Can you carry two mortgages? If not, you have your answer. Yeah, selling, moving, and buying is a hassle. It's a far worse hassle than trying to sell and buy at the same time and your buyer backs out and you now can't move forward with your own buy. Besides, it gives you a chance to downsize all of the stuff that people tend to accumulate and really not need.

"Part of me badly wants to move; part of me thinks it would be foolish." Wow-sounds like I wrote that...everything you said except that I'm a little older. I realize that because my needs are soooo very specific, I need to find the house first, move, then sell. Good luck to you-I'll be interested in hearing about other's experiences, too.

I have a thread of my experiences. Here is what I learned.

Banks have loosened their requirements. Two years ago I needed enough savings to cover both mortgages for six months, now they require only two.

Interest rates are low and in my area the housing market has not recovered. I sold under market, I bought under market. Due to the new house being worth more I came out ahead in that regard. Also the new house enables me and DH to age in place with first floor bedrooms and bathroom.

Stress- buying and selling at the same time is very stressful, in fact even traumatic. If your house has defects and you need a quick sale you may find yourself having to sell very low and pay closing costs to get a solid buyer.

It really is a crap shoot when you take a risk like this. The house you want to purchase must be worth that type of risk IMHO.

I had to sell and move earlier this year due to separating from my husband.

We sold the house over a weekend in April, settled in May, and rented back until end of Aug. I wasn't able to find my new home until June and settled in July (needed to be in a specific neighborhood with a specific model home). The sellers also need a month rent back, so they also moved out in Aug. It all worked out in the end, since they moved early Aug, and I was able to go in and remodel (for the most part) before moving in at the end of Aug. BUT- if I was able to do it financially, I would have moved first, then sold. Less stress that way.

I recently sold and bought on the same day. It's something I wouldn't want to do again, if possible at all. Just too much physical work, and too many nerve racking moments. I tried to rent back from the buyers for a few days, but the buyers firmly refused. I felt like if my husband and I weren't as young (we are in our early 30's), we probably wouldn't be able to survive the move.

Our realtor said we would have been a much stronger buyer if we sold first. I agree with our realtor, but my husband didn't want to move twice, so we did a hectic buy (after looking at only four houses). Luckily, we like our "new" old house, despite all of its problems.

I think next time we move, we will sell first, then give away all the non-essential furniture and things before moving into a rental.

We sold back in August, and as of today still haven't found the right house. (and we've got 3 kids!) While it's a PITA to be nomads, with most of our stuff away in storage, we're finding it makes us attractive buyers to come into a deal with no conditions.

It's scary, but has benefits. If you can't afford to carry two mortgages (and taxes, utils, etc) then it's really the only option. It today's R.E. market, there's no telling how long it'll take to sell one place and then find just the right next one.

We first went to an extended-stay hotel. (Residence Inn) This was awesome. Call around and price it out. Add up your mortgage, taxes, utilities, cable, internet, meals (breakfast & dinner included in rate) then compare it to a "long-term" rate, not the nightly rate. The longer your reservation, the cheaper the daily rate. We met a few families in the same situation there. Plus a couple older couples who lived there for 3+ years cause its cheaper than assisted living.

Next we went to "corporate housing." This is another term for furnished apartment. Been here 3 months. The building is geared mostly for business travelers/consultants/relocations who are here for few-month periods. This is 1/4th cheaper than the hotel, a little bigger too. But we have to cook & clean. And there's no nightly pool swims for the kids.

We're about to move again, to a 6 month house rental. In our area (as with many, I suspect) there's a lot of houses that sit on the market a while. We found an empty one where the owners already moved and offered to rent it until our kids finish school.

What is your market like, i.e. how fast do houses sell? And what is the rental market like?

We did the buy and sell at the same time too. Like others have commented, it is a wee bit stressful. You can find my saga on Gardenweb if you are interested, but here is the long and short of it.

I took a new job and after having a longer commute than I was used to, we decided to think about moving. We were casual lookers at first (it was over the holidays last year) found a house that we liked and put an offer on it thinking it would be like our last purchase where we just had a contingency on the sale of our house. Personally, I wasn't willing to risk making the purchase without having a safety net just in case we ran into problems selling our house. Apparently times had changed (to put it lightly) in the 8 years since we had done just that so they pretty much laughed at our contingency.

So, we regrouped, decided to contact a REA, see what we needed to do to get our house market ready and sell in the spring when more people were looking. She called us a week later and told us that she had an interested person they came, they looked, they offered. So we sold our house but had no prospects, I didn't want to move twice, and had a list of "must haves" a mile long in a very small area of the city.

We probably looked at 100 houses in a month period, made several offers, realized my husband and I didn't like the same things, suppressed the urge to throttle him more times than I can remember, considered seperate houses so we could each get what we want, had a contract, lost a contract, fired our REA, found a new REA, got down to the minute (seriously...at the last day where it likely would work for us to not have to move twice) and found a house, closed on both the same day, moved in one day, and have been blissfully happy ever since. To top the stress off, I was in my 6 month "probation" time at work so did all this with only taking off 1/2 day from work.

Would I recommend it? Well, now that time has passed and I am experiencing the end result, I can say it was worth it. At the time, I was wound as tight as a drum and seriously wonder how we made it through without a divorce. So would I recommend it, probably not.

Good luck! As somebody who loves to look at houses, it seems like it will be fun, but in reality it just isn't.

Wow, thanks for all your very thoughtful replies! It really helps to hear others' experiences.

The buying/selling in my area seems pretty decent--certainly picked up this year. I live in a high-demand location. However, I live in a condo and that's going to limit potential buyers. My conflict stems from the fact that I don't think it is best for me to consider a condo my forever home; after giving it a good try I think I'm best suited to a single family home.

My mortgage is paid off. Still, I am such a worrier that I believe it will be best for me to sell first, then take my time to look around and wait for the right place to come along.

The big push will be getting myself to the point of making an appointment with a realtor. I am very, very conflicted about all this at the moment and don't know what will push me over the edge. Such a gamble either way. Is nothing in life ever perfect?

Have you looked at houses?
Depending on your rental market, you could also rent your condo out or keep as an investment.

We have always readied the house for market and then moved to allow RAs full access to a clean home on a moment's notice. We move to a hotel and hope for the best. We don't make a new purchase commitment until the ink on the last one is dry. Our last home sold in 7 weeks start to finish and we made $, so we are thrilled about that. Now, we are on "the hunt." It is looking like we may build, so that will put us in the hotel or a rental for a sadly long time. But, I couldn't handle the stress of supporting two houses for an unknown period of time.

Good luck with your decision.

We closed escrow on a brand new home the end of Feb. It was the model home and the builder rented it back until August. At first we were going to rent it out for a year and then move in but decided we preferred not to move in after tenants. Have been in the rental business for 37 years. We are in our 60's-70's and we have been in our present home 22 years. We have started moving slowly and making improvements in the new home and old home. We hope to put the old one on the market in March or April. The market is pretty good here in S.CA. If you can afford to do that, I think it's the best way. In the past, we bought and then sold and it was very stressful.
Selling your house first does give you a lot of buying power. Think about it....it you had two offers and one has sold there home and closed escrow and the other needs to put theirs on the market...and offer was the same, which would you take?

"My mortgage is paid off. Still, I am such a worrier that I believe it will be best for me to sell first, then take my time to look around and wait for the right place to come along."

I did just the opposite. We owned outright so we were able to move quickly when we found a house we wanted. Found the house we wanted, talked to my banker and got pre-qualified and two weeks later owned the home. Then we put ours on the market.

You'll have duplicate utility, insurance and tax bills until you sell your home but they'll be less than paying rent and you'll only move once.

I think you're in a great position to start shopping and not be pressured to buy.

Rented and lived with family. Took us a year to find the house we moved to. All our belongings went into storage for the year. If we didn't reach a point where we could no longer rent (or stay with family), we'd probably still be looking.

Took us forever to find a house we liked, but I'm glad we had the time to do it. Buying a house takes time. Its not like buying shoes.

I say rent until you find what you want and get the price you want.

Jane

If your mortgage is paid off and you're downsizing (expect to have $$$ leftover from sale) and you have a reasonable expectation your old house would sell fairly quickly, you might get equity line of credit and use that to pay for new house, and then repay loan in its entirety when you sell old house. There's some cost involved but youd weight that against cost of rent and storage somewhere else. I was told that that's synonymous with paying cash and that being the case you would be a desireable buyer.