I would prefer the second myself, but then I am quite risk adverse and so many little things can potentially go wrong with timing on the first option. It certainly works for plenty of people, but…eh, I just don’t like the uncertainty of it.
It’s still a seller’s market in most places, I believe. If that’s true, selling the old place will be a breeze and buying the new place a tough one. They could get caught homeless.
A very fair point. It’s really too context dependent to make a call from the outside. My preferred (and very cumbersome and not economically efficient) way of doing things is to secure an affordable rental first, move, sell the house, rent while leisurely looking for a place. But that is obviously not ideal or even feasible for a great many.
You’re right about selling our current place. I’ve looked at real estate newsletters that state that houses here stay on market an average of thirty days. In the place we’re looking to move, houses stay on the market an average of sixty days. That must mean it’s less of a seller’s market up there and I’m hopeful that we can grab a place pretty quick in that situation. We’ll be able to pay cash and not have to get bogged down by financing. I’ve also heard of “rent-back”, something we might be able to ask for when we sell this place, to gain a little time. We’ll see what the realtor says.
I would do this too if it is feasible. It would give you time to get a feel for the area and decide what neighborhood you want to buy in.
Call Schwab once the money is recorded; they’ll reimburse the wire fee.
This past Wednesday was my last day working (and I had stepped down to a 3 day week already), so today is Day 5. So far I’m all happy about it. But given my short work week and the holiday weekend, I haven’t had any days off that I wouldn’t have had off anyway. Tomorrow will be the first such day. And today’s my 66th birthday.
Happy birthday, Napier, and happy retirement!
Congratulations!
Hooray @Napier!
As to @teelabrown I too would vote in favor of planning to rent in the new locale for months up to a year while house-hunting there. And meantime sell the house here and put most of my stuff into storage.
It is the least economically efficient path, but contains the fewest ways for things to go monstrously expensively wrong. Said another way, you’re paying a bit of insurance against worst-case outcomes. It also relieves all the time pressure, and one thing we’re all less good at versus, say, 40 years ago is being rushed.
On my last cross-country move I made 10 house-hunting trips totaling almost two months worth of time-in-place, visited 60 properties, plus countless more online, and still made some rookie mistakes that would have been avoided had I simply rented for half a year in the new city. That much travel was easy enough for me, but would be difficult for most folks, even if both are retired.
I would do this unless I absolutely had to end up in that destination , which really isn’t going to be a concern now that I am retired. I would rent first because I know too many people who just bought a house where they thought they wanted to live and then discovered that "a nice place to visit but wouldn’t want to live there " is really a thing. But by the time they found that out , it was too expensive to move again. Even if they weren’t going to lose money on the house/condo itself, the real estate fees were still a barrier.
And I’m not talking about they bought in Neighborhood A but later realized they prefer Neighborhood B because of the shops, activities etc. There are lots of ways to deal with that , especially since if we are talking about choosing a neighborhood , there’s a good chance that they are close enough to each other that I can easily use the supermarket in the other neighborhood if I prefer it. I’m talking about they moved to Las Vegas and then found out they don’t like living in the desert.
Congrats, @Napier !
mmm
Hey, than you all so much! I’m happy the Dope has been such a nice and lasting component of my life, and you with it!
Congratulations on both events, @Napier!
@teelabrown In 2018, I rented before I bought because the market was insane and so was my work schedule. I bought my home 5 months after selling mine. I did have to settle for less than I wanted but I did find the best fit I could in a very tight marketplace. While, it would have been nice to move directly into a new place, I am glad I gave myself that time to breathe and look around rather than jump directly into a purchase.
When we moved to California we had a week to find a place, and we bought since we’d have to sell in NJ and didn’t want to be pressured into buying at any later point for tax reasons. We lucked out. We bought in NJ after renting in the town for a few years, and that was good also.
I hate to move so I’d tend to go with the option that minimized shlepping my books from place to place.
We’ve stayed in our destination area three times now, each time renting a VRBO for a week, and drove all over various neighborhoods and scoped them out for amenities and general tone. I feel safe in our choice of a new area. It even snowed on us the last time, and we loved it. Snow doesn’t stick for long in our chosen zone.
I don’t want to sell, move our stuff to storage, and then rent a place while we shop for a house. That’s costing more in money and energy than we have. Time is catching up with Mr. brown, and he’s not dealing as well with change and choices as he used to. Acting faster is the preferable way for us.
But we’re expecting return emails from realtors today and will take their advice, based on the real estate markets in the respective locations.
Meanwhile, Mr. brown wants to commence his rollover from his employer to Schwab, and is taking steps toward that. I need to speak to Schwab and see if their automated Intelligent Income portofolio plan calculates out one’s required minimum distributions from an IRA at the appropriate age of the recipient. The Intelligent Income portfolio comes in two types: free with no advice, or $300 startup fee and $30 a month for access to a CFP for financial guidance. I might go the CFP route with my portfolio, at least for awhile, to make sure I’m doing everything right, and apply anything I learn to both our portfolios.
See if they can automate the rollover. When I rolled over my work 401K to my IRA, I got a check for a huge amount of money which I had to drive across the Bay to my financial services company. It made me incredibly nervous. I don’t remember why it was necessary for me to get a check.
I’m with you in not wanting to rent. Any time you move into a new place it requires multiple trips to the hardware store. You probably want to minimize that aggravation.
I had a similar issue and I wanted no part of that. I think, though I could be wrong, that it had something to do with my age. When I turned 59, it was able to be done automatically.
Yeah, I know my rollover was done electronically, but I did it a bit over six months before my retirement date. I don’t know if that is why. My money guy was already generating income for me before I retired. Last time I checked my balance I had about the same amount as when I retired 9.5 years ago.
I did get a “check” for the amount I’d put into my 401k for those final months, but it was considerably less than the initial rollover. Plus, it was an electronic depost in my checking account that I could easily transfer to my retirement account.
I’d have been terrified to have been driving around with a check that big!
Sheesh, it has been a nerve-wracking morning. I received in the mail a couple of “This is not a checks” which showed that my 401(k) sums had been distributed to JP Morgan Chase. The routing number was correct, but the sums were supposed to go to my Schwab IRAs! I leaped to the phone and after hanging on hold with Schwab, my employer’s 401(k) people, and then with Schwab again, I couldn’t find a reason for the seeming error. The 401(k) people opened a case for this and said they’d call back to say what gives, but were pretty certain everything was going okay.
After I got off the phone, I googled around for a bit, and I seem to see that JP Morgan Chase is affiliated with Schwab and they handle their deposits for them. A Reddit thread was on-point. Now, why couldn’t Schwab tell me that during two lengthy phone calls? No one seemed to have a clue what I was talking about.
So I’m breathing again, but I still feel edgy.