Happy Friday!
One of the biggest conundrums facing homebuyers today is how to manage the transition of buying a NEW home with the equity in your current home as down payment. It's quite puzzling and stressful.
Imagine, you have found the house of your dreams and you want to put in an offer before anyone else steps in front of you, but you haven't even started the process of listing your home for sale, let alone found a buyer. You could put in an offer on the new home with a Home Sale Contingency, meaning you would have to sell your current home prior to closing on the new home. However, that is a big risk for the seller. They have no idea how long it will take for you to sell your home. In the meantime, they have taken their home off the market and they are also unable to move forward to their next step. Sellers are definitely hesitant to accept an offer with a Home Sale Contingency, meaning you could miss out on your dream home.
Let's look at it from another way. You know you have outgrown your current home and would like to purchase a new one, but you need to use the proceeds from the sale of your current home to put a down payment on the new one that has yet to be identified. You ready your house to sell and, within a few days of listing, your current home is SOLD! Great news but, now what? Where are you going to live? You could pack up and move to a rental while you look for your new home but that is very costly, expensive and off putting - who wants to move twice? What if you don't find the right home and you just gave your last home to someone else!? Add to that some small children or older parents and you have yourself an absolute nightmare.
BRIDGE LOAN TO THE RESCUE! We have offered bridge loans for a long while now and they really are a great product. They allow for you to purchase your new home before you sell your old one by bridging the two loans together and accessing the equity in the current home toward the down payment on the new home. However, they are pretty fee heavy and the interest rate is substantial. We certainly use them on the regular but I have been on the hunt for something better for our clients. Enter, Buy Before You Sell by HomeLight.
I am really excited to bring this program to our clients and realtors. The long and short of it is this:
HomeLight will finance 70% of the value of the departing residence minus the current mortgage.
Those funds are used towards downpayment, closing costs, repairs and/or payment cushion on the new property.
This allows you to make a non-contingent offer on the purchase of your new home.
The interest rate on the bridge loan is 0% with a flat fee of 2.4% of the sales price on the departing residence (minimum $9000).
Here's a video explaining more: https://youtu.be/Kg9IaIHZ6Mo
I have attached a couple of flyers, one showing the journey of the process and another explaining more.
Let me know if you are interested in learning more about the program for you or your client!
Here to help!