Relocating for work or family?
Sell on your moving schedule.

Timing the sale with the move

There are three usual ways to sequence it. Sell first and rent for a while, which frees up your equity but means moving twice. Buy first and carry both homes until the old one sells. Or line the two closings up close together, which is hard to pull off with a traditional listing because the buyer’s loan, appraisal and inspection all have to cooperate.

A cash sale with a set closing date makes that last option more predictable. You pick the day: as soon as 3 days once title is clear, or later if you’re waiting on a start date or the end of the school year.

Carrying two homes

Until the old house closes, you’re paying its mortgage, property taxes, insurance, utilities and upkeep on top of the new place. An empty house adds risks of its own, like leaks nobody notices and break-ins, and many insurance policies limit coverage once a house has sat vacant for a while. In Oakland and Berkeley, a house left empty long enough can also owe a vacancy tax.

To buy before selling, some owners take a bridge loan or borrow against the current house, which comes at a cost. Lenders following Fannie Mae’s rules generally count both housing payments when you qualify, unless the old house is under a signed sale contract with any financing contingencies cleared. A cash contract has no financing contingency to clear.

Relocation packages and taxes

If your employer is helping with the move, read the relocation policy before you list or sign a contract with any buyer, including us. Packages vary: some cover selling costs, some pay a lump sum and some send the sale through a relocation company with its own rules about how and when you sell. Your relocation coordinator can tell you what applies.

Ask how the benefits are taxed, too. Moving-expense reimbursements from an employer count as taxable income for most employees, and a 2025 federal law made that permanent. The exceptions are active-duty military moves and some intelligence-community transfers.

Owned it less than two years?

The federal home-sale exclusion lets a single owner exclude up to $250,000 of gain, or a married couple filing jointly up to $500,000, after owning and living in the house for two of the five years before the sale. If you’ve already lived there two years, you don’t need to be living there when it sells; the two years just have to fall within those five.

Moving sooner for work doesn’t necessarily cost you the exclusion. If your new job is at least 50 miles farther from the house than your old one, or at least 50 miles away if you didn’t have a job before, the IRS allows a partial exclusion based on how long you owned and lived there: a year generally means up to half the usual amount. A move to care for a family member who is ill or injured can qualify under a separate health exception. A CPA can confirm how it applies to you.

Selling from somewhere else

You don’t have to fly back to close. California accepts a deed acknowledged before a notary in another state under that state’s rules, so you can sign where you are. You can also give someone you trust a power of attorney to sign for you; the title company will want to review it well before closing.