My parent's put their house on the market in early November. Potential buyer asked (through realtors) if a contingency contract would be considered. Response was yes, with reasonable terms. Told an offer was forthcoming before Thanksgiving. No offer came, and the buyers didn't make any moves to put their house on the market. Last week, realtors relay that the potential buyers now have "approval from their bank" that they don't have to sell current house to qualify for new mortgage, so it won't be a contingency offer. Offer comes in on Saturday 12/8, asking for a January 10 close. Parents have lived in the house for 20 years, so moving is going to take some time. After the back and forth, they accept an offer that still closes 1/10, but buyers are allowing them to stay - with $0 leaseback - until the 24th.

What are the potential reasons, and red flags, for this?

30 day close is not 'quick'. It's standard. The free lease back is just that...free. Most buyers would require some per diem. Consider the two weeks as a Christmas gift.

Like steve said the free lease back is a good thing.

solid offer take it

Thanks for the replies, I don't particularly like or trust their real estate agent, so I appreciate the feedback. Looks like I get to spend my Christmas helping my parents sort through 20 years of accumulated crap keepsakes!

I just went through this with my parents and it sucks. Word of advice, convince them to get rid of as much as humanly possible. Mine wouldn't get rid of much, and then I helped them move everything out of storage to their new house when it was complete and only at that time would they agree to throw things away. It would have saved a lot of time and money if they had just tossed it at the outset.

rent them a rollaway dumpster for their Christmas gift.

I helped my inlaws move out of a 3,000+ sqft house that they had lived in for 35 years. They were moving to a sub 1800 sqft home about 3-4 hours away. They fought us tooth and nail about getting rid of stuff. It made no sense. There's stuff we pulled out of storage that they wanted to keep - just so it could go back into storage. Such a waste of time and effort.

My parents were on the other side of this transaction this fall. The seller was moving cross-country and needed 3 extra weeks. So my parents agreed to lease it back for the first 2 weeks for free, then the 3rd week was $50 per day, then if it was to go past 3 weeks, it would have been $300/day (we're talking a little 1600 sq ft retiree type home). They drew up an agreement with all of the leaseback terms, and the seller actually paid for the 3rd week upfront at closing ($350). They ended up moving out a few days ahead of schedule, in the middle of the 3rd week.

Lease backs have become more commo over the last few years

Agreed. It is a gift. Merry Christmas.