The Influence of Contingent Closing Costs on Sale Price, Time on Market, and Probability of Sale

Offers by sellers to pay closing costs on behalf of buyers that are contingent on the buyers' use of preferred ancillary service providers are a relatively new but increasing phenomenon. These contingent closing cost offers may have very different pricing, time-on-market, and probability of sale impacts than more traditional offers to pay closing costs where no particular choice of service provider is stipulated. Results indicate that there are substantial differences across price, time-on-the-market, and probability of sale between contingent and non-contingent closing cost offers, and that contingent closing cost offers have significant impacts on all three property transaction metrics.