If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

how did you work out the transition of selling your co-op/condo and then closing on your house?

What did you do first? Put your co-op on the market and house hunt or did you sell your co-op/condo first and then looked around?

Thank you!

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

We starting "casually" looking at houses to get an idea of where we wanted to live before we put our co-op on the market.

Mid July of last year (about 2 months after I found out I was pregnant), we put our co-op on the market and started seriously looking for houses. Our co-op sold in less than a week which was great but we had no place to go! We were supposed to close at the end of October (wound up closing later - but that's another story!) so we put all of our furniture in storage and rented a furnished apartment in Manhattan. At the end of November, we found a house we loved, put in an offer and it was accepted. Between the sale of our co-o and finding a house, we put offers in on 2 houses that didn't work out. We closed on the house in February, 4 days after DS was born but didn't move in until the end of March.

It was a crazy time but it all worked out in the end!

I also will say that when we were looking at houses and putting offers in, they always asked us if we had anything to sell. We already were in contract for the sale of our co-op but were not even relying on any funds from that sale, so that seemed to make us a more "attractive" buyer. Though, I don't think it ultimately helped us get the house.

ETA: If you are going to look for houses before you sell your co-op, you have to be prepared that you may find a house that you love before you sell your co-op. So, I would figure out the finances beforehand - i.e. do you need the funds from the co-op sale for the house, can you carry both mortgages in case you can't sell, will a bank approve you for house mortgage if you haven't sold the co-op, etc.

Message edited 7/8/2010 10:15:18 AM.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

I guess it depends on if you can afford the two mortgage payments and/or need a down payment from the sale.


we sold our CA townhouse in 05 - listed in Feb, moved to NY bought a house here in June and closed on the townhouse a week later. We had the DP for the NY house and the townhouse mortgage wasn't bad, so we were prepared to pay both if we had to.


Now we are looking to upgrade and we will be in contract with our current house before we put any offers on another house. We plan on putting all of our stuff into a pod and moving in with my parents until we close on a new house.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

We put our co-op on the market first and was under contract to sell when we seriously started to look. Selling a co-op usually takes a little longer, especially if there needs to be Board review/approval of the buyer. Also, the buyer's bank took a little while longer to process the loan because they weren't that familar with the whole process. It took us close to 4 months to close on our co-op and that was with very qualified buyers.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

I didn't want my mom to have to do that but it seems to be inevitable...I thought maybe she got lucky enough with a seller that would agree to a conditional sale agreement...its a buyer's market out there...do you think its possible for her to come across a seller like that? BTW, she is looking to buy a multifamily home in Queens.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

We lucked out and sold to a sister of a friend. She wasnt in a rush to buy so she waited for us to find a house. When we closed we just had the co-op closing first and kept occupancy for 5 days during which time we closed on the house.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

I have not done this yet, but are looking into it/considering when we will.

I have friends/family who have.

The best way IMO (unless you do not need the money you put down on your coop/equity in your coop for a downpayment and can afford two mortgages) is to sell first THEN buy.

Coops sometimes take a while to sell. Finding a buyer aside you often find the process of the new buyer meeting with board and gaining approval takes time--sometimes a cple months. I would have an approved by the board buyer before I got my heart set on a home...

GOOD LUCK

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

We haven't done it yet but our plan is to list the condo and not seriously look until we have a contract. We need the $$$ from the sale of our condo to use as a down payment when we buy a house.
Even though we haven't started looking at houses yet, we have an idea of where we would like to buy and follow the market in that area. So we know that when we are ready to move, we can afford what we want in the area we want.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

We put our place on the market and set up appts with realtors to see houses. We got offers our first weekend on the market, and luckily we found our house the second weekend we looked-- although we didnt know if we got it til like a week and a half later. We are lucky in the sense that we can close on the house before the apt-- so we can do work, etc. We negotiated both deals at the same time-- but we ended up having to find a new buyer for our place because we had people interested and our first buyer was being a huge PITA.. but we are closing on the apt almost a month later than the house.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

We put our condo up for sale and then started looking at houses. We didn't make any offers until we were in contract on the condo.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

The good thing is that my mom is looking at a brand new construction so that may make things easier. She's definitely putting up her co-op on the market first and I guess once she finds a buyer and the board approval is scheduled (it takes a few months ) she can start looking.

Thank you for all that responded!

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

We started looking at houses about 2 years before having an accepted bid. Since we bid on several that got turned down or didn't work out, we did not list our condo.

We put in an offer on the house that was accepted, and put our condo on the market 2 weeks later (did not need to sell condo first). Had an accepted offer on condo within a month, closed on house 2 weeks after accepted condo offer, closed on condo about 2 months after closing on house (buyer had FHA loan so took longer).

I don't see many buyers accepting conditional offers in this market, since it may take her a loonnnngggg time to sell unless she prices really low.

We lost money in our condo sale but bought a house at a good time.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

To be very honest we took a risk and went into contract on our house before even putting our co-op on the market. it was VERY stressful. however, we did have some money saved to pay 2 mortgages. Fortunately, things worked out. we sold the co-op within a month and got stuck paying 2 mortgages for only two months. our mortgage on our co-op was very small. so that helped.

we did take our RE agent advice and have it "staged". i was skeptical at first. however, it worked! we made about a $15K profit and more importantly sold it fast. it was stressful but it in the end all worth it.

Good Luck !!

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

Message edited 7/9/2010 5:02:12 PM.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

we are in a similar situation we are looking for a house now, once we find one, we will put our apartment on the market to sell / or rent. if we can get a decent price we will sell, if not just rent it out for a while. we don't need the money for the down payment and have our prequal assuming we would be paying two mortgages. It's very stressful !!!

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

With our co-op the buyer had to be approve by our co-op board..so we were a little nervous about buying a house before we sold. We house hunted for a year..narrowed down two areas & house styles. Once we went into contract we buckled down and started putting bids on houses. The week we closed on our co-op was the week we went into contract w/ our house. We ended up having to move in w/ family for a little.

Re: If you sold your co-op/condo to buy a house please come in...

We were approved to carry both mortgages so when we went house hunting it really wasn't an issue. We also knew that our condo development was sort of in demand, we just needed to come down from our original price.

I think in the end we were 8 days away from having to pay 2 mortgages, so I will admit that looking back it was extremely stressful!! The only advantage was that we were able to move our stuff just once and we had some time to do it because we closed on the condo after we closed on our new house.