Everyone has heard of a financing condition or an inspection condition, but there are many other conditions that are common in real estate. Offers may contain conditions that benefit the buyer or the seller or both.
What is the difference between a term and a condition?
From a real estate perspective, a condition is something that is demanded as an essential part of an agreement, whereas a term is something that is agreed to in the contract but the contract is not conditional upon its completion. For example, the buyers might include a condition that they can get financing and a term that the sellers steam clean the carpets. If the buyers don’t remove their financing condition the sale does not proceed. If the sellers don’t steam clean the carpets the sale still proceeds even though the term is not met. After the possession the buyers will have to try and get compensation from the sellers for not cleaning the carpets.
Common buyer’s conditions include:
- Financing
- Inspection
- Condo documents
- Sale of home
- Lawyer’s approval of the contract
Common buyer’s terms include:
- Small cleaning or repair work
- Deck or landscaping completion
Sometimes sellers may have conditions. For example, if the seller has already accepted an offer, and is accepting a second offer as a backup, they will need to insert a condition to reflect the fact that the offer is only accepted if the first offer does not proceed.
Over the years we’ve seen many terms and conditions. You can try and have just about any condition accepted that you can think of, but it may not make sense strategically to do so. Every situation, and every home is different, so make sure you get the advice you need.
I don’t think it is an oversight on your part of not posting last week’s listing and sales figures…. Should we assume you have been censored?
No we have not been censored. I figured we’d posted enough stats last week but a number of people are really missing the weekly update. My plan is to post a more in depth update this Friday. Thanks so much for your interest and I won’t do that again
Blink three times if the EREB is holding you hostage.
Something is there…
Neither you guys updated the weekly stats nor did Truman..
Another conspiration theory???
…Or the EREB numbers for the week are lower than Comfree’s?
Bob has posted his numbers for Mar 1-10. So calm down, you can get your fix there.
Based on Bob’s stats, it looks like we’ve stabilized unless the ghost inventory that went underground in November jumps back on the market.
To Ken:
No, No, No!!!
Let’s keep up with the posters that were here 3 months ago that predicted doom and gloom and that Edmonton’s housing market would crash real hard.
They were very convincing and swore to God that we would all lose money big time in Edmonton’s real estate…
Where are they now?
Please: any comebacks?
I think the doomers are still around. Not sure what they are up to this week though.
I for one am surprised at the number of homes for sale in my neighborhood. The Lady and I took a short drive around the block tonight and were amazed by the number of for sale signs around Ellerslie.
There are condo buildings with rows of for sale signs that make me wonder how many units in the building are owned by people with any intentions of living in them, or even holding them for rentals.
Definitely no shortage of selection in the current market … all I see are for sale signs blowing in the winds.
It will be interesting to see how long it will take for this inventory to be reduced. I know there is a lot of deceleration occurring with builders.
Makes for interesting reading none the less. I’m not much of a hockey fan.
To Ken,
Where did you discover “we’ve stabilized ” in the stats?
SFH
new listing 728
sales 213
sales/new listing ratio 29%
(Feb. was 36%)
Condo
new listings 482
sales 87 (hahaha)
sales/new listing ratio 18% !!!!!
(Feb. was 30%)
So Ray, read the numbers again !
nevertheless, prices going up!!
Prices can go up, as high as you want, but without sales there will not be any real effect!
The inventory is going up steady, sales are going down steady, so… something is not right! Probably the price….!
Well, Edmonton is not a cheap place anymore.
If there would be 15000 homes for sale in metro Edmonton but 12000 would be crap, would you buy any of the 12000? I would never.
Which leaves us with 3000. This simple theory is to highlight that buyers have to be prudent and very slow to buy and compare, etc. This could be what is happening.
BTW… I see a lot of garbage for sale. It’s the lure of the quick buck for folks to list their garbage that they bought way before the price appreciation and they probably never bothered to upkeep and now expect big $$$… I’m not even gonna mention the flips that sit empty out there…
Even if only 80 something persons bought condos in the first 10 days of this month that by far exceeds the number of doomsters on this blog that would just LOVE to see a crash…
Frank wrote:
“So Ray, read the numbers again !”
Whatever dude.
Frank wrote:
“The inventory is going up steady, sales are going down steady, so…”
Where did you get that from?
Here are sales figures for condos and SFH:
From EREB:
OCT 07: 1451
NOV 07: 1373
DEC 07: 945
JAN 08: 1349
FEB 08: 1423
Frank: Where’s that “steady” decrease? Prove me wrong…
I think, if RE prices would go down
in Edmonton significantly, there are enough people on the sidelines waiting to buy, to drive prices back up again in a very short period of time.
On the other hand… if inventories went down just a little bit,( less number of people want to sell ) that would drive up prices as well.
In my opinion, that’s the two main reasons,( reluctant buyers, high inventory ) prices are sort of stagnant
( stable? ) but remove either one of the two and prices will increase again.
Once prices are clearly dropping, people tend to wait for them to bottom out. Which is why most real estate corrections drop well below historical trends and take time to recover.
So what do you make of the “clear” drop from July ’07 to Dec ’07? It seems that prices have stabilized or “bottomed out” since the start of 2008….
Nate: Are prices “clearly dropping” now or soon?
They have gone down since last spring, but I don’t think that anyone can say for certain what will happen over the next year or two.
Inventories are at record highs, but production is also at record lows. Builders have already responded to the inventory levels and unless growth slows, inventories should balance out next year.
But you would have to be a fool to think that we’re completely insulated from what is happening in the states. Alberta and BC are following a pattern similar to what happened in a lot of the American markets before they crashed.
well, when 9/11 happened since then prices in Alberta grew until last year, and banks in US are not as big as they are in Canada. It may not have as much effect here as you guys think. Only thing that can affect is imports not banking system, and in oil I do not see big risk even in imports more so in housing material like lumber and don’t forget when prince rupert project is done we will have even bigger imports to china and india.
80% + of our exports are still going south. If the US goes into full recession, things will slow down up here.
Edmonton is still a very small city. There is a LOT of room to grow. We have no where near the sprawl that even Calgary has. Supply will catch up with demand eventually.
Lots of people who used to post here until the end of january were very doom and gloom. Those people do not post here any longer.
Lots of them used to read way too much into this present situation of uncertainty, skyrocketing house prices and the US sub-prime fiasco..
Oil hit $110 a barrel today. Do you really think that the average american can really live without oil starting tomorrow and all of a sudden start taking a bus or walking to work?
Can all smokers quit tomorrow?
Quebec and Ontario may be vulnerable to recession. Not Alberta.
This debate’s been going on since last summer and still I’ve yet gotta see anything negative happen here. Well, not besides garbage listings!
Now I see why they never did a weekly stats update….
The rising price of oil is pretty much matching the depreciation of the US Dollar. The actual price in international funds hasn’t moved that much.
All those bears that were posting like crazy here a few months ago are still slinging mud over on the albertabubble blog. Some of them are obvious quacks that are just posting the same hyped up remarks over and over. But every now and then some useful information is discussed.
Nate,
In case you hadn’t noticed the price of oil has reached the inflation adjusted high we saw at end of the last bubble.