I don't think 29 days would be a problem. Has a lender told you it isn't possible? I'd ask one or more lenders to confirm. If they can do 29 days, then great, no issues. (This is my expectation.)
Update: I just asked a friend of mine who is a mortgage broker in Illinois what's the fastest he could do, and he said 15-20 days. So call some brokers ASAP.
But for the sake of this question, let's explore what happens if they can't, and the loan closing date will be, say, 30 days from now, then you could simply ask the seller if they could push the closing by a day. (I'd expect that to be OK too, though I could be wrong in a hot market and if the seller already regrets taking your offer for some reason.)
If the seller won't budge, then you simply have to weigh these options:
- Sell some stock (approximately 105 worth*) for a few days, and potentially buy the same stocks right back (or buy something else!)
- Pay 50 to avoid doing #1, and lose the house.
The cost of choosing #1 is going to be highly dependent on your personal situation. Are your stocks currently at a loss or a gain? Would the wash sale rule apply if you don't wait 30 days? But whatever that cost is, it seems unlikely to add up to nearly half the value of the stock you need to sell. (You're comparing selling 105 units vs losing 50 units).
There is another option too:
- Borrow the 105 from somewhere else as a short term loan. The interest will be negligible and even if there is an origination fee it still may be cheaper than options 1 or 2 (as long as there isn't a pre-payment penalty). I've actually done this before. I once borrowed $30K as a term loan (that had no origination fees), and paid it off about a week later. I did it because I had a rare 0% interest with 0% fee balance transfer credit card offer for 18 months that could only pay off an existing loan. So I took out the loan, paid it off with the CC and threw the money into a high yield savings account for 18 months. Between the interest and the deposit bonus I think it ended up profiting $1000 for this rare sort of arbitrage. (Though I had to pay taxes on it so the true profit was less than that, but it was kind of fun...)
Side note: if you end up in the worst case scenario, hiring an attorney who can help you push the closing date may be cheaper than either of your other options.
*I'm calculating 105 based on home price (1000) minus cash reserves (835) minus escrow already paid towards down payment (50). 1000-835-50 = 105.
