This generally happens when you are selling a property and buying one at the same time. It is set up to allow you to complete the purchase of one property, and immediately complete the sale of your current home.

Back to Back escrows, are also known as concurrent escrows.

Often this happens when doing a refinance and there is a first mortgage and a second mortgage by different companies. Often they will ask for a simultanious close.

When you want to buy a new house, but you still need to sell your present home, you can make the offer on the new house contingent on the concurent or back to back escrow closing of the two properties. This contingency will protect you if something goes wrong with one of the deals. Many home sellers would consider an offer like this with a contigency for a back to back close much less attractive than one that did not have such a contingency.

 

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