@NCperson
Did you miss this post?
"The buyer is not my current tenant. This unit that he wants to vacate is one of the units in the apartment building that we are selling in CA. He plans to move in that unit after close of escrow so that he can apply for owner-occupied loan. The $15,000 is the credit for relocation fee for the current tenant in that unit."
From the seller's point of view, the buyer is saying "I agree to your price, but I want a discount--and instead of reducing the official price, I want you give me the money in cash so I can use it to push out the current tenant."
It's basically the same as when my ex-wife sold our house and the buyer said, "Repair this issue or give me $1000 back at closing so I can repair it." The buyer doesn't want to reduce the selling price by $1000, because that would only save $5 a month in P&I, the buyer wants the extra cash. But from a capital gains and depreciation recapture point of view, it reduces the sale price.
The reason to leave it off the closing statement is so the lender doesn't see that the buyer is getting cash back from the sale, because that cash ultimately comes out of the new mortgage. But that is a problem between the buyer and their bank, not the buyer and the seller.
