Should You Sell or Buy First in Las Vegas?

By Tania Michaels

Tania Michaels is a seasoned real estate professional with nearly two decades of experience in the field. She began her career as a top loan originator before becoming a key player in land acquisitions, closing over $215M in transactions.

What if you sell your house and then can’t find anything you’d actually want to buy? Or what if you find the perfect next home, but then you’re stuck trying to offload the one you’re in? If you’ve been thinking about making a move, you’ve almost certainly had one of those thoughts, and they’re the exact reason a lot of people stay put.

Here’s the good news: something has changed in Las Vegas that hasn’t been true in a long time. We finally have inventory again, and more inventory means you finally have more options in how you make your move.

But that’s also where I’m seeing homeowners get into trouble. They start with what feels like the obvious question, “Should I sell first or buy first?”, and that’s actually not the question that needs answering first. Before I ever advise anyone on the order, there’s one thing I need to know: how difficult is each side of this transaction going to be? Once I have that answer, I might hand two homeowners standing in the exact same market two completely different plans.

Here’s what I mean by difficulty, and why it changes everything. Say you tell me the next house has to be single-story, with a three-car garage, RV parking, built 2010 or newer, no HOA, and priced at $600,000 or less.

What you’ve just described is a unicorn, because it doesn’t show up very often. There’s nothing wrong with wanting one. I just need to know how often it actually appears, because if only three come to market a year, what are the odds the fourth lands precisely during your 30-to-45-day escrow window?

Then flip to the home you’re selling. If it needs to sell for $50,000 over fair market value because there are debts to clear, now we’re squarely in the land of Greek mythology: a home that’s hard to buy and a home that’s hard to sell, two difficult transactions that don’t run on the same clock.

Once we know how hard each side is, the order almost picks itself. If your current home will sell quickly and your next one is easy to find, you can start writing offers now, because everything’s going to move fast. If your home sells quickly but you’re chasing a unicorn, find the unicorn first, so you don’t put your current house on a deadline you can’t meet.

If your home is slower to sell but the next one is easy to find, get your house under contract first so you can shop from a position of strength. If your home is slow to sell, and you’re also hunting a unicorn, well, that’s usually the exact reason you haven’t moved yet.

That last scenario is where the real work happens, and it’s the honest one. When both sides are hard, we stop crossing our fingers and hoping two difficult transactions magically line up on the same Tuesday, and we build a bridge instead. Maybe that means some temporary financing. Maybe you sell, then rent for a while. Maybe you move twice. Moving twice is inconvenient, but buying the wrong house or selling under pressure can cost a whole lot more.

Here’s the part most people don’t realize: you don’t have to put your house on the market to figure any of this out. I can look up how often the home you want actually becomes available, estimate how long yours would take to sell at the price you need, and build the kind of transition plan that fits where the market is headed. You don’t need perfect timing. You just need a plan that doesn’t depend on it.

If you’ve been sitting on a move because you can’t see how the timing would work, let’s figure out which box you’re in. Call or text me at 702-583-6555, email me at sales@michaelsteam.com, or visit michaelsteam.com. This is where decisions get made.