Seller needs to find suitable housing. Seller rent back agreement? Delay escrow?

[Sam Tang]

A place I am looking at has a "seller needs to find suitable housing" disclosure. From what I can tell, he looks to be a single father with a child. I read people with children usually ask this? It does not sound like he is going through a divorce (no idea if I should even ask or not?!) because the listing agent made it seem like he was not in a hurry.

My initial offer got rejected and I'm trying to structure a counter-offer with an incentive to the seller without bringing up the original offer price too much. The difference between my offer and the counter offer is about 20k or so.

I was thinking of offering either a flexible closing date or seller rent-back agreement. From what I have read, it sounds like this is usually a bad idea if the state has tenant friendly laws (MA does)..

any advice would be greatly appreciated!