Sell current apartment and buy a new home

[hereami]

Hello,

I'm new to the forum, nice to meet you all. It is quite difficult to get this kind of information in English here in Japan, so this is quite a gem, my grattitude to everybody making it possible.

With that being said, please allow me to explain a little about my situation: I own an appartment and a shiny 35 years loan. We bought it 5 years ago and now with my second child coming, we are thinking in moving to a bigger place. My salary has doubled since them, so we are actually thinking selling the appartment and buying a two-floor house.

The thing is that I don't know how this is done... I guess we should try to have the best timing possible so we don't have to move temporary to some place before buying the new one, and I'm also guessing that with the buyer's money, the loan will be paid (hopefully fully) and a new one will be granted. Is that right? does anybody did something like this?

Thank you so much!

[RetireJapan]

My understanding is that you can get a bridge loan from the bank in this case? Maybe? Might be worth going to your current mortgage provider and asking them what they can do for you in this situation (and maybe some competitors too )

Anyone else?

[hereami]

Thank you for your response!

I'll try to figure it out to see my chances. Will post here in case it helps someone.

Today we are going to see the new home, I will ask there, they may don't know but probably will put me in contact with someone who does...

[RetireJapan]

People that sell real estate tend to be quite knowledgeable about mortgages. Good luck!

[AinT]

If it's in a popular area have you considered keeping it and renting it out for some passive income? That is a whole other bucket of worms though...

[hereami]

Ok, here is what I figured out:
- As I'm 42 years old, I still can afford getting a 35 years mortgage (it seems there is no much space for this, maybe 45 is the limit?)
- Based in other sells made in the same building, they can figure out my current place value, they recommend to try to sell by that value for ourselves for maximum benefit (using some real estate agent), in the case of this taking some time, they even can buy our home themselves
- The old mortgage gets paid and a new mortgage is issued which seems to be the standard, but if the real estate belongs to a bank group (this is pretty usual) and the bank group is the same as current mortgage, they can even repurpose it.

So basically there is no much problem apart for being able to pay monthly the new mortgage.

- As per renting: as far as I know, Japanese law doesn't allow to rent a home if you are still paying the home loan... in any case, not an option, I want to make my life easier and that sounds like a real pain in the ass... (thanks for the suggestion!)