Possible to contract end buyers before purchasing a home?

[Parker Mott]

Hi Friends & Investors at Bigger Pockets,

I am interested in buying a single family home in Toronto, Canada in order to flip to an end buyer. The house will need a full rehab, be teared down and completely modernized. Doing my research on the property at the moment, analyzing comps and sold data, and am seriously interested in moving forward on the house.

However, the catch is the home is owned by another investor who is selling the property to turn a profit. He hasn't made any repairs or teared down any of the property from what I gather. So, unless the market dramatically softens in the next few days, I won't be able to wholesale the property at a discount. There's another property close by, though, that got sold a couple years ago for 880k, was tore down, rebuilt, and sold recently for over 2 million. Talk about a ROI.

My question is this: if I want to move forward and put the property up for contract, is it possible for me to put my end buyer (once I find him/her) under contract first before I pick up the property? If not, how would you recommend approaching this deal (in terms of my arrangement with an end buyer) so that I'm not at risk of owning a house I cannot afford personally or the buyer backing out last minute. Also, since my end buyer would be my "proof of funds", if I can't contractually secure the end buyer before getting the property, how can I guarantee the seller a proof of funds to begin with without having the end buyer contractually obligated to close? If I secure an end buyer before acquiring the property, isn't there a risk of them going behind my back and cutting a deal with the owner? I suppose I'm wondering how you would approach this situation if you wanted to secure a buyer and not need to include a slew of exit clauses that could turn off your seller.

Lots of questions in here, I know! Answer what you can or have the capacity for. Hopefully this situation makes sense and I look forward to any feedback.

Happy housing, 

Parker