30 Days after Closing.

I was reading some other real estate blogs and came across a posting related to occupancy. That's real estate lingo for  the amount of time the seller is offering to vacate the property after the closing. The blogger was writing about the very few instances in which the seller remained in the property after closing and  that nearly all of their properties were sold with "immediate occupancy". My first response was; I wish we had it so good. For some historically unknown reason the custom in Northern Kentucky has been 30 days after closing for occupancy. Rent free of course. 20 some years ago, when I started selling real estate in Northern Kentucky it was almost always 30 days after closing for the seller to vacate, unless of course the property was vacant. Slowly, through mass population increases with many of those buyers non-native Northern Kentuckians, the tradition has become not as flagrant as it once was. When the Out-of-town buyers first realize the custom their immediate reaction is usually " what? why would I agree to let those people live in my house for 30 days after I own it. RENT FREE!,  this is a joke right". The other blogger's post prompted me to do a search of the MLS for occupancy stats, here's what I found. For residential single family properties in my primary market area; 2,169 were offered with immediate occupancy. 1,739 properties were offered with at least 30 days occupancy (a few at 60 days). The first time I've even looked that up in a couple years AND the first time it has been less than 50% with immediate occupancy. I suppose the only explanation that has ever been offered, realistic or not, is that we do not close "in escrow" in this area. Buyers and Sellers meet at a closing table some 2-4 weeks after negotiating the purchase agreement where many times we are waiting on loan docs because the loan was only approved hours before the scheduled closing. More times than I even care to remember  the loan officer calls the title company and cancels the closing because the buyers were not approved. Now, if the seller has moved out in anticipation of a closing and the buyer's loan is not approved, the seller is stuck with a vacant house.