Florida Real Estate Blog

This is a promise to purchase the home within a specified period of time. The escrow deposit is non refundable. A portion of it may come back to you at the time of closing but all of this needs to be defined in a document created by an Attorney.

A Realtor can negotiate and create the contract to purchase but the Attorney creates the lease agreement.

The Lease amount can have a portion returned to the Buyer at the time of closing. This helps the buyer pay their closing costs.

i.e. Sale price $445,000 to close on or before December 15 2009. Escrow deposit of $10,000 to be held in the Real Estate Escrow account.

The lease amount is $1,900 a month with $400 of that coming back to the buyer at time of closing. So in this situation the Buyer would have the following.

At time of closing 12/15/09 $435,000 after escrow removed is what is left to pay for the property. 12 months of lease payments provides $4,800 to the buyer at time of closing. This would be a credit back from the seller or a reduction of the sales price by that amount.

The Attorney gets paid at the time he creates the lease. The Realtor gets paid his commission at the time the Sale closes. Most contracts do have a portion of the Escrow deposit going to the Realtor at the time the agreement is signed by all. That amount is reduced from their commission at the time of sale.