Successful Contingent Offers Are on the Rise

Homebuyers are having more success this year with offers including inspection, financing, and home-sale contingencies, Redfin reports.

Although the housing market is beginning to heat back up this spring, fewer buyers waived financing and inspection contingencies in May than a year earlier. In May, 14.6 percent of successful offers submitted by Redfin agents waived the inspection contingency, down from 19.8 percent a year earlier. Meanwhile, 11.7 percent of successful offers in May waived the financing contingency, down from 13.2 percent a year prior.

“Sellers are more willing to give buyers what they want because sellers don’t have as much negotiating power as they did a year ago,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. “Last year, sellers would often receive multiple offers and had their pick of the litter. Now that they have less control of the market, sellers are taking on more of the risk from the buyer — like the risk that the buyer can’t sell her own home, or the risk that something unnerving is found during the inspection.”

In addition to financing and inspection contingencies, the use of home-sale contingencies (used by buyers who need to sell their own home in order to buy a new one) is also on the rise. In May, 8.4 percent of successful offers submitted by Redfin agents (as in, offers that were accepted by sellers) included a home-sale contingency, up from just 4.4 percent a year earlier and down just slightly from 8.5 percent in April, which was the highest level since we began recording this data.

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