Negotiating a Closing For a Distant Date

100 Real Estate and Relocation Tips in 100 Days (Day 94)

There are five main items buyers and sellers of real estate negotiate on a sale of a home.  One of the most critical is the closing date.

Buyers often have a good reason to want to purchase a home and then have a long time to wait until closing. This gives them time to plan, pack and prepare to move.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a time buffer to get all the millions of details it seems to entail when moving to a new home. But, this reasoning is often at complete odds with the seller of the home.

Let me explain.

If a buyer finds a home say 3 or 4 months before they want to move, most likely the seller will want to move within 1 to 2 months of the contract date.  The difference of 1  or 2 months is huge when you consider the seller’s perspective.

During that time many things can happen. The buyer can change their mind, lose a job, or any number of other reasons.   When this happens the seller not only loses out on the sale of their home, but valuable marketing time.

Even with a buyer who is steadfast and solid in life the seller most often will refuse a far out closing date.

Why? The risk is just to great to assume.

But, there are ways to make both sides of the contract happy.  Here’s a suggestion, why not have the buyer perform all the inspections, appraisals and loan commitment.  When done the earnest money becomes what we call “hard.”

Hard means if the buyer  does not perform, for ANY reason the seller is given the earnest money.  Of course the earnest money needs to be substantial enough to make it attractive to him.

By offering this solution the buyer is removing the risk for the seller.

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3. Real Estate Contingencies
4. Ten of the Top 20 Contract Mistakes
5. Denver Real Estate ~ Default! Now What?