A closing date you can plan around
A cash sale can close in as little as three days and does not depend on a buyer's lender. When you have a start date and a moving truck booked, certainty is worth more than the last few thousand dollars of price.
Job relocation
Relocating for work, with a house that has to be dealt with.
This one is rarely about money. You have a start date, a house that has not sold, and the growing possibility of paying for two places to live at once. What you need is a date you can rely on, which is a different problem from getting the highest price.
Ask your employer what the relocation package covers, before you do anything else
Plenty of companies help with a move and never volunteer the detail. Some cover closing costs, temporary housing or a house-hunting trip. Some have a formal relocation program that will buy the house or guarantee a sale price if it does not sell in a set window.
People find out about these after they have already sold, which is an expensive time to learn about them. It is one email to HR.
If the package covers it, use the package. I would rather you did that than sell to me and discover later that your employer would have handled it.
The actual problem
Two housing payments is what this costs if the timing goes wrong.
The trap is well worn. You cannot commit to somewhere at the other end until this one sells, but you have to be there before it does. So you rent temporarily, and now you are paying a mortgage here and rent there, out of one income, for as long as it takes.
That is the number to weigh a cash offer against. A listing that eventually achieves more can still leave you worse off if it takes four months and you were paying twice throughout.
Work out what a month of double housing actually costs you. Everything else on this page is easier to judge once you have that figure.
The questions that decide it
- What is your genuine last possible date, not the comfortable one
- What does a month of paying for two places cost you
- Does your employer cover any of this
- Do you need the equity to buy at the other end
- Could you manage a rental from another state, honestly
Renting it out instead
It is a real option and sometimes the right one, particularly if you might come back or the mortgage is at a rate you will never see again.
Be honest with yourself about managing it from another state though. A vacancy, a boiler, or a tenant who stops paying is a very different problem from a thousand miles away. This is where that ends up when it goes wrong.
Before you decide to sell
Selling is not automatically the answer.
If you have equity you need at the other end, or you have no appetite for being a long-distance landlord, selling is straightforward and probably right.
If you are on a mortgage rate you could not replace, might return within a couple of years, and the numbers work as a rental with a manager taking a cut, keeping it deserves serious thought. That is a calculation, not a feeling, and it is worth doing properly before you list anything.
I buy houses, so this is not the advice you would expect from this page. It is still the truth, and you would rather hear it now than in two years.
If selling is the answer
Three things that make a relocation sale easier.
You can sell after you have gone
You do not need to be in Utah for this. I walk the property, send you what I find, and closings can be handled remotely. Plenty of people sign from the new city having already started the job.
Or sell now and move later
If the money needs to arrive before the move rather than after it, a leaseback lets the sale close while you stay on as a tenant until your actual move date.
If you leave it empty
An empty house behaves differently, especially in winter.
Once you have gone, the house is unoccupied, and that changes things. Many homeowner policies limit or exclude cover after a property has been vacant for a set period, often around thirty to sixty days. Call your insurer and tell them. It is a short call and it is the difference between a covered claim and an uncovered one.
You also need heat kept on through a Utah winter, someone able to get in, and post collected so the house does not advertise that it is empty.
If it is standing empty already
- Tell the insurer it is unoccupied and confirm you are still covered
- Keep the heat on. A burst pipe in February is the expensive version
- Have someone local who can get inside at short notice
- Stop the post, or have it collected
- Keep the water off at the main if nobody is checking regularly
Questions
Answered plainly.
Can I sell if I have already moved out of state?
Yes. I look at the property, and the paperwork can be handled remotely. You do not need to fly back for it.
How fast can this actually be done?
A cash purchase can close in as little as three days once title is clear. That is the floor rather than the average, and I will tell you what is realistic for your property once I have seen it rather than promising you a date I cannot control.
I have a start date but the house might sell normally in time. What then?
Then list it, and you will probably net more. Compare the two before you decide. If the listing is still sitting there as the date closes in, call me then. There is no harm in knowing what the fallback is worth.
What if the house needs work I have not got time for?
Leave it. I buy as-is and take the contents with it, so packing becomes only the things you actually want in the new house. See selling a house that needs work.
Tell me your date and I will tell you what is realistic.
Including whether listing it would serve you better, if it would.