Selling and buying at the same time: which should come first?

If you have a home to sell and another to buy, the order matters more than most people expect. Jon’s view is simple: do your homework, sell, then shop seriously.

Most people who move are doing both at once: selling the home they have and buying the next one, with the money from one paying for the other. That link is what creates a chain, and it is why the question of which comes first has a real answer for most movers.

Why finding first often disappoints

It is tempting to go house-hunting first and worry about selling later. Some people with a home to sell behave as if they did not have one: they view, fall for a house, and offer.

The trouble is who else is offering. A seller choosing between buyers will usually favour one who is already under offer on their own home, or who has nothing to sell at all. Against those buyers, an offer that depends on a sale that has not started is weak, however keen you are. The result is extra pressure and, often, disappointment: the home goes to someone in a stronger position, and you are back where you started, now in a hurry.

Do your homework first

None of this means ignoring the market until your home is sold. Before you sell, establish that the right kind of home is available at around the right price. Look at what is listed and what has sold where you want to live. Our house-price pages show what homes of each type have actually sold for, area by area.

That homework tells you whether your plan works: whether the gap between what your home might fetch and what the next one will cost is one you can bridge, and whether homes like the one you want come up often or rarely.

Then sell, and look seriously once you have a buyer

With the homework done, put your home on the market. Once a buyer able to proceed has agreed to buy it, you become a far more attractive buyer yourself, and you can view and offer with confidence about your own budget.

You do not need to complete your sale before you find somewhere. Agreeing a sale is enough to change how sellers see you.

Keeping your buyer while you search

The worry is obvious: what if your buyer will not wait while you find somewhere? In practice, buyers spending a large sum will often stop looking and wait for a seller to find, if they know from the start. Some give a week, some a month or more; it depends on their own plans.

The key is honesty at the outset. A buyer told on day one that you still need to find can plan around it. A buyer who discovers it after a month feels misled, and that is when sales fall apart. If a sale does collapse, our guide to what to do when a buyer pulls out covers the options.

When finding first can work

There are exceptions:

• If you can fund the purchase without your sale. Savings, or a bridging loan (short-term borrowing secured against property, usually costly), let you buy first and sell afterwards. If you can bridge with certainty, finding first is a real option, but it carries the cost and the risk of owning two homes until yours sells.
• If you let your current home instead of selling it. Some people rent out their home and buy the next one. A home put up to let usually finds a tenant quickly, but there is no guarantee, and it makes you a landlord: your lender’s consent or a let-to-buy mortgage is needed, and that is a different decision from moving.

If you cannot find somewhere in time

Sometimes the right home does not appear before your buyer’s patience runs out. Letting the buyer go is always an option. Moving into rented accommodation in between is another, but it does not suit everyone: it means moving twice.

What decides it is why you are moving. A move with a fixed deadline and a move that would simply be nice to make call for very different choices at this point, and the same is true of everything above. This is where the general rules end and your own circumstances take over.

Where this fits

Not yet sure the time is right? Our guide should I sell now or wait? looks at the common reasons people hold back. Picking who will sell your home? See choosing an estate agent for valuations, fees and the contract.