Avoid Offers Conditioned On The Sale of A Home

It is no secret the current real estate market is not exactly hot in most of the country. This can lead sellers to sometimes make mistakes they come to seriously regret.

When an offer is made on a home, it is usually done with a few conditions. As long as the conditions are satisfied, the agreement will be binding and the sale will go through. While certain conditions such as home inspects are customary, others can get sellers into trouble.

The early part of this decade saw a real estate market that was so hot, one could sell a home with no problems in a few weeks. During this period, sellers and buyers became conditioned to accepting certain offer conditions that have never really been acceptable before. One was the decision to accept a buyer's offer contingent on the buyer first selling their home.

In a red hot real estate market, there really is no reason not to agree to a condition that the buyer sell his or her current home prior to being bound by the agreement to buy yours. In a cooler real estate market, obviously, the situation is different. Such an agreement should be avoided like the plague by sellers.

Why? Well, give some thought to the time and effort involved in selling you home. If you accept such a conditioned offer, you are also essentially agreeing to wait for the buyer to sell their home. Instead of one transaction, the agreement essentially becomes a double transaction. Not only are you agreeing to the sale of your home, but you are trusting the buyer to sell theirs as well.

So, what is the downside of all of this? Ultimately, it is a time waster. In the current market, most of these conditional agreements fail because the buyer cannot come up with a buyer for their original home. During the 30, 60 or 90 day period, the seller is unable to accept other offers and is essentially tied down. If another offer comes along, this can be extremely aggravating.

Everyone knows the hot real estate market has cooled. Make sure to modify your assumptions accordingly or you could suffer.

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