What’s a beller?

It’s a client who needs to sell and buy. 

If you're somebody who needs to sell in order to purchase your next home, these are the three most common strategies our sellers take when buying their next property.

1.  Buy, then sell - You Make offers on homes contingent on selling your home
2. Sell, then buy #1 - Sell your home contingent on finding a replacement property, then start making offers in escrow.
3. Sell, then buy #2 - Sell your home - not contingent, then start making offers in escrow after your buyer has removed all contingencies.

Each strategy has pro’s and con’s and typically bellers will gravitate towards one of them - let’s go through it

Buy, then sell - You Make offers on homes contingent on selling your home

• • Pro - you already locked in the property you want. 
  • Con - you have to sell your home fast!!! And often, sellers aren’t interesting in contingent home buyers. If it’s a competitive property, the way to get your offer accepted is often to pay a good amount more than other buyers on top of convincing the listing agent that we’re closers. That seller usually doesn’t want to risk a long escrow or a buyer who backs out if they can’t get their home sold. 
  • Reframe’s strategy - if this is the process you like, here’s how we increase your odds of making it happen. 
    • We prep your home for media right away. We recommend decluttering, renovations and staging right away - which is usually final touch staging like greenery and pillows for an occupied home. 
    • Then we can schedule the media day where our photographer and videographer come out and capture everything. 
    • Then we can sit on it and get the listing marketing ready to go, so when your dream home pops up, we can show the listing agent that we’re ready to go and will likely be in escrow on the buyer’s listing in the next week. 

Sell, then buy #1 - Sell your home contingent on finding a replacement property, then start making offers in escrow.

• • Pros - If you don't find a property that you love, you can always back out and stay in your property. usually, sellers don't get contingencies, but in this case you would have a contingency of finding a replacement property. 
  • Cons - This will decrease your buyer pool. Some buyers aren't willing to offer to with sellers who need to go find another replacement property because there's a chance they may not get the home that they're offering on. Well you do have a contingency, you don't have forever to find your perfect home that you want to buy. typically, you have less than 3 weeks to identify a property that you want to move forward with. But keep in mind - everything's negotiable

Sell, then buy #2 - Sell your home, then start making offers in escrow after your buyer has removed all contingencies.

• • Pros - You have a buyer pool that is an impacted by contingencies. Potentially, this is what's going to give you your highest price of the options since you have the most buyers who would work with you.
  • Cons - You have to ask those buyers for a rent back. typically sellers would ask for 30 to 60 days. So a buyer has to be open to that rent back.
  • As for how this process actually works - During the period of time in escrow, you would likely start making offers after the buyer removes contingencies. Well then you can figure out, based on how much time you have in your home, what timeline you would offer on the home you're interested in buying 

These aren’t the only ways, but they are the most common amongst sellers who need to sell in order to buy out here in Southern California. Of course, there’s also bridge loans that can be helpful - especially if a unique property happens to hit the market before you’re ready to sell.