one. Getting a house ready to go on the market can take some time and effort, so it’s best to start cleaning, decluttering, and making repairs as soon as you decide to sell.

Anticipate problems that an inspection is likely to uncover and fix them. Better yet, pay to have the home inspected before putting it on the market. The better you prepare, the easier it will be to stage the home for open houses. A real estate agent can help with all of this, as well as pricing the house right. 

3. Be Flexible But Know Your Limits

Managing a purchase and sale simultaneously requires flexibility. Maybe that lovely, super-affordable home in an established neighborhood will change your mind about wanting a new build. Or if you feel priced out of your dream neighborhood, Select Properties has access to comparable communities all over the St. Louis region, including in Illinois. Understand that the entire process is a negotiation, and you’ll need to be ready to compromise. 

At the same time, you need well-defined boundaries. Know how far to comfortably stretch the budget or lower an asking price ahead of time. And be clear about deal breakers so you’ll stay focused as both a buyer and seller. For example, is it important that a new house is in a preferred school district? And if three bedrooms are necessary, it makes no sense to settle for two. 

4. Get Your Financing in Order

It is important to have pre-approval for financing before shopping for a home, but the more you’re counting on the proceeds of a sale for a purchase, the trickier it will be to get financing in order. Lenders may not approve a loan if there is any doubt that the old home will fetch a sufficient sales price. If there is a chance you’ll end up with two mortgages, the bank is likely to want you to have a substantial salary and savings to afford it. For example, they may want proof that there is six months’ worth of payments for both homes in the bank, plus a hefty down payment.

A Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) is one option. This allows a buyer to borrow against the equity they have in their old home. Once the house sells, they can pay it back. 

A bridge loan is another option. It is a short-term loan offered by some banks to cover a down payment. 

5. Have a Backup Plan

Buyers and sellers need to have a strategy ready for what they will do if their sale and purchase don’t happen at the same time. 

Those who are temporarily without a new address can:

• Negotiate to stay in the old home and pay rent to the buyer. This is usually for just a few days, but could be longer if the buyer agrees.
• Arrange to move to a hotel or short-term rental property and put belongings in storage until a new home is found.
• Add a contingency to the contract (more on that below).

If selling the old house is the issue, decide on one of these options ahead of time:

• Consider how low to drop the price.
• Does it make sense to turn the old home into a rental property and try selling later?

No matter how you deal with the possible timing pitfalls of buying and selling a home at the same time, it’s important to research the options and have a plan in place.

6. Contingencies as a Safety Net

Contracts can include a contingency to lessen the burden when buying and selling a home at the same time. The most common is making a purchase contingent on selling the old home. This way, if the homeowner can not find a buyer for their house, they can pull out of the deal to buy their next home.

Another option is to ask for the right to delay the closing date. In most cases, closing happens within 30 to 45 days. Getting an extension can buy some time for both sides to get everything in order.

Contingencies typically work best for the buyer in a buyer’s market. In a hot market, other offers might come in that are just as good, if not better. The seller is not obligated to honor a contingency if they do not want to wait.

The best advice when buying and selling a home at the same time is to get a great real estate agent to handle both the sale and the purchase. Unless you are relocating to a different region, this should be easy to do. (Relocating to St. Louis? Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Select Properties has top-notch relocation specialists.) 

Buying and selling at once requires coordination and logistics, and an experienced agent can see that it happens smoothly. Select Properties agents help sellers price and prepare their homes to attract competitive bids. At the same time, they are plugged into the local markets to find buyers their next great home. 

Deciding to move from one house to another is a big deal, but it does not have to be filled with anxiety. Contact us today to get started.

Cover photo by susafri at Canva.com