If you’re thinking about moving, there’s a good chance one question has been holding you back: Should we sell our current home first, or find our next home before we sell? It’s one of the most common conversations we have with homeowners in Shelburne, Orangeville and throughout Dufferin County. And there isn’t one answer that works for everyone.
Your finances, the type of home you own, what you’re looking to buy, how quickly you need to move and current market conditions all play a role. The important thing is understanding the risks of both approaches before you make a decision.
Option 1: Sell Your Current Home First
For many homeowners, selling first is the more financially predictable approach. Once your home is sold firm, you know exactly how much equity you’ll have available for your next purchase. You also know your closing date, which makes it much easier to structure an offer on your next home. This can be particularly important when the market gives buyers plenty of choice.
The Advantages of Selling First
The biggest advantage is certainty. Instead of estimating what your home might sell for, you know the actual number. That can help you determine your comfortable purchase price and avoid putting yourself in a position where you’re carrying two properties at the same time. Selling first can also strengthen your position when you make an offer.
If your current property is already sold firm, you may not need to include a condition requiring the sale of your existing home. Depending on the property you’re pursuing, that can make your offer simpler for a seller to evaluate.
The Risk: What If You Can’t Find Your Next Home?
This is usually the biggest concern we hear. Nobody wants to sell their house and then feel pressured into buying something they don’t love simply because their closing date is approaching.
There are ways to reduce that risk. One strategy is negotiating a longer closing period when you sell your current home, giving yourself additional time to shop. Depending on the circumstances, you may also be able to negotiate flexibility around closing dates or arrange temporary accommodations if the right property hasn’t come along yet. The goal is to create as much breathing room as possible.
Option 2: Buy Your Next Home Before Selling
There is an obvious appeal to buying first. You get to find the home you actually want before giving up the one you already have. This can make a lot of sense when your next property is difficult to find. For example, if you’re searching for a specific rural property in Mono or Amaranth, acreage in Mulmur, or a home with a very particular layout or feature, there may only be a handful of suitable properties available throughout the year. Buying first means you don’t have to settle simply because you’re working against the clock.
The Risk of Buying First
The biggest issue is uncertainty around your existing home. You may have a good idea of what your property is worth, but until you have a firm sale, you don’t know exactly what a buyer will ultimately pay or how long the process will take. If your purchase closes before your existing property sells, you may also need to qualify to carry both properties temporarily. That is why we strongly recommend having a conversation with your mortgage professional before making an offer. Understanding your financing options before you find the perfect house can prevent a lot of stress later.
What About Making an Offer Conditional on Selling Your Home?
There is another option that sits somewhere between selling first and buying first. You can make an offer on your next property that is conditional on selling your current home. This can significantly reduce your financial risk because you’re not committing to the purchase unless your existing property sells within the agreed period. However, sellers don’t always accept these conditions. The seller may also require an escape clause that allows them to continue marketing their property. If another acceptable offer comes along, you may be given a limited amount of time to remove your sale-of-property condition or walk away from the purchase.
Whether this strategy is realistic depends heavily on the property, the seller’s circumstances and the amount of competition for the home.
Your Current Home Matters Just as Much as the One You’re Buying
This is something homeowners sometimes overlook. The decision shouldn’t only be based on how difficult it will be to find your next property. You also need to consider how easy your current home will be to sell.
Imagine two homeowners. One owns a well-priced detached home in a popular Shelburne neighbourhood. The other owns a highly customized rural property on acreage outside Orangeville. Their selling timelines and potential buyer pools could be very different. Before deciding to buy first, we want to understand how your existing property competes with what’s currently available.
We look at recent comparable sales, active competition, average market times and, importantly, how many buyers are actually purchasing homes like yours. That gives us a much better picture of the risk involved.
The Dufferin County Market Can Vary Significantly by Property Type
“Dufferin County real estate” isn’t really one market. A subdivision home in Shelburne behaves differently from a century home in Orangeville. A rural property in Amaranth behaves differently from an estate home in Mono. And a 25-acre property in Mulmur may have a completely different buyer pool again.
That’s why broad market statistics only tell part of the story.
Before deciding whether to sell or buy first, you want to understand the market for your specific property and the market for the type of property you’re trying to purchase. Sometimes you’ll discover that selling your current property is likely to be the harder part of the move. Other times, finding the right replacement property is the bigger challenge.
That distinction can completely change the strategy.
So, Should You Sell First or Buy First?
For homeowners who want maximum financial certainty, selling first is often the more conservative approach.
For someone searching for a particularly difficult-to-find property, and who has the financial ability to comfortably manage the risk, buying first may provide more flexibility.
But there is also plenty of room between those two approaches.
A longer closing, sale-of-property condition, bridge financing, temporary accommodation or carefully coordinated closing dates can all potentially form part of the strategy. The best approach is usually to work backwards from your situation rather than deciding that you always need to buy first or always need to sell first.
Start With the Numbers Before You Start Looking at Homes
If you’re considering a move within Dufferin County, or you’re thinking about selling here and moving somewhere else, you don’t necessarily need to list your home tomorrow. But it is worth understanding your position.
Before we recommend a strategy, we can look at:
✓What your current home could realistically sell for
✓How much competition you’re facing
✓How quickly comparable properties have been selling
✓What you’re hoping to purchase next
✓How frequently those properties become available
✓Your ideal timing and closing-date flexibility
From there, we can build a plan around the move rather than simply putting your house up for sale and hoping everything lines up.
If you’re thinking about making a move in Shelburne, Orangeville, Mono, Amaranth, Mulmur, Melancthon or elsewhere in Dufferin County, we’re always happy to have a conversation about what the process could look like.
Sometimes the best first step isn’t buying or selling. It’s simply figuring out which one should come first.