As the real estate market heats up, if you're in the market to buy a home, you're more likely to hear these words. "Sorry, that property's conditionally sold."

When a buyer and a seller agree to a conditional sale, they've basically agreed that if the buyer is able to meet certain conditions within the timeframe that they prescribed, that a real estate deal will happen, and if the buyer's unable to meet those conditions, the sale become null and void. So in about 20% of cases these days, buyers are unable to secure the financing that they thought they could get. If you proceeded to look at that house, write a back-up offer, get an acceptable deal subject to the first one falling through, as soon as that deal went sideways, you'd be next in line and the property would be yours, essentially.

In another 20% of cases, buyers are asking for extensions because they've been unable to meet their conditions within the timeframe that they proposed, and again if a seller enters into a back-up offer with you, they essentially have to move to you if the buyer has been unable to fulfill within the timeframe prescribed. They have an obligation to move forward with your contract. So again, that puts you right at the front of the line in probably 40% of cases.

So when you hear conditionally sold, take that with a grain of salt. It's not sold until it's sold, and I'd give the same advice to sellers as well. Even if you have a conditional sale, you're wise to continue to show your property and entertain interest from other buyers, because there's about a 60% chance that that first offer's gonna come together and it's nice to have a back-up offer in your back pocket in the event that it doesn't.

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Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra