Buy Contingent Upon Successful Sale

How it works:

We start by writing (and negotiating) a purchase agreement on the new property contingent upon the successful sale of your current home, within a specific timeframe. Assuming that the seller accepts your offer, we would immediately list your home for sale. We would try to find the buyer for your home within that designated timeframe. A couple of things could happen:

1. We find your buyer within the designated timeframe and negotiate the purchase agreement, coordinating the closing dates to have both properties close on the same day. We can work out possession times to allow you adequate time to move.
2. We don’t find your buyer within the designated timeframe. If this happens we can try to renegotiate with the seller for more time. If they are not willing, we can still hope to find your buyer before the sellers sell THE HOUSE to someone else and then re-write and renegotiate the purchase agreement once your home is pending.
3. The trickiest part of this strategy is that during the time you are scrambling to find a buyer for your current house, the seller of your dream house is also continuing to market their property. They leave their house on the market in the hopes that another offer will come along. If another buyer comes along with a non-contingent offer, or a better offer, you will most likely be bumped. In fact, the seller can call the contingency due at any time for any reason (or no obvious reason) at all.

Pros:

1. Selling a home is never convenient and being excited about the new house can help alleviate some of the irritations.

Cons:

1. Stress!! Waiting for the buyer for your current house can be agonizing because you are afraid of losing your dream house.
2. When you receive an offer on your current house, you may settle for less money or lesser terms just to secure the new house. You may also have offered more for the new house to coax the seller to accept your contingent offer.