When you make a contingent offer on a property and your property is not sold, you loose power in negotiation if the seller will even consider your offer. These are a couple of the other downfalls to making an offer to buy a property before you are an eligible buyer.

1. Another property could come on the market that you like better when you get an offer for purchase for the property you are selling but you will be forced to buy the home you have had under contract.
2. The urgency becomes much more than most buyers can stand. They find that they are not in control of getting their property sold and they are more anxious about the process.
3. Most buyers are required to inspect the property at the onset of the acceptance of the contingency and spend the money whether or not they end up buying the property.
4. The buyer has rushed to put an offer on the house instead of using the time to get an education about which neighborhoods that they love.
5. Negotiation becomes very slanted towards the seller because you are not really an eligible buyer in their eyes.
6. Some sellers will require a non-refundable option fee that they call earnest money and you will loose your money if you do not purchase.
7. In new construction, you will loose any money that you put into upgrades, if you are even allowed to do any upgrades.

Instead, buyers should consider investigating neighborhoods closely and eliminating ones that they will not live in. Then, when they get an offer on their current home, they can get serious about the neighborhoods that they like and perhaps love. At Duffy we can supply you with a list of neighborhoods that provide houses that were sold in your price range. We can then use our tools to see what may be coming on the market in the future so that you have more choices.