Don't get me wrong, we were planning the pregnancy, but it did put a twist on upgrading our house. However, one random Sunday when my parents were in town, we were cruising around one of our "desired" neighborhoods and saw a couple of houses that we liked. Once at home, we looked up the price and thought that that was going to be too much of a difference between our current mortgage to the new mortgage. At least, that's what we thought. Unfortunately, we cannot let anything lie and thought we'd pursue the house if they were willing to do a house swap...
A month later, we have "swapped" our starter home for a new home! A house swap is where we buy a new house and the builder of that house buys our house. The benefits are pretty much a win-win for both the builder and for us. We didn't have to list our house, pay a realtor, clean our house, have our house inspected, or worry about the listing price. The builder got nearly full price for their new home (obviously making a profit) and they are going from a larger mortgage to a smaller mortgage. We did have some difficulties with the negotiations but finally settled on a price for both the new house and on our house! We close on October 14th!
