Are contingencies being accepted again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:June is notoriously a slow month, OP, that's why things are sitting for longer than three days. Our agent advised us to wait until July if we couldn't list by May.

Anyway, yes, sellers are accepting contingencies. They have been this whole time!! We bought our house this spring with a void only inspection contingency, and the financing and appraisal contingencies in place.

[Anonymous]

Where is June a slow month? Sure isn’t where I live

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are people waiving the HOA contingency? The HOA was the reason we waived the inspection contingency - we knew we could do an inspection anyway and just use the HOA to walk away if we needed to. It's why we didn't accept the low dollar, no contingency on our own home.

Inspection appointments have to be approved by seller's realtor (not that they are picking inspector, they just have to allow house to be entered into for that purpose) you can't sneak an inspector in

People inspect before making an offer

This

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Contingencies were accepted even during the height of the market in 2021. Only on this forum where people are looking at the most pristine homes in the most desirable neighborhoods for UMC families is it he norm to waive all contingencies.

This. We had an inspection contingency in December 2021 on a SE home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are people waiving the HOA contingency? The HOA was the reason we waived the inspection contingency - we knew we could do an inspection anyway and just use the HOA to walk away if we needed to. It's why we didn't accept the low dollar, no contingency on our own home.

How does this work? If you waived inspection contingency, the seller doesn't have to let you in for an inspection, do they?

They don't have to, but they're likely to let you in if you want to bring your contractor by to start getting estimates for replacing the cabinets/finishing the basement/etc. Wink, wink.

This happened to us - didn’t like it, seemed a little shady buy so far its fine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op - our contingency would be on the sale of our existing home. Assuming that would make our offer not as attractive.

How do you pay if you don’t use the sale of an existing home?

Oh hell no. This is the ONE contingency that basically no longer exists. You cannot do that in this market. You need to sell first or get yourself a bridge loan.

We were able to qualify to carry two mortgages (which is insane, there is no way we could actually carry both mortgages for longer than a month) so we bought before selling.

This. So take that into account on budgeting and planning. With a bridge, you still have to qualify for both, and carying an existing mortgage balance, a bridge, and a new mortage all at the same time can limit your budget due to utilization. So if it is tight, you might have to sell first.

You can potentially negotiate a rentback as the seller (where the house closes early, so you get the money to use to buy a new home, but don't move for another three months or so). But you are putting a time limit on when you absolutely must be out of the house.

Rent backs are limited by lenders to 60 days. So unless your house is purchased by an all-cash buyer, you can’t get a rent-back for more than 2 months.

That’s by practice not by law, so it’s negotiable if you get creative. And its I believe related to standard paperwork for conforming loans and requirements that it be owner occupied. If the person buying the house isn’t looking to live in it, don’t think it applies.

It's not by practice. There are many mortgage lenders that will not approve mortgage loans if it includes a rent-back for > 60 days. In many jurisdictions, if you rent-back for > 60 days, then you fall under common-law tenancy and you are considered a tenant and the seller is considered a landlord. Some jurisdictions make buyers who rent back to file as landlord for rental taxes and in some jurisdictions, sellers who rent back for more than 60 days are eligible for tenant protections including protections for eviction, protections against landlord abuse, etc. Because of this, many mortgage companies are not willing to award a mortgage if the sales agreement includes a rent back agreement for more than 60 days.

If you want a rent back for more than 60 days, the buyer will need to disclose this to the mortgage lender who may choose to bar the agreement (many lenders will).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Contingencies were accepted even during the height of the market in 2021. Only on this forum where people are looking at the most pristine homes in the most desirable neighborhoods for UMC families is it he norm to waive all contingencies.

This. We had an inspection contingency in December 2021 on a SE home.

You got lucky - people where I live (inside the beltway, 1960s homes, many need extensive renos because of original owners dying/moving to nursing homes), people are doing pre-inspections and waiving the inspection contingency because they already know what they're in for. A lot of cash or mostly cash buyers also waiving appraisal contingencies.

[Anonymous]

How exactly are people inspecting before making offers? Do you get permission to have an inspector accompany you to a showing? If so that must be pretty quick, as it seems seems like in this market showings tend to be limited to 30 minute or so time slots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How exactly are people inspecting before making offers? Do you get permission to have an inspector accompany you to a showing? If so that must be pretty quick, as it seems seems like in this market showings tend to be limited to 30 minute or so time slots.

Yes, you tell the listing agent you want to preinspect and you schedule an inspection. There have been dozens of threads about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are many sellers accepting contingencies on offers anymore? Or is that a thing of the past? Houses are definitely sitting longer than they used to, at least outside the beltway. Can you do an offer with a contingency to sell?

West Springfield homes sell quickly, well above ask, no contingencies.00

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are people waiving the HOA contingency? The HOA was the reason we waived the inspection contingency - we knew we could do an inspection anyway and just use the HOA to walk away if we needed to. It's why we didn't accept the low dollar, no contingency on our own home.

How does this work? If you waived inspection contingency, the seller doesn't have to let you in for an inspection, do they?

They don't have to, but they're likely to let you in if you want to bring your contractor by to start getting estimates for replacing the cabinets/finishing the basement/etc. Wink, wink.

This happened to us - didn’t like it, seemed a little shady buy so far its fine

Seemed shade to bring people in? This is very common and often means the difference between beginning work right away and a month later!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How exactly are people inspecting before making offers? Do you get permission to have an inspector accompany you to a showing? If so that must be pretty quick, as it seems seems like in this market showings tend to be limited to 30 minute or so time slots.

We've done several pre-offer inspections (3) over the years out of caution: to inform an offer decision, to be able to assemble a competitive offer (removing inspection contingency, with an as-is property, as to price, etc...). Our agent recommends them and lines them up. We only made one offer ever and it was accepted in early 2023. This was after a pre-offer inspection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do what works for you, and don't let your agent bully you into making an offer that you're uncomfortable with. If you need to make an offer with contingencies, do it. If your agent pushes back, get a new agent; they're supposed to be your advocate, not push you to do something that will get them the fastest commission.

That isn’t why agents give advice, moron.

Presumably, OP wants to buy a house. At various times, contingencies made offers less competitive. An agent’s purpose is to help a client be successful and achieve their goals to buy a house. Telling a client waiving contingencies has risks but will make your bid more competitive has been true. It isn’t driven by an ulterior motive.

And before you trot out the trope, No I am not an agent or in any way connected to the industry. I just have tired of the rank amateur poseurs here acting like they know something because they read Freakonomics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How exactly are people inspecting before making offers? Do you get permission to have an inspector accompany you to a showing? If so that must be pretty quick, as it seems seems like in this market showings tend to be limited to 30 minute or so time slots.

Listing agents/sellers allow you to schedule an hour to do a "walk and talk" inspection. They'd rather you do the inspection first and walk because you don't like what you see than have to go through taking the house on the market and putting it back on again. We just bought in Northern Virginia and this is super common. We only did it for one house (not the one we bought).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are people waiving the HOA contingency? The HOA was the reason we waived the inspection contingency - we knew we could do an inspection anyway and just use the HOA to walk away if we needed to. It's why we didn't accept the low dollar, no contingency on our own home.

How does this work? If you waived inspection contingency, the seller doesn't have to let you in for an inspection, do they?

They don't have to, but they're likely to let you in if you want to bring your contractor by to start getting estimates for replacing the cabinets/finishing the basement/etc. Wink, wink.

This happened to us - didn’t like it, seemed a little shady buy so far its fine

Seemed shade to bring people in? This is very common and often means the difference between beginning work right away and a month later!

Different situation because we had an inspection, but we brought in contractors and landscaping people during our inspection to give us quotes.