How do you move from one house to another?

[reddvltj]

Interesting, I hadn't considered that.

I'm not even sure who you contact about building a new house, just a general contractor?

The first thing to do would be to look for property where you want to live and think about how much property you actually want. Then you can do a general search on one of many real estate sites. That will also give you an idea of the cost in different areas you're looking at. Then once you've found a spot you like talk to the realtor and they'll probably be able to point you to a contractor.

Here's an example,
https://www.realtor.com/realestatea...XhgZKdC7Z1qtQ1DtmYxoCUEwQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[LJGreg]

Here’s your next TJ. You won’t even need to have it transported

https://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/ctd/d/tempe-2006-jeep-wrangler-lj-unlimited/7019039387.html

 

[Hound Dog]

You say you have $300k to put down. Is that liquid cash or equity in your current home? If you have that as cash on hand, find your new home and buy it. You can take your time to move then put your current home on the market while it is vacant. The market is hot so you will not have to carry the extra payment more than a month or two.

If the $300k is equity, pull it out on loan and put it toward the new mortgage.

Either scenario, you will have a less stressful move and not have your lived in home being toured by the local lookie-loos nosing about your house. We did the first scenario when moving to our current house. It made life easy.

 

[Hog]

I’ve learned in life that if you can hold on to assets and still live comfortably you hold on to the assets.. if you can keep your house and still buy one in Arizona you will benefit later in life, or your kids will.. which let’s be honest is the most important thing.. and Jeeps!

 

[billiebob]

I'll have about 300k in cash to put down, and I'll likely end up having to take out a home loan for another 50-75k (since most of the house we are finding are around 350-375k), so if I put in an offer on another house before we sold ours, it would have to be contingent upon us selling our house

You are in a very strong position. Yes, put in an offer contingent on your house selling. You are in control, you might not be able to low ball but you are likely the best offer they will see. Every time you do that, you add a new Realtor trying to sell your home.

That said, you could do what we did.... something I said I'd never do.... something we laughed at watching TV.
You have equity, IF you see the deal of a lifetime, IF you both have SOLID incomes. We found a great home, price was right, we had confidence the Yellowknife house would sell fast. We bought with no conditions, open mortgage. I took on the 100% mortgage of $2800 a month and Ruth looked after the Yellowknife house during her last year there. It sold in 6 weeks, we negotiated a real mortgage for $70K.... and paid it off in 3 years.

Our numbers were similar to yours. $300K in equity, needing a $70K loan. Not sure I'd do it with a family tho.

 

[cliffish]

I am a few weeks away from finishing building a second house and will never do it again. Yes, I agree you can do it your way but the nickel and dimeing with every and any mod is a killer. Never again! I will let the initial home owner "blow their load" building my next future retirement house.

 

[InOmaha]

We were lucky and a company moved us the last time. But selling the house about killed us. I moved here for 6 weeks and went back on weekends. We picked this house the builder had already started and they finished building it the Friday before we moved in Monday. The movers got our stuff out of the old house and we closed on that Friday, drove here, closed on the new place, and moved in Monday.

Then the in laws took our 4 year old and 18 month old and my wife left for a work trip. We were stressed out to say the least. I doubt we'll ever have that much luck in timing again.

We couldn't find the TV remotes for a year. The moving company tossed them in with decorations we stored in the basement.

We have way more stuff this time around so I'll have to die here. My only requirement was the 3rd car garage so I could pack in a small shop. I should have held out for a 4 car. Now that the kids are away to school we need less house but I need more shop space.

 

[Chris]

I am a few weeks away from finishing building a second house and will never do it again. Yes, I agree you can do it your way but the nickel and dimeing with every and any mod is a killer. Never again! I will let the initial home owner "blow their load" building my next future retirement house.

Sounds like my experience with buying a car new from the dealer. Did that once and I'll NEVER do it again. Next time I'll let someone else take the hit, and I'll buy it second hand with 10k miles or so.

 

[Chris]

Just to clarify, our house is worth about 365-385k (we'll see when next Summer comes), so by doing the math, I have around 300k of equity in the house (not cash in my bank, but equity in the home). That being said, when we go to sell it, I should get 300k or more in my pocket.

The houses we are looking at seem to be listed for anywhere from 350k to 375k (though most of them have some very big price drops on Zillow, so we have that in our favor).

So, I'm thinking with that much money in my pocket, it should be very, very easy to take out a home loan for 50-75k (the difference). My guess is most banks would probably just hand you the money if you told them you were paying over 2/3 of the total cost of the house as a down payment.

 

[reddvltj]

Just to clarify, our house is worth about 365-385k (we'll see when next Summer comes), so by doing the math, I have around 300k of equity in the house (not cash in my bank, but equity in the home). That being said, when we go to sell it, I should get 300k or more in my pocket.

The houses we are looking at seem to be listed for anywhere from 350k to 375k (though most of them have some very big price drops on Zillow, so we have that in our favor).

So, I'm thinking with that much money in my pocket, it should be very, very easy to take out a home loan for 50-75k (the difference). My guess is most banks would probably just hand you the money if you told them you were paying over 2/3 of the total cost of the house as a down payment.

Not having the cash until your house sells does put kind of damper on the whole idea of buying property and having a house built. Doesn't make it impossible though.
When my (now ex) wife and Iooked into a construction loan we found out it was actually easier to get in some aspects because the house and property had instant equity once it was finished. But with the time constraints we had to abandon that and just buy an existing home.

 

[Chris]

Not having the cash until your house sells does put kind of damper on the whole idea of buying property and having a house built. Doesn't make it impossible though.
When my (now ex) wife and Iooked into a construction loan we found out it was actually easier to get in some aspects because the house and property had instant equity once it was finished. But with the time constraints we had to abandon that and just buy an existing home.

You're right. Not having the cash in hand does put a damper on building a new house. But, with three little kids and my wife, I'm not sure we want to wait out the whole building a house thing. We could probably do it for cheaper, but knowing how I am with things, I'd probably end up spending way more than originally intended, just because I can't resist the opportunity to "modify" something

 

[reddvltj]

You're right. Not having the cash in hand does put a damper on building a new house. But, with three little kids and my wife, I'm not sure we want to wait out the whole building a house thing. We could probably do it for cheaper, but knowing how I am with things, I'd probably end up spending way more than originally intended, just because I can't resist the opportunity to "modify" something

My initial thought was that if you had funds or financing available to you, then you could find land now and have the construction done while you are waiting to move.

 

[Chris]

My initial thought was that if you had funds or financing available to you, then you could find land now and have the construction done while you are waiting to move.

Oh yeah, if I had those funds available to me now, that would be an entirely different story!

 

[JMT]

This makes a lot of sense. I was planning to sell most of the furniture, and then box up all the other stuff we want to keep, purchasing one of those storage POD units, and having it sent to our new location once we move. The furniture would go, as nothing we have is insanely expensive, and selling it would be cheaper than moving it, since we could simply buy new furniture when we get there. I'd anticipated spending about 15k in moving costs, so it sounds like I'm on the right track with my thought process.

I didn't think I could do the pre-mortgage stuff this early. Do you think it would be too early do to it now since we aren't planning on selling our house and moving until Summer?

You can wait to do the pre-mortgage stuff until you put your house on the market. Just talk to your realtor about it early on so you can get ahead of the ballgame. One of the reasons it takes so long to close on houses these days is because of the loan approval paperwork. If it’s all done and there is an amount you are approved for, then that is all done and you can already have some homes in mind and when yours sells, fly out to look at those houses.

PODS. You can probably save quite a bit of money having a POD. We could not get access to them where we moved from, so it was not an option for us or that would have been the route we went. I think you will move for quite a bit less than $15k, maybe $10K.

If you pack it yourself it can be a pain. You might consider hiring some UHaul packers for 4-6 hours, whatever you think you need. We did and it was only about $600 for three guys. Well worth it. And these guys usually know how to pack

 

[Chris]

You can wait to do the pre-mortgage stuff until you put your house on the market. Just talk to your realtor about it early on so you can get ahead of the ballgame. One of the reasons it takes so long to close on houses these days is because of the loan approval paperwork. If it’s all done and there is an amount you are approved for, then that is all done and you can already have some homes in mind and when yours sells, fly out to look at those houses.

PODS. You can probably save quite a bit of money having a POD. We could not get access to them where we moved from, so it was not an option for us or that would have been the route we went. I think you will move for quite a bit less than $15k, maybe $10K.

If you pack it yourself it can be a pain. You might consider hiring some UHaul packers for 4-6 hours, whatever you think you need. We did and it was only about $600 for three guys. Well worth it. And these guys usually know how to pack

Got it, I'll talk to my realtor in Spring when it gets closer to Summer time and I'll see what she says. I'd always wondered why it took so long to close on houses. Seems a bit ridiculous that it takes 45+ days, especially in this day and age.

Yep, we can get the PODS where we live, and I think that should save a lot of money. Pack it up with everything we intend to keep, then just have them ship it down to our new house.

The U-Haul packers is a great idea too, I'll definitely do that. $600 for a few guys is way better than trying to do it myself, especially while somehow trying to keep the kids entertained (they're at that age).

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

 

[Gblabla]

Having just done the move to Arizona last year there are several things I can suggest - most of which have already been stated.

1) Sell EVERYTHING!! We did a pretty good job of not taking a lot of furniture and stuff with us but the pieces we did take we ended up selling once we moved in to the new house so the cost of storage and pain of moving stuff is a factor. It was kind of fun to walk into the furniture store and end up buying 35 pieces at once

2) Plan on renting / Air BNB until you find exactly what you want. The Phoenix area is rapidly changing. When we started looking for a house where were focusing on the Gilbert / Chandler area. But the more time we spent driving around the more we liked some of the areas that are built in the Desert rather than Agriculture areas. If we would have gone with our first instincts we would not have been nearly as happy as we are now. BTW - Ended up in North Peoria where everything is New.

3) Use a "Pod". We went with PackRat and it was great. Packed into the container what we wanted. Have them pick it up and store it for as long as you need. Then give them a call and they drop it off on your door step. Much cheaper and easier than a moving company or moving it yourself. We had our container for 2 weeks to get it packed so did a little each day as we cleared out the house. Much better than trying to pack everything in a day. I think storage of our container was only $250 / Month and the full cost of transportation and storage from Los Angeles to Phoenix was right around $2500.

4) Be a "Clean" buyer. Larger down payments, no sales contingencies, etc. The market is softening some and houses tend to be on the market for longer than just a couple days but being in a strong buying position always helps.

And of course Have Fun and make it an adventure!

 

[billiebob]

$600 for a few guys is way better than trying to do it myself

verify their insurance !

 

[Chris]

verify their insurance !

I will for sure. Made that mistake once when I paid movers to move my house (reputable ones too) and they trashed a lot of my stuff in the process.

 

[Mr. Bills]

. . . Now that the kids are away to school we need less house but I need more shop space.

I told the last realtor I spoke with that my dream home is 1200 square feet with a 30' x 60' shop building. When she raised her eyebrows at me and suggested that my dream home would be hard to find I told her that a 40' x 80' shop would be acceptable as well.

 

[qslim]

I told the last realtor I spoke with that my dream home is 1200 square feet with a 30' x 60' shop building. When she raised her eyebrows at me and suggested that my dream home would be hard to find I told her that a 40' x 80' shop would be acceptable as well.

Forget the house entirely. Go with a 60x120 steel building and just frame out & insulate one corner for living space.