One Woman's Story of Selling Her Home

Once upon a time I met a woman who wanted to sell a home fast. She put up a "For Sale By Owner" sign and had a big garage every day during the summer in her driveway. She knew that would get a lot of people to stop by for the garage sale, and maybe to buy her house as well.

Actually, her plan worked pretty well because a couple toured her home, fell in love with it and wanted to buy it. Well, suddenly she realized she needed a purchase agreement, some kind of form to put their understanding on paper. So she went online and printed out two copies of a Sales Agreement form, one copy for her buyers and one for herself. She filled out both copies with the details of their transaction, making certain that both copies were exactly the same, and they all signed the forms as required.

Unfortunately, that was when her problems began because she immediately went shopping for another home in the city where she wanted to move, and she found one and made an offer. She made her new offer subject to the sale the home she presently owned, which was the right thing to do, so she wouldn't be obligated to buy a new house while she still owned her old house, too. She actually managed to sell a home fast, so she thought she could buy another home fast as well. That was her big mistake. Here's the important lesson - when you sell a home fast, you still have to wait for your home sale to close before you really know if you can buy the new one, assuming you can only afford one house payment at a time. Back to our story - her buyers disappeared. They didn't answer phone calls or emails, and they didn't come in person to talk to her. They simply disappeared and left her in a mess. Although she had received a check for $1000 as earnest money on the Sales Agreement, that was not her money. Legally, that earnest money didn't belong to her; it still belonged to the buyers who might eventually show up. So she had to spend money talking to a lawyer about the $1000 earnest money belonging to her buyers.

But, that was not the worst of her problems. She was really disappointed that she couldn't purchase a new home now because she didn't know if her existing home was sold or not. So that's when she called me and we wrote another Sales Agreement for me to buy her home. Of course we had to wait until after the previous agreement expired to legally close our transaction. And, no, the first couple never showed up again. You might say her story had a happy ending because she was able to sell a house fast, and to buy her new house, too.


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Paulette kingston, along with her husband Leo, own and operate 18002sellhomes in Oklahoma City. They offer property owners in the area a way to sell a house for cash without needing to list with a realtor or using a bank.