My husband and I are planning to sell our home in the next couple of months. Then, we are going to buy a home, but sometime in the future. We lived in the home for the length of the mortgage. The time you wait to buy another will not affect your tax free capital gains benefit. Also, your selling price is only a factor if it generates capital gains in excess of the excluded amounts.
Time is, however, a qualifying factor in another way.
To qualify for the exclusion, the home must have been your primary residence for at least two of the prior five years. Based on your sale and purchase price alone, it appears as if you won't have any capital gains taxes on the primary residence portion of your property. The other 50 percent of the property, the rental unit, is business property and not eligible for the capital gains tax exclusion for primary residences. Its capital gain or loss is subject to rules that govern business property sales. First and foremost, you want to protect yourself from liability.