Here’s a common scenario: a growing family is ready to move into a bigger house. Someone starts searching the available listings and suddenly the whole family has fallen in love with a new home before their current one has sold. What are the options here? An offer can still be made for the house for sale; however, the offer may be dependent on the sale of the existing home. This is what it means to buy a home on contingency.
How Contingency Works
Most homeowners are not in the position to, or at least certainly don’t want to make two mortgage payments per month. Thus, in order to close on the sale of a new home, the home buyer must first sell their current home. When making a contingency offer, the home buyer sets a date that marks the deadline for the sale of their existing home in order to move forward with closing on the new home.
The seller may reject a contingency offer for various reasons, such as having awareness that the buyer’s own home is either over priced or in a tough real estate area. The seller is more likely to accept a contingency if the overall inventory is low (as it is currently in the Nashville area) or if the property has been on the market for too long without other reasonable offers.
Considering A Contingency
Contingencies can be a great fit, for both the buyer and seller, in the right circumstances. Sellers who are not in a hurry to sell or who have not received asking price offers may be happy to accept a contingent offer. For the buyer, it may be the opportunity to lock in a house.
Before running out and making an offer with contingency on a house, check in with an experienced real estate agent. The right realtor will guide you through the process, to make sure that this is the best course of action to take.
Are you currently looking to buy or sell a house in the Nashville area? We’d be happy to help with listing your house for sale, helping you find the next one or both! Call DeSelms Real Estate today at 615.550.5565!