If real estate contingency is one of those phrases that makes you go “hmmm”  Have no fear.  Stick around for the next few minutes and I’ll explain to you explain to you exactly what a home sale contingency is.

Hey everyone welcome back, It’s Cori with RE/MAX Central and Monmouth County Dream Homes.    If you want to stay up to date with anything and everything Real Estate and Monmouth County related, go ahead and hit that subscribe button.  If you want to be among the first to know when my new videos come out each and every Monday, hit that little bell icon so you’ll be notified right away.  I put new content out weekly and trust me, you don’t wanna miss it.  

“A contingency in a deal simply means there’s something the  buyer has to do in order for the sale to be completed

As your local Monmouth County Realtor I have been involved in so many transactions that involved contingencies.  Today I’d like to talk about contingency offers   How they work, what they truly mean and how they can effect and or protect you as a  seller and a buyer!

Today I’d like to talk about contingency offers , how they work, what they are and how they can help to protect you as a buyer as well as a seller  

So you found a home that you absolutley love and you can picture yourself living there with your family.  As far as making the offer goes,  it is the same exact process, whether or not you did have a house to sell or not.  However, what will be inserted by an attorney is known as a home contingency clause.  

When it comes to a home sale contingency, there are two types of addendums, and they are very very different.  One addendum would state that your current home is already under contract.  That is very different addendum then if your current home is on the market but it isn’t even sold yet.  

There have been so many times  just in the past few weeks that I have submitted offers for my clients stating that the purchase was contingent upon them selling their current home.  

Some of those offers were accepted, and others…. The seller wanted nothing to do with us because my clients were bringing a home sale contingency. 

So what really is the point of a contingency contract?  The idea is to protect somebody who is buying and selling a home from owning two homes at once.  

The truth is most buyers wouldn’t qualify for a mortgage to own two homes anyway.  Most of the time some body    needs to sell their current home so they can use those proceed to purchase their new home.  

It is important to keep in mind, offers with a home sale contingency attached are seen as very very undesirable.

In a good market a seller really doesn’t want to work with any buyers that have home sale contingencies attached.  But why do sellers feel that way? 

Think about it this way, It’s a really great market.  There’s so many buyers out there.  You come with an offer and it’s a good offer, but you do have a home to sell why would a seller want to stop showing their home, take it off the market and risk the fact that something could go wrong with the sale of your current home?  Here are just a few things I suggest you do if you find yourself in this situation.

The absolute most important thing, get your current house on the market ASAP.  Don’t sit around and wait until you find the perfect home and then try to rush to get your house listed. Okay. So let’s say you make an offer on a home and you have a home sale contingency. And guess what? There are a few things you need to understand can still happen, so don’t get too excited yet. They may add in what’s known as a kick out clause.  What this does is it really protects the seller. Let’s say another offer comes in from somebody and they don’t have a house to sell.  At that point they are  going to  come back to you and they’re going to  say, ” Are you willing to remove your home sale contingency and move ahead with the purchase no matter if your house sells or not”?  99.9% of the time, people can’t do that because they know they won’t have the funds to purchase if their house doesn’t sell.  So you’ll have usually about 48 hours to make a decision. And if you are not willing to remove your contingency, chances already lost that house.  

 If you’re thinking about buying a house, but you have a current home to sell, Please reach out to me.  I’d love to sit down with you and explain in more detail what we can do to try to help you sell your current home and try not to lose that home you found online that you think is gonna be the perfect home for you to buy. Thanks again for joining me this week. I will see you next Monday.