While I can't speak for anyone else, we wasted a month messing around with an offer contingent on sale of the buyer's property (with a 72 hour kickout clause), and we were very glad when the offer eventually fell through even though the market is in the toilet here too. When we accepted it we were told that they had a sale all lined up and ready to close in 6 weeks. That sale did not happen, and the buyers took their own sweet time about getting their house listed on the MLS; their property was nothing overly special, nor was it aggressively priced, and thus it did not seem like it was going to sell quickly so we were glad to be rid of them. Why? As we discovered too late, in MY area (coastal NH) anyway, many agents just skip right over houses with "pending/contingency" tags on the listings - they don't show them to their clients and they discourage their clients from them even if there is a kickout clause noted. We went from several showings a week to less than one a week, and lost valuable market momentum. We had a blip back up when the contract was withdrawn but I have a feeling it will take a price drop to really get rolling again.

On the advice of our other agent (the one we're using for buying, because we're just counting the days until our selling agent's contract expires), we will not accept any contingent-on-sale offers even with a kickout clause now. We've had a couple of agents contact ours to tell us that their clients would like to put in an offer but it's contingent on sale of their current home, and they have simply been (very politely) informed that the offer would not be accepted with that contingency, although we would be very happy to consider it without it if the buyers are preapproved for financing without the sale. We'll still show them the property, of course, hoping they'll fall in love with it enough to find a way to wrangle the financing!

Don't do it. Drop your price instead. If your home has been on the market for a year and had a significant price drop, you didn't drop it low enough. Figure out your rock bottom and it will eventually sell. That would be better than gambling on the sale of someone else's property.

Just as Johnmari said, a selling contingency can reduce your exposure and lock your house up for a long time.

What happened with the other deals that fell through?

When we were selling our house we accepted an offer contingent on the sale of the buyer's home. In the contract it stated that we would keep showing the house and that if we got another offer, they would get twenty-four hours to remove the contingency or we would be free to sell to the second set of buyers. Our realtor kept our listing as 'active' in the MLS, and we continued to have lots of showings.

For us, this worked out very well. Within a month we got another offer on the house from a cash buyer. Because they knew that we had a contract on the house already, they gave us a very good offer - higher than the one we already had.

The first buyer didn't want to risk two mortgages, so they backed out and we proceeded with the higher offer. Had that fallen through, though, it was nice to know that we still had a back up to sell to. For example, after the home inspectiong we were asked to lower the price by several thousand dollars. We told the agent no way, remember, we still have that other person who still wants to buy our house so we can wait to sell. (They never knew the amount of our other contract, they didn't know it was a lower dollar amount). They took the house as is.

I think it really depends on your situation. Your house could sit for another year with an offer or sit without an offer. I think your biggest problem is your price. All houses that are priced right eventually sell unless there is something terribly wrong with them. I'd consider greatly dropping your price as Sparksals suggests.

Chances are in your price range your buyer is going to have another house to sale, so you may be waiting a while for a buyer who doesn't have that contingency.

We made an offer on a house in late March with a sale contingency. The sellers accepted w/a 72-hour kick out clause. At that point, their house had been on the market for two months. They'd already moved out and bought a condo. We got an offer on our house in April, but it fell through. The sellers then gave us an extension on our contract, and just a few days after we decided to go ahead with a bridge loan so we could buy the new house, we got another offer on our house, which included only a financing contingency. We closed on the new house June 29 and closed July 11 on the old house. We are grateful that our sellers waited, though we were prepared to go ahead (and actually did) with the bridge loan.

Thanks,everyone, for the info. We've discussed it and won't accept the offer. We are reducing the house price tomorrow.

As to the question about the other offers:

#1) Full price offer within 2 weeks of the house being listed. Signed the contract. The buyers never put down the ernest money after the contingency (water info, soil info) period. Our agent acted as the buyer & seller agent. Won't do that again.

#2) House back on the market @ 998K. Received offer for 964K with a 10K allowance for new light fixtures. The house is less than 6 months old and the buyer didn't have our same tasted. Since it was relatively new on the market and we had already had another offer, decided not to accept it expecting it would be a quick sell. In hindsight we should have accepted it because this is the point the market dropped.

#3) Buyer #1 came back and put another offer in. We refused the offer without receiving non-refundable ernest money. Buyer wasn't willing to put down ernest money without it being refundable. We think the guy was a flake and it wasn't a legit offer.

Thanks,everyone, for the info. We've discussed it and won't accept the offer. We are reducing the house price tomorrow.

Sorry if this is too obvious, but have you considered countering with the lower price and removing the contingency? Unlikely, but worth a try, right?

lorraine - Was your realtor able to keep the house listed as active because in your counter you stated you were going to continue to market the home? I thought that homes were listed as "pending" or "under contract with K/O" if there was a selling contingency on it.

bec - they wanted $10K in light fixtures allowance? WOW! Sounds like you had a bad realtor. The 2nd offer could have easily been countered rather than flat out rejected.

Hope the price drop works for you. Before you drop the price, counter back to this offer without the selling contingency to see what happens. If they don't accept, then reduce your price. You may want to reduce your price in the counter, remove the selling contingency and make it firm and final. Don't flat out reject this one - try to make it work.

Reading all the posts, I detect a certain inflexibility or lack of experience on the sellers or REALTORS part IMO (if not all avenues have been explored).
There is a current offer on the table that is being rejected due to the buyers contingency of having to sell a home.
An offer like that can be worked out with the buyer getting a bridge loan, as was suggested by another poster, if a 48/72 FROR (first right of refusal) clause is unacceptable.

Where I am, the earnest money check accompanies the offer to purchase and is deposited into an escrow account upon acceptance of the contract by all parties, if that is not the case where you are (i.e. NY etc.), you do have a problem.

Earnest money should be refundable, if through no fault of the buyer the buyer canÂt purchase the house, or, it becomes non-refundable after an acceptable appraisal, inspection, removal of financing contingency etc.

Bridge loan or not, the buyer must still qualify for both houses to get a new mortgage approved (unless their current house is paid off). Perceived 'equity' may be not be what they think. It also doesn't help having a bridge loan debt on the credit report at closing. Lending standards have tightened considerably in the last year making the buy-then-sell transaction much more difficult to pull off (we learned this one the hard way).

Not all contingent offers are bad - its just that many agents don't know how to structure them correctly. The one thing every contingent offer should have is a clause that forces the buyer to lower their asking price every 2 weeks by 3-5%. That will let you know how serious they are. Try to counter with that...

bec - they wanted $10K in light fixtures allowance? WOW! Sounds like you had a bad realtor. The 2nd offer could have easily been countered rather than flat out rejected.

Response: Yes, it was countered and we couldn't reach an agreement. She wanted 50K under the asking or 40K + 10K in a lighting allowance. I think we countered with 25K (meeting her half-way) under asking and she wouldn't budge.

Hope the price drop works for you. Before you drop the price, counter back to this offer without the selling contingency to see what happens. If they don't accept, then reduce your price. You may want to reduce your price in the counter, remove the selling contingency and make it firm and final. Don't flat out reject this one - try to make it work.

Response: Yes--we countered with 20K off the asking price, no-contingencies, 2 month close, which should give them time to sell their property.

Agent has been instructed to lower the price on Friday if the counter is not accepted.

Where I am, the earnest money check accompanies the offer to purchase and is deposited into an escrow account upon acceptance of the contract by all parties, if that is not the case where you are (i.e. NY etc.), you do have a problem.

Response: Same where we live. We attribute the oversight to the buyer/seller agent. Somehow, he didn't put down escrow money even though it was in the contract and the agent wasn't able to contact him during the 2 week contingency period. At the end of the 2 weeks when the contingency period ended and he still hadn't put down escrow money and wasn't returning calls from the buyer/seller agent, we knew the offer wasn't going to go through. We blame our agent for allowing this situation to occur.

Earnest money should be refundable, if through no fault of the buyer the buyer canÂt purchase the house, or, it becomes non-refundable after an acceptable appraisal, inspection, removal of financing contingency etc.

Response: Yes, I agree. We have bought and sold several properties and homes so I am familiar with how escrow money works. We've always put down escrow money at the signing of the contract and had a refundable period. It becomes non-refundable after a certain time period when all the inspections, etc. are done. We weren't about to get burned twice by the same buyer, though, which is why we requested that the escrow money be non-refundable. He previously took the house off the market for 2 weeks only to disappear and not go through with the purchase. I think we were entirely reasonable in our request for non-refundable ernest money.

"We attribute the oversight to the buyer/seller agent"
Oversight? You are to kind in your verbiage.

"I think we were entirely reasonable in our request for non-refundable ernest money."
I agree. When someone jerks you around like that, the gloves come off.

Is the 5 acre property free and clear, what is the value and is it listed below market for a quick sale? Something to consider.
Being at $898k now and reducing it some more, should perk more buyers interest.

"Is the 5 acre property free and clear, what is the value and is it listed below market for a quick sale? Something to consider.
Being at $898k now and reducing it some more, should perk more buyers interest."

They haven't listed their property yet. They have told us what they are planning to list it for and we feel they are overpriced by at least 35K. They have been seriously looking at our house for at least 3 weeks, which has given them plenty of time to put their property on the market. They aren't in any sort of hurry. This is a big red flag for us.

sparksals,
I wonder if I'm not understanding your question? Where I live, they call the home sale contingency a "Hubbard Clause". The Hubbard Clause says that the home sale is contingent on the buyers finding a suitable purchaser for their home, but that if we get another offer before that, they have so many hours to proceed without selling their home. I don't know if that answers your question? The buyers are agreeing in their offer, and in signing the contract, that we are going to keep looking for other offers.

But the other thing, and maybe this is the answer to your question(?), is that where I am it's completely up to the realtor whether or not he changes the status on a listing in the MLS. For example, the house we ended up buying remained listed as active in the MLS right up until a week before the closing. He can do that, technically, because until the closing attorneys have heard from the bank that the actual funds are authorized to transfer, there's a chance that we might back out due to the mortgage contingency.

The house staying listed irked me, because I kept hearing people talking about shopping for a house and one would ask "Have you seen that lovely home on the reservoir?" And the response would be "Supposedly they have a contract on it, but they're keeping me in mind in case it falls through." So I knew that if we walked out for some reason, the selling agent had a list of people to call back and have come look. I couldn't complain, since that's what our realtor did in selling our house, too.

Lorraine, yes, your second paragraph did answer my question. I was confused by your original post because you said that the house remains as active even when it's under contract with a seller's contingency. In most places, the realtor must notate that it is under contract but taking either backup offers or that it has a kickout clause (much like your Hubbard Clause).

When a house has a contract on it with a KO clause, showings drop considerably. Many realtors don't show it because they consider it a waste of time. However, in your situation, if the realtor has the option of leaving it completely active on the MLS, then the seller has nothing to lose by taking a seller's contingency b/c their home will continue to get lookers.

I wouldn't like having the home as active when it's under contract either without a selling contingency. Yes, they can take backup offers, but can they also take other offers until the close of escrow and force you to up the ante?

I'll be listing soon, and i've already decided I won't put a sale' on hold', NO way, NO how. This ain't retail where someone is buying a dress! ;o)

We have put an offer on a home based on contingency to sell. But the owners agreed to 30 days for us to have a valid/ workable offer on the table and to be closed in an additional 30 days. They also were able to accept other offers and if they had to give us a 72 hours notice upon accepting another offer to provide financing if able. Someone came in with cash 1 week later....it just wasn't mean to be *sigh*

sparksals,
Regarding the house we had a contract on with no selling contingency, that they continued to list as active - no they could not accept another offer. So long as we got our financing and didn't kick up a fuss about the home inspection they had to honor our contract. Knowing that they had a list of people interested in the house did keep us from asking for a lot of repairs due to the home inspection.

Regarding the other thing-
My mother used to be a broker here where I live, and she still holds her license. I asked her and she says that although our MLS has a way to code a property as 'pending, with contingency' absolutely no one uses it. They keep it 'active' so it will still show up in Realtor.com. When people call they ask if the interested person has to sell their house first, and if they say yes, they explain the situation.