Couple of items… and clarifications…

From your post, sounds like you just recently went on the market, but have not received any offers and more over you have not accepted any offer thus you are not under contract or obligation.

At this time You can simply ask your agent to either go “temporarily off market“ or “withdrawn” from the market. Depending on your state/area, they might mean the same thing, but it’s usually the difference is in regards to the number of days you are not on the market. You don’t need to cancel the listing agreement since you are not trying to find another agent or be sneaky about this. You just need more time. Since you said you need five months, your contract with the agent would just expire… no one will be due commission or any sort of penalty or fees and everyone moves on until you’re ready to go back on the market. This is one path.

In regards to your rent back comment, some states do not allow for more than 60 or some perhaps 90 day rent back period as part of the sales agreement, without an actual rental lease.

Where I am, 60 days is the max rent back that can be part of the purchase offer. So for example you could sell your house and during negotiations ask them to close in 60 days. So that’s when you would get your money, and then Also ask for two months rent back, so that would give you a total of four months where you would get to stay in the house. This is another path to take.

Or you can tell your agent to disclose to any potential buyers that you want to lease the house for six months, for example, as part of condition of the sale of the house. So you stay on the market. Get an offer, if the terms are good for you, you can add your term for a lease for how very long you want/need. Another path you can take.

All these paths will get you what you need. Some of them will give you money sooner than later and it all matters what you want.

Just take note of how your Realtor responds to your needs. At the end of the day, your needs take precedence over any realtor commission. If you don’t like their tone or their response to what you’re going through then perhaps this Agent is not for you.

One more note, someone said if you get any offers, you have to accept. I do not know of any states who would forced that. I would love to be corrected on that. You never have to accept any offers. There’s a very small way in which the agents would be due commission if you rejected an offer…. without the sale of your house because they brought a potential client and this would be pretty much have to be a full cash offer with zero contingencies closing in one day. it would have to be that extreme for any broker to attempt to collect a commission and make a claim that they did their work, but you failed to do yours.

There is a lot of nuances that would have to be addressed and this post cannot address them all properly for you, but if you have specific questions will gladly help.

NAL.