Beware Contingency Real Estate Offers

The early decade was the golden age of real estate. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know things have changed significantly lately.
The early decade was a time of dreams. Money was cheap. Super cheap! As a result, the real estate market went from lukewarm to scorching hot overnight. With cheap money providing the fuel, a seven year run unlike any other every seen occurred. Homes in Las Vegas were appreciating at a rate of over 25 percent annually at one point in time. It was magic.
These days, the magic has run out. Money is no longer cheap. Lenders are sweating bullets having given loans to some borrowers who probably shouldn't have been entrusted with a library card much less hundreds of thousands of dollars. As the money has dried up, so has the real estate market. This has led to a necessary change in tactic for sellers. The fast times of this early decade are gone and so are some of the accepted seller practices.
One of the big issues now going through a correction in the real estate market is the contingency sale. When homes were moving on and off the market in a matter of weeks earlier this decade, nobody batted an eye at a contingency sale. Well, they are now.