Skip to main content

How do escalation clauses work, and in what circumstances?

Asking in hindsight and in general.

My example: we bought our home at $405k. Listed at $420k, then dropped to $407k one week later.

We put an offer on our house at $402k. The day we viewed it--and the day we put in the offer--there were at least two other viewings, before and after us, though the house was on the market for just over a month then.

The listing agent asked for best and final, because there are competing offers. Listing agent told my buying agent that another offer was at original listing price, so $18k over us.

We counter-offered at $405k plus an escalation clause at $1k above the other offer with proof. We were willing to go to $425k exactly, but not happily. Our agent suggested the escalation clause so we went for it.

The selling agent countered with, "the other offer has a selling contingency, so we can ignore the escalation clause, the house is yours at $405k".

Was there no other offer? If there were, surely they would've used our escalation clause?

Or do escalation clauses only apply to "like" offers, so if we also had a selling contingency?

submitted by /u/recercar
[link] [comments]

source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/hiyi8a/how_do_escalation_clauses_work_and_in_what/

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Aren't comps/CMAs useless with buyer credits at close happening now?

I'm looking into buying a new construction townhouse in my HCOL US city. I'm seeing builders offering interest rate buydowns worth $20k-$60k on $800k homes (rather than just lowering prices) in order to keep their comps high for their other units, now that buyer demand has been declining. I asked my agent about these, and he said these buydowns aren't even the full story: buyers can write all kinds of other credits into an offer, like their closing costs, prepaid sewer fees, etc. Apparently cash buyers can just write in a "buyer credit at close" for any amount in their offer. So a new townhouse that appeared to sell for $800k in the MLS might have actually been a cash offer with a $100k+ buyer credit at close, meaning the buyer only spent $700k or less in total, but to the rest of the world they can only see the $800k! So that made me realize I can't trust comps/CMAs for other new construction townhouses. The sales prices could be way lower than they appear...

Pool fill without engineer oversight

We are in the process of purchasing our first ever home in CA and we just discovered in the disclosures that the new build property we are purchasing previously had a swimming pool which was filled without an engineer onsite to approve the work (details from disclosure below). Is this something we should be concerned with or not? Is it something we should have additional inspections conducted on? We are originally from the UK and not really sure what to do with this information and if it is concerning or not. A POOL DID EXIST PREVIOUSLY. COPING, TILE, GUNNITE AND REBAR WERE ALL REMOVED AND DIRT AND CLEAN DRAIN ROCK WERE USED TO FILL IT IN. COMPACTED FILL WAS NOT USED AND NO ENGINEER APPROVED THE DIRT AND DRAIN ROCK FILL IN submitted by /u/tommot82 [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/dpyzw8/pool_fill_without_engineer_oversight/

Making offers on houses not listed for sale.

I want to buy a home for retirement. I am looking at lots of options, mostly focusing on the locations that appeal to me. I see lots of Zillow estimates of homes that look like great deals to me. Are these estimates accurate, even though similar houses in the same area that are for sale are usually priced much higher? If so, is it realistic for me to try to make offers to owners that do not have their homes listed? Would a realtor even consider helping me do this? Or, do these values indicate that the houses listed for sale are overpriced, and I should just lowball until someone accepts? Are houses today tending to sell far below list prices, or ??? submitted by /u/chewybrian [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/1o4mcon/making_offers_on_houses_not_listed_for_sale/