A home-sale-contingent offer ties your purchase to closing the sale of your current home. They still work, and we write them regularly. That includes deals where the replacement home goes under contract before the client's own home sells. They're rarely the smoothest transactions, so the structure matters. In California, the listing itself discloses that the seller needs a replacement property, and your contract carries a contingency for it. The way we like to build it: run the standard timelines (inspection, appraisal, loan) from the original contract date rather than waiting on the replacement-property contingency. You're then fully vetted and ready to close the moment the right replacement is found, which makes your offer on that next home much stronger. There's usually a set window, say 17 or 30 days, for the seller to find that replacement before the deal can be canceled. If you're on the selling side and buying at the same time, the single biggest risk is a contingency that never made it into writing. A verbal understanding is worthless here. When you accept an offer on your home, the contract must explicitly state that your sale is contingent on you closing on your replacement, or you can end up sold with nowhere to go. To strengthen your buying position, get your current home listed, or even into escrow, before you make offers, structured so you're only obligated once you've secured a replacement. Rules vary by state, so confirm how contingencies work where you are.