Procedure on 1031 exchange

[Chad Clark]

I am thinking of making the move form single family home to apartment complex (10 unit), but I would need the equity from one of my rental properties to make the down payment.   Luckily, I have one with enough equity to do so.   

Ok, the single family is not my personal residence and has been used as a LTR for the past 6 years. It only has a small HELOC for a loan on it.

The new property I'd like to make an offer on is 600k and would pretty much take all of my equity in that rental with about 20k left over. I know it all has to go towards the new property so I guess I'll just have a larger down payment than needed which is fine. I'm guessing the HELOC gets paid off during this.

So my question is, I'm reading that you need to find the new property within a time frame.  Can I go ahead and make an offer now so I don't miss out?  Do I need to get the intermediary involved before I make the offer?   It seems like I'll be holding up the sale of this seller of the apartment building by needing to sell mine in the middle of things, is that really how it works?   It just seems like a clunky way to do it.  

If I'm reading this stuff right it goes like this.  

1.  Hire intermediary

2.  Place offer on new property and get under contract

3.  Place old property up for sale

4.  Close old property

5. funds go to new property and close.  

Is that really it? I know that's the skeletal version, but I'm just trying to figure this out. I made a ton off that little SFH by BRRR'ing it. 60k into 250k so I really don't want to see the capitol gains on it. I remember I missed out on a 1031 exchange once because I entered into a land contract and didn't realize that would exclude me from doing it so I'm checking ahead of time this go around.