Decision tools
Move-Up Home Planner
Selling and buying at the same time raises one hard question: what order, and how do you fund the gap? Compare six ways to sequence it, side by side, under your own assumptions.
Direct answer: enter your current home, your target new home, and how long you expect the transition to take, and this calculator projects the total extra cost of selling first, buying first, a contingent offer, a bridge loan, or a HELOC — plus a separate look at keeping your current home as a rental instead. It updates instantly as you type — no form submission required, and no option is declared objectively best.
Current home
New home
Transition assumptions
If you use a bridge loan or HELOC
If you keep the current home as a rental instead
Buying first with cash alone isn't feasible with your entered cash on hand — the down payment is short by 80,000; a bridge loan or HELOC would need to cover that gap instead.
Total transition cost, compared over the same 3-month horizon
Sell first
$2,000
Total transition cost
$220,750 in net proceeds today covers your down payment with $90,750 to spare. No overlap carrying cost — the only cost is any temporary housing if there's a gap.
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Buy first (cash only)
$4,500
Total transition cost
Not fully feasible as entered
Carrying both mortgages for 3 months while the current home sells — no separate financing needed if your cash on hand fully covers the down payment.
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Contingent offer
$0
Total transition cost
No overlap cost by design — the purchase doesn't close until the current home sells. The real cost is risk, not dollars: contingent offers are often rejected or less competitive in a competitive market.
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Bridge loan
$7,900
Total transition cost
Borrows $80,000 against current-home equity to cover the down-payment gap, repaid when the current home sells.
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HELOC
$6,700
Total transition cost
Same idea as a bridge loan, drawn as a HELOC against current-home equity instead — modeled interest-only during the draw period.
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Keep as rental — a different kind of decision
Keep the current home as a rental
$90
Net monthly benefit, on top of your new mortgage payment
This isn’t a one-time transition cost like the strategies above — it’s an ongoing choice to carry both properties indefinitely, so it’s measured monthly, not as a total.
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These are projected costs under the assumptions entered above, not directives or guarantees. Actual lender approval, real bridge/HELOC borrowing limits (typically well below 100% of home equity), local market competitiveness for contingent offers, and your own risk tolerance all affect which sequencing genuinely fits your situation — that’s what a property-specific review is for. Results do not include income taxes, capital-gains taxes, or the cost of a second move if a temporary-housing gap runs longer than planned.
Timing is the real cost
The cheapest option on paper isn't always the one that closes.
A contingent offer costs nothing to carry, but it can lose you the house in a competitive market. A bridge loan or HELOC costs real interest, but it lets you buy without waiting. There isn’t a universally right answer — only the sequencing that fits your market, your lender, and your tolerance for carrying two mortgages at once.
Methodology
How each option’s transition cost is calculated.
Five of the six options — sell first, buy first, contingent, bridge loan, and HELOC — all answer the same question: how do you fund and time buying the new home relative to selling the current one? They’re compared on the same basis: the real, additional cost each path adds over your entered transition horizon, on top of the ordinary cost of owning the new home (which every path pays identically, so it’s excluded from the comparison rather than padding every number by the same amount).
Sell firsthas no overlap cost — you’re not carrying two mortgages, since the new purchase happens after the sale closes. The only cost modeled is optional temporary housing if there’s a gap between the two closings.
Buy firstassumes your cash on hand alone covers the new down payment — no borrowed funds — and carries the full current-home payment for your entered transition horizon as the cost of an empty house you’ve already moved out of.
Contingent offerhas no overlap by definition — the purchase doesn’t close until the current home sells — so its dollar cost is always $0. Its real cost is the risk of a seller rejecting or deprioritizing a contingent offer, which this tool discloses rather than invents a number for.
Bridge loan and HELOC both borrow only the shortfall between your down payment and your cash on hand (not the whole down payment, if some of it is already covered) against current-home equity, then add that loan’s interest and fees on top of the same overlap carrying cost buy-first pays.
Keep as rentalis measured differently on purpose — it’s not a transition, it’s an ongoing choice. It reports net monthly cost (rent minus expenses minus the current mortgage payment), not a total.
Worked example (hypothetical)
A $450,000 current home with a $200,000 payoff and a $1,500 payment at 4%, moving to a $650,000 home with a $130,000 down payment at 6.5%, expecting a 3-month transition with $50,000 cash on hand, estimates roughly $2,000 to sell first (one month of $2,000 temporary housing, since net proceeds of $220,750 easily cover the down payment); roughly $4,500to buy first with cash — except cash on hand is $80,000 short of the down payment here, so buying first with cash alone isn’t actually available; $0 for a contingent offer; roughly $7,900 for a bridge loan covering that $80,000 gap at 9% plus a 2% fee; and roughly $6,700 for a HELOC covering the same gap at 8.5% plus a $500 fee. Keeping the current home as a $2,200/month rental instead would run about $90 ahead each month, on top of the new mortgage payment. Change any number above to see how it moves — this example is illustrative only, not a projection for any specific property.
Downside cases
- A longer-than-expected transition changes every strategy that carries an overlap cost — a 3-month estimate that becomes 6 doubles the carrying and financing costs for buy-first, bridge, and HELOC.
- Bridge loans and HELOCs are shown against raw home equity — real lenders cap borrowing well below 100% of equity, so a path shown as feasible here may not be approved at the amount modeled.
- A contingent offer’s real risk (rejection, a weaker negotiating position) isn’t captured in any of these numbers — a $0 transition cost doesn’t mean $0 risk.
- Keeping the current home as a rental assumes it actually rents at the entered figure with the entered vacancy — a slow rental market or a bad tenant year can turn a modest monthly benefit into a real monthly cost.
National considerations
Bridge loan and HELOC availability, rates, and lending limits vary significantly by lender, and how competitive contingent offers are varies significantly by local inventory levels.
Utah considerations
How competitive a contingent offer is, and how quickly a current home is likely to sell, both vary meaningfully by Utah county — see Utah-specific market guidance for the regional detail behind these assumptions.
Author: Todd McClean, Realtor® | Real Estate Investment Strategist, Mountainland Realty, Inc.. Reviewed July 26, 2026. This tool provides general real estate information and is not legal, tax, accounting, lending, securities, commodities, or financial-planning advice.
Frequently asked questions
Does this tool tell me which sequencing option is best?
Why is "contingent offer" always $0?
Why is "keep as rental" measured differently from the other five?
Does this account for whether a lender will actually approve me?
Do I need to fill in every section?
Related
Go deeper on the option worth exploring.
Next step
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