Buying a home in Spokane or North Idaho involves a lot of decisions, and you deserve someone who can help you put them in context. I’m Josiah Boone, a Windermere real estate broker with more than 20 years of experience. I help you compare homes, understand the numbers, and build a purchase strategy that fits your life.
My work takes me across Spokane, Colbert, Green Bluff, Spokane Valley, Liberty Lake, Coeur d’Alene, and Post Falls. Whether this is your first purchase or you’ve moved more times than you care to count, we’ll start with what matters to you.
How I help | Understanding value | Offer strategy | Inspections and closing | Buying before selling
Buying a Home Starts With a Workable Plan
Before we tour, I want to know what you enjoy about your current home, what you’d like to change, and how this move fits into the next few years. A workshop, a shorter drive, or fewer stairs may matter more than another bedroom. The house should work for you after the moving boxes disappear.
My buyer services include helping define your search, arranging showings, researching comparable properties, developing offers, negotiating terms, and coordinating the details from acceptance through closing. We’ll also discuss how representation works, the services covered, and compensation before we begin working together.
For a closer look at daily life in different areas, explore my community and neighborhood guides. They can help you narrow the search beyond price and square footage.
Get Comfortable With the Full Cost
A lender’s approval is an important starting point. Your comfortable budget is a separate conversation. Alongside the purchase price, we’ll consider closing funds, monthly housing costs, potential repairs, and the cash you want to keep available after the move.
I’ll coordinate with your lender as we evaluate properties and offers. A lower price, a seller credit toward eligible costs, and an interest-rate buydown can affect your finances differently. Your lender can compare those options using your actual loan terms and confirm what is allowed. We’ll use that information to negotiate for the outcome that helps you most.
What Is This Home Worth to the Market, and to You?
Comparable sales provide evidence, but they don’t always tell the whole story. A home with a useful shop, a difficult driveway, an unusually functional layout, or substantial deferred maintenance may not compare neatly with the three most recent sales nearby.
I’ll explain which properties are useful comparisons and where the differences matter. We’ll look at current alternatives, condition, location, and how long similar homes have taken to sell. Where the evidence is thin, I’ll say so. A range supported by clear reasoning is more useful than a very precise number built on weak assumptions.
We’ll also distinguish a feature you personally love from one the next buyer is likely to pay for. You can choose to pay more for the right fit. My job is to help you make that choice with your eyes open.
An Offer Strategy That Fits the Situation
The asking price is one part of the negotiation. Financing, contingencies, earnest money, closing dates, and possession can matter just as much to the seller. I’ll help you understand the tradeoffs before you decide what to offer.
For example, a flexible closing date may solve a seller’s problem without increasing your price. In another transaction, a credit toward permitted closing costs may help you more than the same dollar amount off the price. We’ll look for terms that serve your priorities and still give the seller a reason to say yes.
I’ll also explain what a proposed concession or waived protection could expose you to. An accepted offer should still be an agreement you feel comfortable completing. Sometimes my recommendation will be to negotiate harder, and sometimes it will be to let a property go. Ultimately, you decide.
Inspection Findings Deserve Perspective
An inspection report can make a house sound like a collection of projects with a roof over them. The useful work is sorting the findings: routine maintenance, larger expenses, safety concerns, and issues that need a specialist’s opinion.
I’ll help you organize the questions, obtain appropriate professional input, and evaluate the negotiating choices available under your contract. A repair, a permitted credit, a price adjustment, or ending the purchase when the contract allows may each make sense in different circumstances. The size of the report matters less than the nature of the problems and your willingness to take them on.
For acreage, land, or a home with special features, we may need additional information about access, wells, septic systems, utilities, permitted uses, or insurance. I’ll help identify what needs verification and coordinate with the professionals qualified to answer it.
Keep the Closing Plan Moving
Once you’re under contract, I track the transaction milestones and coordinate with the lender, inspectors, title, escrow, and the other broker. We’ll pay attention to financing and appraisal progress, title questions, insurance availability, agreed repairs, the final walkthrough, and possession.
A delay in one part of the process can affect several others. I want concerns raised while we still have room to respond, especially when moving arrangements or another home sale depend on the closing date. We’ll keep a backup plan in view rather than assume every date will cooperate.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s closing guide is a helpful companion for reviewing loan documents and preparing for settlement.
How Can You Buy Before Selling Your Current Home?
Sometimes the right home comes along before your current one is sold. Other times, moving first would make it much easier to prepare and show the home you’re leaving. There are several ways to approach that timing, depending on your available cash, equity, and financing.
I start with two separate questions: Can you qualify to purchase before selling, and would you feel comfortable with the financial overlap? A lender helps answer the first. We’ll work through the practical side together, including what happens if your sale takes longer or brings less than expected.
Option 1: Buy With Available Cash and Approved Financing
If you have the down payment and closing funds available, your lender may be able to qualify you for the new purchase while you still own your current home. Some buyers can purchase entirely with available cash. Either approach may allow you to move first and prepare the previous home after it is empty.
The question is how much cash remains afterward and how comfortably you can carry both properties. We’ll account for payments, taxes, insurance, utilities, and upkeep. I’d rather plan for a few extra months of ownership than build the entire move around a sale happening exactly on schedule.
Option 2: Use a Smaller Down Payment, Then Consider a Recast After Selling
If an eligible loan allows it, you may be able to buy with less cash upfront and apply proceeds from your eventual sale to the new mortgage. A lender-approved recast recalculates the required principal-and-interest payment after a substantial principal reduction, generally keeping the existing interest rate and remaining loan term.
This is a variation on buying first, not a separate source of funds. You still need to qualify and afford the initial payment, which may include mortgage insurance. Before relying on this approach, confirm loan eligibility, minimum payment requirements, fees, timing, and how mortgage insurance would be handled.
Simply paying down principal does not automatically lower the required monthly payment. Recasting is also different from refinancing. Chase’s explanation of mortgage recasting provides useful background, but your own lender must confirm the terms available to you.
Option 3: Explore a Bridge Loan
A bridge loan may provide temporary financing when the equity you need for the next purchase is still tied up in your current home. Depending on the program and your qualifications, it may help you purchase without a home-sale contingency.
We’ll ask the lender to explain the interest, fees, payment obligations, maturity date, and repayment plan. We’ll also compare the outcome if the old home sells promptly with the outcome if it takes longer. The flexibility can be useful, but the carrying costs and repayment deadline need to fit your situation.
Option 4: Consider a Home Equity Loan or Line of Credit
A lender may allow you to use a home equity loan or home equity line of credit, often called a HELOC, to help fund the next purchase. The new mortgage lender also needs to approve the source of funds and account for the additional debt.
Discuss this early. Ask the equity lender whether listing the home for sale affects eligibility or access to funds, and how the debt must be repaid when you sell. A HELOC typically has a variable rate, and borrowing against your home puts it at risk if you cannot repay. The CFPB’s HELOC overview explains the basics.
Another Route: Make an Offer Before Selling, With a Sale Contingency
You may be able to secure a purchase agreement before your home sells by making the purchase contingent on that sale or closing. This can help coordinate the move, although it generally does not let you complete the purchase independently of the sale proceeds.
The seller must agree to the terms. I’ll help you assess the deadlines, the status of your current listing, and any provision that allows the seller to consider another offer. A contingency is only as useful as the actual protection written into the agreement.
Build the Purchase and Sale Strategy Together
For the other half of the move, see my guide to coordinating your sale and next purchase.
Before we choose an approach, I’ll help estimate a realistic range of sale proceeds and a preparation timeline. Your lender can then compare the financing choices using those assumptions. We’ll look at cash needed upfront, overlapping monthly costs, repayment deadlines, and a fallback plan if the sale is delayed.
We’ll also talk about the offer itself. Removing a home-sale contingency can help in some negotiations, but it does not automatically mean giving up inspection or financing protections. We’ll consider each term on its own merits.
You don’t need to become a mortgage expert to make a good move. You do need a plan that still works if the calendar gets a little uncooperative. I’ll help you bring the property, financing, and timing decisions together before you commit.
Let’s Talk About the Move You Have in Mind
You don’t need a perfectly organized wish list to start. Tell me what you’re hoping to accomplish, and we’ll work through the next steps together.
Call or text 509-389-0733 or email me. You can also read what past clients have shared. I’m available for calls and texts from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, with office meetings by appointment.
