I don’t really understand how real estate works. My husband has a better understanding so I just trust him. We found a BEAUTIFUL home. We offered cash, and the rest we planned to do a heloc on our current home (only 50k) and we were gonna pay off the heloc when our current home sold.
The owner turned down our offer because a cash offer weirded him out. He took another persons contingent offer for the Sam amount as ours
What did we do wrong?
Thank you so much!
The house was 500k, and we offered the asking price
Offered cash for a house, seller declined
byu/samokn inRealEstate
Posted by samokn
49 Comments
You didn’t do anything wrong. Some sellers are just like that.
sounds like realtors problem.
That seller is an idiot.
Nothing… that seller is… interesting. I take cash offers even at a slightly lower price cause then you don’t need to worry about appraisal and loans. (I am not a realtor, a developer/flipper). But that’s a realtor problem for doing that. That Realtor sucks.
Offers are made up of more than price. Terms can be equally important to the seller.
Did you offer to show proof of funds and large earnest money that is easily non-refundable?
Sometimes people will try to cover up bad offers as good by giving cash and asking price and then tying it up and nickel-and-diming.
But it wasn’t a cash offer if you had to take a Heloc. A cash offer implies cash on hand at the time of offer.
Is it possible they thought you were an investor but they wanted to sell to a family?
When i hear cash i think investors, so if the offer was the same and like their neighbors they may be throwing them a solid by going with a “traditional” buyer in their mind.
Did other buyer waived inspection contingent while you didn’t?
They thought you were an investor, not someone looking to occupy the property. This matters to some people.
Did either party have an agent? This sounds like two parties who don’t understand the industry trying to navigate and failing. On the seller side, a good agent would have guided them through the risks of each offer. On the buyer side, a good agent would have guided you on how to present the offer to not “weird them out”.
Who knows really. If both offers came around the same time a letter from the buyer with the other offer may have swayed them or they thought you just wanted to flip.
Sounds like the seller made a mistake. It wasn’t meant to be, there will always be a better home coming.
Get the heloc and dont pull the cash yet. Pull it when you are in escrow.
Talk to your realtor and tell them to let the folks know your offer is still good as a back up offer. Not all escrow close.
If they are using a government loan, there are a lot of i’s to dot and boxes to check! You could still end up with the house. But have your heloc in place for this, or the next one!
Can’t fix stupid.
You didn’t have cash for the whole amount. Most buyers have *some* cash- just like you.
Did you have financing, inspection, or appraisal contingencies? Did the other buyer?
In any case, you didn’t do anything “wrong.” There was just one house and more than one person who wanted to buy it.
The seller *always* gets paid in cash, by the way. It’s the ability to offer attractive terms because of large amount of cash that matters …not necessarily the cash, itself.
Cash means they’ll for sure close a deal. I’d much rather have a cash offer if I was selling.
My only guess is they assume you are an investor or wealthy and might be judging you which is really weird.
It’s a pain dealing with sellers that need to be approved and the process is so much longer and often times they end up getting denied.
I’ve closed in 7 days with cash. Other times it’s taken me 3 months waiting for them to get approved and switching lenders.
Nothing I’m going to take a cash offer above others.
We lost on a house the same way.
All cash, asking price (LA told our agent, “you have the best offer “), 2 week leaseback at no charge.
Seller went with: FHA loan, no lease back.
Our perfect house listed three days later for $45K less.
Just a reminder that if even if you pay off the HELOC you need to close the line of credit or the title company will find a lien on your house.
I found out last minute before closing when selling my dad’s house after he passed. The line of credit he had was paid off but the bank had a lien because the account was not closed.
I hope you find your dream home soon 😊
Seller is an idiot, the seller could’ve closed faster with all cash and the buyer not needing to be approved for the loan. Almost no chance of backing out because of financial reasons.
There is a pattern of folks offering cash only at listing price and then coming back for concessions as the deal progresses.
That said, as a seller, I would still pick cash only
Maybe someone else offered a no contingency offer.
Could they have thought that a cash offer meant you were an investor? Some people are sentimental, so maybe they preferred the idea of a family moving into their home?
I got outbid on my house but I told the seller I’d pay him in cash. His realtor was a d bag. Seller accepted my offer, kinda went behind the backs of both realtors, turned into a whole thing. Got the house though.
People do whatever for whatever reasons. We bid 400k on a house with only 15% down. Another bidder bid 410k all cash. We got the house thanks to a love letter. Was a very religious family that home schooled their kids. Told my wife to write a letter about how we wanted a Christian house and we feel the power of god in the house and that we need a home where we can home school our kids because the public schools worship the devil. (Im Atheist, wife hasn’t gone to church since we’ve been together for 7 years now) We got the house.
Did the seller have a realtor on their side? How did the realtor not explain to the seller that your offer is lower risk and likely a quicker closing? It is for their own good.
I’d take cash in a heartbeat if it was good offer.
Yet it wasn’t cash if it was contingent on the heloc being approved…
IIRC, someone on Reddit recently said that a seller refused to accept an otherwise satisfactory offer because the buyer was a Scorpio.
Sounds like they didn’t want to sell to an investor. Cash offers scream investor.
Since the current offer is contingent. If there is a better offer, the seller can ask the buyer to remove the buyer’s contingency. Submit the offer again because your offer is a better offer. Current buyer usually has 3 days to respond. If they can’t remove the contingency then the seller can accept your offer. Hopefully you can rewrite your offer in the way that helps the seller to understand. Write like this: this offer is 500k. Buyer will provide $450K . The other 50k will cone from a loan or from a home equity loan.
Why would they care if it’s a cash offer it’s not like they are actually getting hundred dollar bills in a suitcase. It gets wired to them just like a mortgage loan would. Maybe they actually thought they would get actually cash. Go back and tell them you have 100% approve financing of that makes them feel better.
I’d rather sell to a real American who needs a mortgage than a rich jag-off who can pay in cash and is basically the reason the market is so screwed up.
Did you have an agent? Was your offer a contract with an e-sign to make it all legal?
I personally wouldn’t sell to a cash buyer either. Anyone that’s got the money to buy their house in cash can find somewhere else to live, my house would be used for upward mobility
Did your agent reach out to the listing agent?
You probably sounded like an investor who was going to make it a rental of some sort and the seller wanted the house to go to whatever idyllic buyer they had in their mind. And you were not it.
You don’t always get what you want.
Maybe these people don’t want rich people paying with the cash.
Calling it cash doesn’t make it cash. If the seller saw that your offer relied on a HELOC or on selling your current home, then it’s not a true cash offer. It’s just an offer without a traditional mortgage. Sellers and agents can spot the difference instantly, especially if your proof of funds didn’t cover the full amount or if your agent mentioned needing to tap equity. That’s likely why they passed.
LOL, people in this thread with no idea how a HELOC works…doesn’t stop them though!!!
Real estate is as much about the parties involved as the numbers.
And some parties don’t act logically.
We turned down a cash offer on our place after losing our dream house to a cash buyer. We decided we would never sell to someone paying cash unless it was a major difference. We want to do our part to make housing more accessible and sell more to people like us.
Thats not normal. To a seller, cash should mean quick, no bullshit close. I’ve gone from contract to close in 10 days with cash.
I feel like something is missing from this story, because an all cash buyer is a dream. There’s a reason they didn’t want to sell to you.
That’s weird. Cash is usually king in real estate.
They may have thought you were an investor or company instead of wanting to occupy it yourself.
Did you have a realtor? If I was a seller I wouldn’t want to deal with someone without a realtor.