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It is a difficult situation, but it is treatable.

Main points

• Buying one home while selling another can be difficult.
• A knowledgeable real estate agent can help you figure out the logistics.
• Preparing your home and, if necessary, making a short-term housing plan can help make the transition easier.

If you’re ready to sell your home and buy a new one, the easiest thing to do is find a new place to live, close on the sale, take ownership of your new place, and then sell and sell your current home. Enter your items on your own schedule.

But there’s a big problem with that — you probably need the money from the sale of your home to use as a down payment on your next home. And if so, you’ll have to deal with buying and selling a home at the same time.

This is not easy to do. But financial expert Dave Ramsey has advice for those looking to sell and buy.

1. Find the best real estate agent

Buying and selling a home at the same time can be challenging. After all, you have to balance showing your home to potential buyers (which means keeping it clean and clutter-free) with seeing the homes yourself. And this is on top of your various responsibilities in life like working, taking care of your children and so on.

That’s why Ramsey insists it’s important to work with a real estate agent. An agent who has worked with people in this situation before can help you plan your schedule and determine a timeline for listing your home and looking for a new one.

2. Put your home in the best position to sell

If you’re looking to buy and sell a home, you don’t want your current property to sit on the market for too long. That’s why Ramsey says you need to take certain steps to make sure your home is attractive to buyers.

First, you may want to hire your own home inspector so there are no surprises about your home’s condition — and so you can address problems before they serve as reasons for a buyer not to offer. Next, you need to stage your home to attract buyers. This means not only getting rid of clutter, but also getting rid of things that may be very personal to you.

Finally, you need to properly value your home. You don’t want to price too low because then you’ll lose money. But you’ll need to command a good sales price to pay off your mortgage and put money toward a new home. At the same time, you don’t want to ask for an unrealistic sales price.

The good news is that a real estate agent can help you with all of these things. Some agents specialize in staging homes so you don’t have to hire an outside stager, saving yourself money. And a real estate agent can certainly use their expertise to help you come up with the right listing price.

3. If you have a gap, explore different options

In an ideal world, you would close on the sale of your home, move out, and move into your new home on the same day. But things often don’t work that way. You may have to delay closing the sale of your home until you move into your new home. So it’s important to explore your options.

One option might be to enter into a rent-back agreement with the buyer who buys your home. Under that arrangement, you simply stay in your home while paying rent until your new home moves in. Say, if you can close on the sale of your existing home by July 15th but your new home isn’t ready by August 1st, your buyer may let you rent out your home for two weeks.

If you’re facing a longer gap now, you may need to look at a different solution, such as putting things into storage and getting a short-term rental. But that can be a very expensive route, so it’s generally best to negotiate with your buyer to let you rent your home for a limited period of time.

Buying and selling a home at the same time isn’t easy, but it’s the way most people go. Use these tips to make the process easy from start to finish.