So you’ve successfully listed your home and now you have a buyer under contract. Congratulations! Your home is technically still yours, but there are things that you can no longer do to it with a contract in place. Buyers, you’re not off the hook either!

Sellers, first thing, unless you have an agreement with the buyers to make improvements to the home, don’t. Don’t change out high end appliances for lower end ones. They agreed to buy your home in the state it is in, and with the items and appliances in it that were included in the contract. If you wanted to keep the appliances, you should have put that in the contract. Another no-no: don’t turn off your utilities. There are several reasons for that. First, it may cause problems for the buyer to get them switched over to their name. Second, if you live in an area where winters get cold, lack of heat can cause issues with plumbing and frozen pipes. Any billing discrepancies will be handled at settlement.

Buyers, you’re not off the hook either. Some no-no’s for you too. First, don’t run out and buy appliances, furniture and all the stuff you think you need for the home. If you run up credit cards or empty your savings you could jeopardize final approval and disbursement of your mortgage. The mortgage company makes decisions about your creditworthiness based upon the amount of savings and debt at the time of application. What you may not realize is they monitor your financial activity until the mortgage is disbursed. Buying binges will change your creditworthiness. Second, stop looking at listings. You have your new home sweet home, so looking further is a waste of the Realtor’s time.

Sellers and Buyers- Being under contract is kind of a limbo. Don’t do things to jeopardize the contract and sale.