A Full-Price Offer, Then It Almost Fell Apart

By Andrew Ricks

Andrew Ricks is a real estate agent serving the greater Phoenix Metro and East Valley, including Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, Queen Creek, Scottsdale, and surrounding communities.

Getting a full-price offer on day three sounds like the dream. For my clients, it was, right up until it almost completely fell apart. What happened next is the real story, because landing the offer is one thing. Keeping it alive when everything starts going sideways is where an agent actually earns their keep.

Here’s the setup. My clients needed to buy their next home before they could sell their current one, which is a genuinely stressful position. We found their new home and closed on it first, then I coordinated the entire transition, the moving trucks, the move-out, all of it.

My handyman handled some repairs, my stagers made the home shine, and we spent a full week marketing it hard before it ever hit the market. We held the open houses, and by day three, we had a full-price offer. Everyone was thrilled. Then, one by one, the complications began to stack up.

That fast, full-price offer wasn’t luck, it was preparation. Before the home ever hit the market, the work was already done. Repairs were handled, the home was professionally staged, and we marketed it for a full week to build demand before the doors opened.

By the time buyers walked through that open house, the home showed beautifully, and there was real energy around it. That’s what produces a full-price offer in three days, not hoping, but preparation. The sale is often won before the sign ever goes in the yard.

Then, under contract, the complications started. Without getting into anyone’s private business, an unexpected personal situation arose on the buyer’s side that threw their financing into question. The way they had planned to pay for the home was suddenly off the table. This is the exact moment a lot of deals simply die.

The buyer had a financing contingency, which meant they could legally walk away and take their earnest money with them. My clients had already purchased their next house. They needed this sale to close. It was a tough spot, and my job was to keep the deal alive without leaving my clients exposed.

We restructured the deal to protect my clients. Rather than letting it collapse, we gave the buyer a path to pivot to a different type of financing so the sale could still happen, but in exchange, we negotiated real protections. We made the earnest money non-refundable, so the buyer had serious skin in the game and couldn’t simply walk away without consequences.

We built a structure where each time they needed an extension, they had to put more money down. My clients were protected at every step, and the buyer was genuinely motivated to finish. We turned a position of weakness into a position of control.

Then came a hurdle I’d never seen in my career. The lender on the other side was, to put it kindly, extremely old-school, to the point of handwritten financing documents. Nothing moved through the normal modern process, and it was a constant stream of shifting verbal promises about closing dates.

I stayed on it relentlessly, holding everyone to the terms we had negotiated, because I knew exactly what was at stake. The market had been softening. If this deal fell apart and we had to relist, my clients were very likely looking at selling for meaningfully less down the road. Letting it die wasn’t an option, so we pushed until it closed.

In the end, we closed at the full asking price. In a softening market, with nearly every complication imaginable thrown at us, my clients got their full number and moved forward with their lives. That’s the whole point. Anyone can put a sign in the yard. The real value shows up when a deal starts falling apart, and you have someone who knows how to restructure it, protect you, and push it across the finish line.

If you’re thinking about selling in the Phoenix area, especially if your situation has any moving parts, that’s exactly what I do. Call or text me at 404-824-0697, email me at andrew@soldbyricks.com, or visit blog.soldbyricks.com. Let’s talk about your plan.