With four growing children and the realization that their house was feeling smaller than ever, the Tripp family had already been toying with the idea of upsizing when world events shifted their thinking. Initially, the plan had been to remodel and expand their home in San Jose, California, but when the coronavirus pandemic turned daily life upside down — and suddenly there were six people at home, all day, every day — the Tripps started to reconsider. “Renovating felt less exciting; the idea that we’re all sitting inside the house, and then there’s a couple of workers as well… The wood starts coming down and the roof starts disappearing and I’m like, ‘maybe that’s too much,’” explains Omer Tripp. After reaching out to real estate agent Ryan Larocca for a market analysis that yielded promising results, the Tripps began to strategize how they could present themselves as strong buyers to get into a new home, preferably with minimal disruption to their childrens’ daily lives. “We really wanted the kids to stay within the same schools,” Tripp said. “So we had that hard constraint, and there’s not a ton of inventory in our area. That left us a little exposed.” As the old saying goes, sometimes you’re caught between a rock and a hard place. How would the Tripps find a larger, more suitable home for their family in the same school district, while navigating limited inventory and the stress of having to sell their existing home? Though far from an uncommon situation, Tripp already knew that the contingency of having to sell his current home before closing on the next would likely weaken his offer whenever a suitable house was found. In a market with few choices to begin with, such a contingency could even push his offer out of the running. While discussing possible options with Larocca, Tripp learned about HomeLight Trade-In. A comprehensive service offering buyers the opportunity to easily transition between homes, HomeLight Trade-In works by purchasing the buyer’s existing home for an agreed-upon price. By going under contract, a buyer is now able to use the equity from their current home to make a strong offer on another property without an existing home sale contingency. Once the buyer has closed on and moved into their new home, HomeLight works with the real estate agent to prepare the previous home and list it on the market. If it sells for more than the anticipated price, the former owner receives any additional funds remaining after commissions, service fees, and costs. In short, HomeLight Trade-In makes it easy for a seller to focus on being a buyer, but still receive full market value for their previous property. A couple of phone calls and an inspection later — now with a guaranteed price for their home in hand — and exciting things were starting to happen for the Tripp family. “We found ourselves in a position where we could really start shopping for a new home,” Tripp said. “It was really nice to enjoy all this simplicity, compared to a process where you need to deal with, ‘Do I first sell, do I first buy, how does this happen? How do I make sure that my kids don’t get kicked out of their schools?’” Having the flexibility to take their time looking around offered peace of mind, and just a few days later, the Tripps got lucky and found a spacious house with a big yard, a pool, and most importantly: It was located in the same school district. Thanks to the cash made available from HomeLight Trade-In, Larocca was able to help the Tripps submit a strong offer with no sales contingencies. The transaction progressed smoothly and the Tripps were able to take their time moving between houses, as well as stay involved with the sales prep at their previous home thanks to the fact that the two properties were just five minutes apart. Once the Tripps’ original home was on the market, Larocca had an accepted offer on the table within three days. “As an agent, working with HomeLight gives us a pretty unique value proposition with the fact that we’re able to help clients buy a house first,” says Larocca. “There are a lot of moving parts involved with any real estate transaction, and I think that’s exponentially higher when the client is both selling and buying at the same time. HomeLight Trade-In is a great product.” While the Tripps may be spending more time at home these days than they would have expected, at least now there’s room for everyone to stretch their legs. “Moving into a bigger house with a swimming pool and a huge backyard are definitely things you appreciate every day,” says Tripp. “COVID overall is definitely not a good thing, but the one exception to us has really been this house move. We’d kind of felt that we didn’t have a lot of leverage in this market, but somehow things all connected to make the deal.” “I’m pretty confident we would not have ended up here if it weren’t for HomeLight.”HomeLight Trade-In to the rescue
More space? Coming right up!
All’s well that ends well
