Family sells, then finds and buys a house on the same day

Selling the family home and finding another is always a juggle when it comes to timing. But one Palmerston North family solved the problem by selling and buying on the same day.

And what is even more remarkable, they had not planned the sale, and they had not seen the house they bought in advance – it turned out to be the first of four that they looked at after an offer came in for their property a few hours earlier.

Linda and Adam Grimmond, and their children Piper and Lincoln, won’t be moving far. The house they found is just around the corner, but it ticked all the boxes, including price.

“It’s super exciting,” Linda Grimmond says. “We managed to sell at $25,000 above RV, and bought at $100,000 under RV. We’re especially pleased to find something so quickly because a lack of listings is a real problem in Palmerston North. And we knew if our buyers struggled to find a house to buy, then we, too, would struggle.”

The family did not have their five-year-old house listed, but they had tried to sell it earlier in the year, having made a decision to downsize.

Grimmond says they pulled it from the market after an offer fell through when the chain broke. “There were no cash buyers back in February. The market wasn’t good, so we took the listing down in April.”

Then out of the blue, they had a call from an agent two weeks ago. “She said she had cash buyers from Taiwan, and asked if they could have a walk-through. We didn’t expect anything to come from it, but an offer came in on the Wednesday night.

“We wanted to find a house before we signed ours over, so we went out and looked at four on the Thursday morning. We told the agents we couldn’t wait till the open homes in the weekend – we had to do it that day. And the first one we went through was the one we bought. I knew straight away that it was the right one. We really just looked at the other three properties to validate our choice of the first one.”

“We signed the final agreement for the sale of our house at 12.30pm that day, put an offer in for the other house at 4.30pm, and had it accepted at 7.30pm.”

Grimmond admits it was a frantic day: “I managed to work in between all that as well,” she says. “The kids have taken a while to get used to the fact, because it all happened so quickly.

“We made sure all the dates for both deals were in sync for everything – from builder’s reports, going unconditional and settlement.” Both agreements are now unconditional.

The family is moving to a smaller house. “We have lost a bedroom – the new place has three, and our existing house has four. But we have a much larger section, which we wanted, and the property has street appeal and its own driveway. Our current home is down a long drive.”

They also have a smaller mortgage, as Grimmond says rising interest rates had been a key concern for the family.