I get that the legal ownership is not literally changing hands multiple times (mostly because of the comical inefficiency of the real estate market and the effect of transfer taxes).<p>As a seller, you agreed to price X. As a buyer, I contracted with you (the hypothetical you) to ensure you are paid X. I then do some legwork and find another buyer for X+P, and assign the contract to them. At closing, you get ~X; I get ~P; new buyer gets the property, and a bunch of do-littles in the process take a bunch of fees, expenses, taxes, and commissions off the table. I don&#x27;t see the problem for you or I. You do and I acknowledge that.<p>You can feel free to insist (in the contract) that, under those circumstances, you are due X+P, and what you&#x27;ll find is that the subset of the buyers who wish to assign the contract won&#x27;t deal with you (you&#x27;ve taken their economic value add away), but you&#x27;ll eventually sell the house. It might be for X - L, where L is the loss you take by excluding that subset of buyers, as remember that X was the highest offer you were able to find otherwise and that was from a buyer that you&#x27;ve now excluded. But at least you can feel good that you got the &quot;full value&quot; of the transaction.