Chapter Two: The Sentence That Changed Everything
A builder asked for a simple change to the contract, but that one sentence shifted the entire risk of the deal onto the buyer.
If you've never purchased a home before, it's easy to think the purchase price is the most important part of the contract. After all, that's what most negotiations focus on. We focus so much on the general terms and conditions - How much, who pays what, and of course, timelines and dates.
But sometimes the most important part of a contract isn't measured in dollars. Sometimes it's measured in what happens if things don't go according to plan.
After 24 full hours of negotiating, the builder finally accepted my clients' offer price.
What should have been the finish became the beginning of an entirely different conversation, because the builder had one more request.
Just before officially accepting their offer, they wanted my clients to remove the contingency that made the purchase dependent upon selling their current home.
At first glance, it doesn't sound like much. It's one sentence.
But that one change completely shifts who carries the risk if the unexpected happens.
Before going any further, it's worth explaining why builders often ask for this.
From the builder's perspective, a contingency creates uncertainty. Think about it: if a buyer's home doesn't sell, the builder may have to put the home back on the market weeks later. For the builder, that means additional carrying costs, additional marketing, and additional time.
Builders aren't just selling homes, they're managing inventory. A completed spec home sitting unsold costs money every single day, so it's understandable why a builder would prefer a contract with fewer contingencies. That doesn't make them wrong. It's simply how they protect their business.
My responsibility, however, wasn't to protect the builder's business, but rather to look out for my clients' interests.
That meant slowing the conversation down.
Whenever someone asks to remove a contingency, I want my clients to understand exactly what they're trading away. Contracts explain it in legal language, but real-life clients need real-life language.
I like to explain it like this:
"As long as this contingency remains a part of the contract, if your current home doesn't sell by the agreed-upon deadline, you have a clearly defined path to step away from this purchase under the terms of the contract."
"If you remove the contingency, you're saying you're willing to move forward whether your current home sells or not, and the builder will make your deposit non-refundable if you decide to terminate for any reason."
That's a very different commitment, and it's one buyers should make intentionally.
To be clear, this wasn't a surprise to us.
Before we ever submitted an offer, we had already talked about the market. The pace of recent sales was slower than previous markets, and we had talked through the risks of buying before selling. I had recommended selling their current home first because I believed it would put them in a stronger financial and negotiating position.
Although my clients understood that recommendation, this was territory that carried risk for them as well. They had to weigh the possibility of how long it would take for a buyer for their home to come along and potentially lose the spec home to someone else in the meantime. There was also the risk that they might not find anything else they wanted to purchase.
At the end of the day, they understood why they wanted to pursue this particular home, so it was either go non-contingent to secure the new home first and then list their home, or wait on the spec home until they could secure a buyer for their home.
As is often the case in real estate, there wasn't a perfect choice. There were simply different paths, and each carried different risks.
That's something I think gets lost in conversations about contingency clauses.
People might ask,
"Should I ever remove one?"
Truth is, there's no universal answer. Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes it doesn't. It just depends on your financial situation.
How much available cash do you have?
What is your tolerance for risk?
Are you able to carry two homes if necessary?
What is your lender saying?
And, frankly, how competitive is the situation?
Whether it's good or bad to remove a contingency isn't the question. The real question is whether you fully understand what you're agreeing to before you sign.
My clients didn't make this decision lightly. We talked through different scenarios, discussed what could happen if their home sold quickly or not at all, and we explored different financing options to give flexibility if timelines didn't align. We looked very closely at numbers and what the carrying costs would be in the event that they had to support two mortgages temporarily.
Every conversation came back to the same thing:
Understanding the risk before accepting it.
That's what informed decision-making looks like - not eliminating uncertainty, but acknowledging it.
In the end, my clients chose to move forward without the contingency, but that wasn't the end of the story. In many ways, it was the moment the story truly began, because from that point forward, the success of two separate transactions depended on one thing none of us could control:
Whether the market would deliver the right buyer for their current home in time.
What I'd Want You to Know
If you're buying new construction, don't assume that the builder's preferred contract terms are automatically the right terms for you.
Builders have legitimate reasons for wanting a clean, non-contingent contract. They want certainty, and they don't have certainty by holding a home off the market while waiting to see whether another property sells. And when they're negotiating on a spec home, they're making decisions based on their own financial and inventory considerations.
But their priorities aren't necessarily the same as yours.
That's where having your own representation matters!!
I'm gonna say it again, but differently:
Having a builder's sales representative is not the same thing as having your own agent.
The builder's representative can be incredibly helpful. They know the homes, the community, the builder's process, the available incentives, and what the builder is willing (or unwilling) to negotiate.
But their responsibility is to the builder. They represent the builder.
Your agent's responsibility is to you. Your agent represents YOU.
When the conversation moves beyond choosing cabinets and floor plans and into the actual contract, this is extremely important to understand.
In this transaction, the builder's representative was doing their job. They were negotiating on behalf of the builder, protecting the builder's interests, and trying to get the terms that worked best for the builder.
My job was to look at those same negotiations from the other side of the table.
When the builder asked my clients to remove their home-sale contingency, I wasn't looking at that request and thinking, "How do we get this deal done?"
I was thinking, "What does this change mean for my clients?"
That's what representation looks like.
Your agent isn't there to make the builder say yes to everything. They're there to help you understand what you're being asked to agree to, negotiate on your behalf, and recognize when a seemingly small change can have a much bigger impact.
Builders sell homes every day, but most buyers don't buy them every day.
The builder knows its contract. You should have someone who knows yours, too.
You don't need your own agent because the builder's representative is doing something wrong. You need your own agent because you and the builder have different interests, and you deserve someone sitting on your side of the table.