How to Correlate Buying & Selling Your House, Moving to Another State & Finding a Job

How to Correlate Buying & Selling Your House, Moving to Another State & Finding a Job
••• Digital Vision./Digital Vision/Getty Images

Correlating the sale of your home and the purchase of a new house is daunting in and of itself. Adding the tasks of finding a new job in another state further complicates the situation and requires careful and thorough planning. Tackle the most important duties first and coordinate the remaining responsibilities afterwards. Because you need money and income to gain mortgage approval for a new home, finding a job and selling your home are top priorities. Your moving date and the purchase closing date will depend on when the first two steps occur.

Find and land a new job before moving if you require mortgage financing. The lender will need to know why you want to buy a home in another state when you currently own and work somewhere else. He will need to know the terms surrounding your purchase -- specifically, if you plan to live in the out-of-state home. He also needs to know where you will work and how much you will earn at the new job. Changing jobs affects the underwriter’s opinion of your income stability. You can get a new mortgage if you can prove that you will earn the same or more after moving, you will continue in the same line of work and you will not experience a gap of more than four months between jobs. The lender may require one or more of the following to verify your new job and income: a job offer letter, an employment contract and 30 days of pay stubs.

List your home for sale with a real estate agent or broker. A professional can relieve much of the time, pressure and effort involved in selling your home. If your local housing market is hot, you can expect to get offers right away and close in about two to three months. In a slower market, it can take several months. A real estate agent can help you price the home to sell quickly in your particular market.

Start your home search out of state as soon as you have accepted an offer on your home. Ideally, you want your home purchase to close concurrently with your home's sale and shortly before the start of your new job. If you can simultaneously sell and buy, you forgo having to move into a rental or transitional housing, or having to pay two mortgages. Ask your current real estate agent for a referral. Many of the large brokerages have affiliates nationwide they can refer, or the agent can find you a qualified agent and gain a referral fee directly from that agent. If you have friends and family who own property in the area you are moving to, you can ask them for referrals, too. A buyer's agent is your best bet for obtaining information about neighborhoods, schools and market trends out of state. They can also view homes for you, take pictures and send you footage of homes if you cannot view properties in person.

Tips

  • Contact a real estate agent as early as possible after deciding to move to determine how much equity you have in the home. Because you likely will use the equity from your home's sale to buy a home out of state, the lender in will want to know how much of your down payment comes from the sale to underwrite your loan.

    You can make an offer on your new home contingent -- or dependent on -- the sale of your current home. This sale clause protects you from having to move forward with the deal in the event your home's sale falls through or takes longer to close than expected.

    In the event you do not find a home out of state quickly enough, or you simply cannot close the two transactions concurrently, you may want to ask the buyer of your home to rent the house back to you for a few extra weeks. A rent-back arrangement involves a separate rental contract and usually entails paying the buyer's mortgage for the amount of time you rent.