A straight answer
Contingent offer or cash offer: what is the difference for a buyer who has to sell?
The direct answer
A contingent offer tells the seller you will close after your home sells. A cash offer through the bridge program I place has no home sale or financing contingency, because a short-term loan funds the purchase. I'm Zach von der Linden (NMLS 1652805), a mortgage broker with West Capital Lending, based in San Clemente. I arrange the financing for either.
The seller reads certainty in the second contract and a wait in the first. Everything else on this page is the cost of that certainty, in words, so you can decide with your eyes open.
Zach von der Linden, mortgage broker and Branch Manager, West Capital Lending · NMLS 1652805
Wholesale pricing · California, Utah, Oregon and Arizona
5.0 across 66 reviews on Experience.com (read on 2026-09-24) · Text reaches Zach directly · Last updated 2026-10-26
This situation is worked out in a short conversation. No credit pull happens from a conversation. The options check is a soft credit pull with no impact on your credit score for the first look. Texts go to Zach's cell.
Side by side
| Offer contingent on your home sale | Cash offer through the bridge program | |
|---|---|---|
| What the seller reads | A contract that closes after your current home sells | A contract with no home sale contingency and no financing contingency |
| What funds the purchase | The proceeds of your sale, plus a new mortgage | A short-term loan secured by your current home and the new one, plus a new mortgage |
| Whose name is on the new home | Yours | Yours. No company buys it and resells it to you |
| Do you sell first | Yes, or at least in parallel | No. You sell after you move |
| Do you move out first | Often, or you negotiate a rent-back | No. You stay until the new home closes and move once |
| When the old home is listed | Before or during the purchase | After you are out, empty |
| Extra cost | None beyond an ordinary purchase | Interest that accrues until the bridge is paid off, plus the program’s fees, disclosed before you commit |
| Time pressure | On the purchase, because the seller waits on your sale | On the sale, inside the program’s published window of months, with a backup arrangement if it has not sold |
| Fits when | The market is slow or the seller is patient | You keep losing to buyers who do not have to sell first |
The table describes the two structures in words. Your own rate, payment and the program’s fees appear in your loan terms before you commit, and nowhere on this page.
The four ways to buy a house before you sell
These two are half of the list. The four ways are a HELOC on the home while it is listed, a bridge loan, the cash-offer program, or a contingent offer. The first three use the equity in your current home before it sells, and the program is the one built so the offer reads with no home sale contingency. A contingent offer costs nothing extra and asks the seller to wait on your sale.
The cash offer page compares all four in one table: what each is, what the seller reads, whether you move first, what the old home needs to do, and when each fits.
What the contingent offer is
It is the normal way people move, and it costs nothing extra. The contract says your purchase closes after your current home sells, so the seller waits on your sale.
In a slow market it works fine. In a competitive one it is the offer that gets passed over, because two offers at the same price are not equal when one of them waits on somebody else’s house.
What the cash offer through the program is
Under the program I place, you buy the new home in your own name, funded by a short-term loan secured against your current home and the new one. No company buys the home and resells it to you.
Because the purchase is funded by that loan rather than by your sale, the offer can be written without a home sale contingency and without a financing contingency. That is what a seller means by a cash offer.
You stay in your current home until the new one closes, you move once, and only then does the old home go on the market.
It is a loan. Interest accrues until it is paid off, and the program charges its own fees, all disclosed in your loan terms before you commit. You sell inside the program’s published window, a matter of months from the closing on the new home, and the program’s published terms include a backup arrangement for the departing home if it has not sold inside that window, with its own fee and terms.
Which one fits
The contingent offer fits when the market is slow, the seller is patient, or you are not in a bidding war. Selling first is simpler, and I say so when it is true.
The cash offer through the program fits when you keep losing to buyers who do not have to sell first, you have meaningful equity in the home you own, your old home is genuinely sellable once you are out of it, and you can carry two homes for a stretch.
A third route, a plain bridge loan without the program’s structure, is compared on the bridge loan against the cash-offer program page.
Why Zach
I am a broker. I put the financing together: I place the program and arrange the rest of the financing.
I have clients using this program right now. That is my own statement about my pipeline, not a promise about anyone’s file.
If your offers keep losing, start with what to do when your offer keeps losing because it is contingent. The cash offer page has the full sequence, and selling and buying in San Clemente is the local version. I work with homeowners in California, Utah, Oregon and Arizona.
Questions people ask next
Is a cash offer through the program literally cash?
No, and I never describe it that way. The seller gets a contract with no home sale contingency and no financing contingency. The purchase is funded by a loan that has to close.
Does a contingent offer ever win?
Yes, when the market is slow, the seller is patient, or yours is the one offer on the table. The contingency is a protection for you, and giving it up is a real commitment.
What protection do I give up with a non-contingent offer?
The right to walk away if your home does not sell, and the right to walk away if your financing falls through. Removing a contingency removes the protection that came with it, and the loan still has to close.
Do I need to sell my house first for either option?
For a contingent offer, your purchase closes after the sale. Through the program, you do not sell first and you do not move out first. You sell after you move, inside the program’s published window of months.
What does the cash offer route cost?
Interest that accrues until the bridge loan is paid off, and the program’s own fees, all disclosed in your loan terms before you commit. What that comes to depends on your own file and on how long your old home takes to sell, so it is worked out in a conversation and not published here.
Which one should I pick?
Text me the two addresses and roughly what you owe. If you are not in a bidding war I will probably tell you to write the contingent offer. If you keep losing, we look at the program with real numbers on your own file.
What clients say
Zach was great. Easy process and he took care of the little things that needed to be done to close the loan and offered up sound advice throughout the process.
Word for word from Experience.com. Read all reviews.
Which page is this?
Cash offer, no sale first. In a competitive market a contingent offer loses to cash. A bridge program Zach places lets you write the non-contingent kind, stay in your home until the new one closes, and sell afterward.
How do I buy a house before selling mine with a cash offer?
That page has the worked example with the numbers, the tradeoffs, and the same next step: a text to Zach, or the options check with no impact on your credit score for the initial check.
Sources and checked dates
Sources: Partner lender’s published program page (name withheld on public pages by site rule; URL in the internal research file dated 2026-09-12) (checked 2026-09-12) · Zach, September 12, 2026 (checked 2026-09-12) · Confirmed by Zach, Sept 2026 (checked 2026-09-26) · Confirmed by Zach, September 2026 (checked 2026-09-10).
Show each claim on this page, what it depends on, and the date it was checked (7)
| What we say, and what it depends on | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Under the bridge program Zach places, the borrower buys the new home in their own name, funded by a short-term loan secured against the current home and the new one. No company buys the home and resells it to the borrower. | Partner lender’s published program page (name withheld on public pages by site rule; URL in the internal research file dated 2026-09-12) | 2026-09-12 |
| Because the purchase is funded by that loan rather than by the sale of the departing home, the offer can be written without a home sale contingency and without a financing contingency. | Partner lender’s published program page (name withheld on public pages by site rule; URL in the internal research file dated 2026-09-12) | 2026-09-12 |
| The program’s published terms give the borrower a set window of months from the closing on the new home to sell the departing home, and include a backup arrangement covering that home if it has not sold inside that window. | Partner lender’s published program page (name withheld on public pages by site rule; URL in the internal research file dated 2026-09-12) | 2026-09-12 |
| The bridge loan is interest-bearing debt. Interest accrues until the loan is paid off, and the program charges its own fees, all of which are disclosed in the loan terms before the borrower commits. | Partner lender’s published program page (name withheld on public pages by site rule; URL in the internal research file dated 2026-09-12) | 2026-09-12 |
| Zach says he has clients using this bridge program right now. | Zach, September 12, 2026 | 2026-09-12 |
| Zach places bridge loans for homeowners buying the next home before selling the current one. | Confirmed by Zach, Sept 2026 | 2026-09-26 |
| Zach confirms that he places HELOC financing for eligible homeowners whose homes are already listed for sale. | Confirmed by Zach, September 2026 | 2026-09-10 |
Written for and accountable to: Zach von der Linden, Mortgage broker and Branch Manager, West Capital Lending.
Last updated 2026-10-26.
Verify him: NMLS Consumer Access, ID 1652805 · 66 reviews on Experience.com.
Sources for product claims are listed on this page, with the date each was checked.
Two ways to take the next step
No credit pull happens from a conversation. The options check is a soft credit pull with no impact on your credit score for the first look. Text Zach first so he can review your situation. The online check covers one HELOC program, not every option he may be able to arrange. Texts go to Zach's cell.