When you are selling your home the chances are that you have a specific home in mind, or you have an idea/dream home in mind that you want to purchase, once your home sells. Because, you need to sell in order to buy, you need to “Conditionally” list your home upon being able to purchase a specific home. Problem here? In Ottawa it has to be a specific home and not an idea or dream home.
If you for example listed your home with the condition that you are listing so that you can find that dream home and somone comes along on day ONE and makes you an offer for full price with a 30 day closing and NO conditions, what do you do? You would be very frustrated, and elated and quite frankly caught off gaurd. You haven’t even started to shop yet, you don’t even know what is out there? And you cannot accept the offer because of that fact, not having found a home you want to buy.
Frustrating the market. That is why we have to have a specif property in mind, so that we do not frustrate the market by not being able to enter into an agreement, and putting off the “Market” by not accepting full price offers on your home. So what do you do? Start working with an Agent and go looking at homes, find one you like, and then come home and list yours with the condition that you are able to reach an agreement of purchase and sale on “that” home. Perfectly reasonable and an elegant solution, however not without it’s moments of stress and doubt.
I learned a long time ago from a law teacher of mine, that “If you can say it, it can be written down”, this was alluding to writing clauses for contracts. True, and also, the more logical and simple the clause the easier it should be for all parties to be able to understand the meaning and implication.
So, when you are looking at a contract, or Agreement of Purchase and Sale, ask questions of your real estate salesperson and try and get a clear understanding of the meaning of, Conditional Upon….
