Buyers: Now is a Great Time to Make a Contingent Offer

By Dave Knight

Dave Knight, our Specialist, started his career in real estate back in 2007 and quickly became a top-producing Agent at Keller Williams.

If you need to make a contingent offer to buy your next home, now’s the time to do so.

Can you purchase a new home contingent on selling your current one? 

If you would’ve asked me a year and a half ago, the answer would’ve been “probably not”. Back then, we had very little inventory and high demand, which meant sellers were getting well-financed offers with quick closings. They also had their pick between which offer to accept. 

It’s hard to get a contingent offer accepted in that type of market, but the market has cooled off since then. Supply has slightly increased, while demand has slightly decreased. This means you have a great opportunity to make a contingent offer on homes that have sat on the market for longer periods. If the seller of one of these homes has no other offers, yours becomes quite appealing. 

I recently went through this situation with a couple of clients of mine named Ryan and Monica. They were looking to move from a townhouse into a single-family home, and we were able to get an offer for a single-family home accepted that was contingent on their townhouse selling first. If they can’t sell their current home for whatever reason, we can cancel the transaction and get their earnest money deposit back. 

Thus, there are four transactions lined up, starting with the sale of the original property. We were able to work out a deal where they will sell their townhouse and then live as tenants in that townhouse for 14 days after closing. During that time, they’ll close on the next home while the current owners move out. They’ll be able to transition from one property to the next without having put their belongings into storage for an extended period. 

The bottom line is, making this type of transaction work depends on what the market is doing, and now is a great time for buyers in this situation. 

If you have any more questions about this topic or our market in general, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to help you.