When selling then buying a house (in that order) is the state of the market irrelevant?

loudwalker: When selling then buying a house (in that order) is the state of the market irrelevant?
I basically am moving from the city to the suburbs and am wondering if there is a strategy to employ that I haven’t considered. It seems to me that the series of transactions are a wash. In a buyers market, I am screwed on the sell side but make that up on the buy side. The opposite would be true in a sellers market. The assumptions here are

1. The sale must take place before the buy
2. The buy must take place within 60 days of the sale – no opportunity here to wait on a purchase until the market changes

Also, any thoughts on buying a new house without selling the old house and renting?

Whats the play here? Whats the strategy?

Answers and Views:

Answer by curmudgeon
excellent analysis. the only problem is that the city house may not sell even at a low price.
if you can swing it, the smart money says rent out the city house and buy the new house at a low price.

Answer by dunkadog8
very easy to buy now, very hard to sell

you could try to sell but it may not happen, you may have to rent in order to qualify for the next loan, unless you have a high income and super credit it maybe impossible to get a second loan without at least someone renting the first place. it is never easy
you could try to sell now, and if it does happen to go through you could always find a short term lease somewhere till you find something else to buy. with how bad the real estate market is now, if may not be a good idea to be stuck in two mortgages at once, what if your renter packs up and leaves you will be really screwed

Answer by godged
The state of the market is never irrelevant.

The downside of renting is all the work involved. Knowing the landlord-tenant laws, having a pool of contractors if emergency repairs are needed, finding tenants, doing background checks, dealing with whiny tenants, fixing damage when they leave, etc., etc.. If you have the organizational skills to handle being a landlord without giving yourself gray hair, go for it.

Plenty of people are losing their homes to foreclosure and are going to need rentals.

If the sale takes place before the buy, are you prepared to be between houses for a period of time? You could spend alot of time, money and energy packing, putting things in storage, moving things from storage to the new house.

My suggestion would be to offer your home for sale contingent upon you finding suitable housing.