When you sell your home where do you go? What do you do?  If you sell your home contingent upon your finding another you won’t negotiate the best price.  Many Realtors (myself included) will be reluctant to show your home to our buyer clients.  When my buyers enter into a purchase contract, they want to be assured that the seller is indeed moving – not that they are moving if they find a home they like.  Either the home seller is serious about moving or they aren’t.

A rent back can be a valuable tool for a home seller; typically when the seller has not yet found a home, the desired escrow period is 45 -60 days.  Due to interest rate lock-ins that’s typically as long of an escrow that home buyers will agree to.  Then the seller can negotiate two thirty day rent backs.  The seller would pay the buyers payment (PITI) as rent to the buyer/new home owner.

Depending on your price range and current market conditions, this time period is usually sufficient for the seller to find their new home.