A standard transaction in every real estate deal is the money from the buyer goes to a lawyer. The lawyer pays the real estate broker all the commissions, pays for a mortgage balance, outstanding mortgage payments if any, property taxes up to date, utility bills up to date, pays for all of the secured loans which were taken against the equity of the house if any and of course the legal fees. Is anything is left the seller gets a certified cheque from the lawyer with the balance.

Lawyer gives you gross 90K minus applicable fees and other penalties. You can then deposit it to the bank. Its clean money.

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Will the seller wait for me to sell my house or does the bank front you the downpayment money until you sell your house?

When you find your new place and apply for the mortgage, tell the lender that you need a "bridge loan" for your old property. If the numbers work out right, they'll advance up to 80% of your home's value less any outstanding debt for you to use as down payment and closing costs on the new place. Bridge loans typically have a somewhat higher interest rate but no payments are required, usually for the first 6 months. After 6 months you normally can make interest only payments if your old place hasn't sold yet. Once your old place sells, the bridge loan and any accured interest are paid off from the proceeds on your old place. Don't bother with a contingent offer on the new place. Sellers are generally not interested in having to wait for you to sell your old place. I've sold a number of homes over the years and NEVER consider an offer contingent on the buyer selling their old place.

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And also closing fees. i know with these you will get less money for your home than if you sell it the old fashion way. but what if all you are looking for is enough to buy a new home. do you think that is still not good to do? just getting opinions.

Every situation is different. If you are in a time crunch you are trading their money for your time.You obviously won't get the best price, but you will get fast money. If you are thinking about getting a new house, but haven;t committed to it yet, try either selling your home on your own or via a Realtor first, if that doesn't work, then go the we buy houses route.

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We bought a house a year ago this month..now we need to relocate as well as downsize due to changes in job location (same company just differant site) and some credit issues that caused us to get behind in our current mortage. we are looking to get out of this house and into a cheaper one so that we can one relocate and two clean up our credit issues.

Consider this alternative which is a three step procedure. It is absolutely normal for a couple to sell one house and consider this option. Step 1 : Sell the house. Get whatever you can after you've paid off your mortgage. If you're thinking there isn't going to be any left for keeps, don't sweat it. Just settle this 'giant problem' first. Step 2 : This is the simpler part. Since it is apparent that it is generally easier to buy than to sell, you might consider lease-purchase option. Which means, when you move to your new location, it may not be a purchase straight away. Later if you decide this new home is really for you, then you can exercise your option to purchase by entering into a Sales & Purchase Agreement. Step 3 : If you decide NOT to buy, then your lease, maybe 5 years can be made into a very comfortable setting, the money which most people use up paying for mortgage facilities can be channeled into having all the gadgets you require to enjoy a refined quality of life. Optional Step 4 : While you're enjoying Step 3, Save your money within these 5 years and invest in a smaller house, not for you stay in yourself, but to rent it and sell it for profits. Try not to take a loan. Invest in smaller a property because you can re-sell it faster. The idea is to have best of both worlds: one way you refine your lifestyle as in Step 3, and the other to purchase/invest into something which will snowball in value, without having to pay for mortgage services that eat into your savings. The above is is truly the easy way, taken into consideration all the mistakes I have made in properties and, learning from them.

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I live in canada and i think the economy here is well. now i am planning on buying and flipping a house for the first time. would it be better to buy a house or condo? also if i pay downpayment on a house/condo that is still under construction, and then decide to withdraw from the transaction, are there any risks involved? when the house/condo is complete and the value has gone up or down, will i always get all my money (downpayment) back if i decide to sell? and in terms of returns, what is the median percentage i could expect to make flipping the house/condo in let's say a year?

Whole lot of questions. Generally a house is easier to flip than a condo. Houses are easier to sell. If you enter into a purchase contract to buy a house or a condo, you have to be pretty sure that you want to buy because the seller can sue you if you simply change your mind about following through on the contract. Usually, when you write a contract you give a good faith deposit and your down payment is given when the sale is closing. If you back out of a deal, prior to the closing, for an invalid reason (like you simply changed your mind) you will lose your deposit. If your real estate market is stable (unlike the northeast US where prices got inflated and have since readjusted downwards) you should be able to count on getting your down payment back, but there is not hard and fast percentage of how much your property will increase in a year. There are many variables to consider especially the following three things: location, location, location (old joke).

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I recently relocated and sold my house. i gained around 33k in profit. i have tons of cred. card debt and i am debating what to do with the money. my mom thinks i should save the money for another house but with this debt i would never get approved for a mortgage. my cred. score is good cause i never miss payment. i want to save 10k of it for an emerg. fund or maybe to use as future downpayment. my 23k leftover will earn maybe 4.5% interest in savings while my cc debt racks up 15%+ interest a mo. i am living paycheck to paycheck cause of this debt. but if i send 23k to reduce my cc debt by about half i will be able to save more money & have cash to spend on necessities instead of using my ccs. help! do i send the 23k to pay down ccs thus reducing my expenses, debt and saving myself thousands in future interest or do i save now & continue to live try to pay off these bills slowly? i have a kid on the way in a few months & one of our goals is to either move to a 2br apt or buy a house

Pay off your debt! This interest rate is killing you. Hold on to some cash for "emergencies" but also remember that by paying down you're debt you are opening yourself up to available credit - USE THIS FOR EMERGENCIES! Rather than paying over 15% in interest. There are so many options for low down payment options - holding onto the cash AND the debt just doesn't make sense!

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I sold an apt in new york and i bought i house in the same year. do you pay taxes on the money you received from the sell, even do we used for the house downpayment???

You only have to pay taxes on the gain on the sale (the sales price less your original purchase price plus selling expenses such as commissions). Also, if you owned and lived in the apt for at least 2 years out of the previous 5 years counting back from the date of sale, then up to $250,000 of gain for a single filer ($500,000 for married filing joint) is exempt from tax. It doesn't matter what you used the money you received from the sale for.

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We are trying to sell our home, and the home we hope to buy requires a $25,000 downpayment. however, we won't have that kind of money available until we sell our current home. are there loans available that would cover this cost until our current house sells?

This last Feb I bought a house using a bridge loan. It was 9%. I paid interest only. In two months I sold my previous home and paid the bridge loan off. It was a lein agaisnt my old house and I had $65000 equity in that house and only needed to borrow $30000. My wife works nights and we did not want to have our old house up for sale while we lived there. The other idea I had was to get a first and a second on the new house then pay off the second lien as soon as we sold the old house. The interest rate would have been much better but the fees would have been quite a bit higher.

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My wife & i are planning on buying a house within the next year. would it be better to put money aside for a downpayment or pay off credit cards ($5,000@ 11% interest)? we own a house and we would have to sell it also. is it a good time to sell? i live in the houston area.

It is great that you are thinking about this ahead of time. Most of the questions here deal with people who have not planned ahead and now face serious problems because of that. You should pay off as much credit card debt as possible. The interest is very high on credit cards. Try to find a 0% intro rate for 6 months or a year, transfer the balance and then get it paid off in that amount of time. Keep a very low balance on your card, say $500 and pay more than the minimum payment. That will keep your credit score up. As for the market, no one can tell you where it will be in a year. Hopefully it will be better but since you will be both a seller and a buyer, it is almost a wash. If you get less for your house in a slow market, you should pay less for the new house. If you get more for your house in a hot market, you will pay more for the new house.

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Here's the deal: i want to eventually get into owning rentals, but i don't make much $$$, so it may not be realistic. i own a mobile home on land, worth about $80k. should i sell, & use that $$$ as a large downpayment on a home, or scrape together what will be a small downpayment, and rent this place out, applying the rent money to my new morgage? i could probably get around $800+ rent. i will not have much of a downpayment if i do this (probably $10k), and i want to get a very small, and/or serious fixer, so it will be as cheap as possible. i'm not doing this so i can have a nice big house or whatever, just to try to get into property that will appreciate faster than a mobile home, plus like i said, get into rentals eventually, one at a time. thanks!

You are not going to get much of a house in California with 10K down payment. Now is not the time to buy. Sit tight, and wait for the foreclosures to start stacking up.

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The house i would like to buy is less money. but i only have a small downpayment at this time. but when my house sells i would have that equity that i would put down on the house. would they let me do that? or does my house have to sell first? i am sure there are several ways to do this but i am looking for the cheapest way ofcourse. and i would like them to close at the same time so i dont have to move elsewhere. thanks for any help. also i do not want to do 100% financing on the new house. i feel like i should not have to since i have so much equity in the one i have now.

Ask your Lender for specifics. And, check with your REALTOR to see what your home is currently worth on the market. Knowing what your home is worth on the market (and possibly the time that it will take to sell) and knowing the cost implications with doing a bridge loan or a HELOC will save you sleepless nights. Do your homework up front! Good luck.