My mother died this past January and as her Executrix I have to sell her one year old home that’s in a 55+ community. I need to sell it soon as there are limited funds in the Estate account and I can’t afford to keep it going forever. I can only keep it going for another five months. It took us a few months to get it ready for sale. We were finally ready. The agent that helped my mom buy and sell houses in the past is helping us with this sale. He put it as “Coming Soon”. Before the house was officially for sale, he called me and said that this couple that used to live in the area (Ocean County in NJ) wanted to move back from Florida. They offered cash at full asking price ($600,000). Attorney review was concluded after three days on April 17th. Before it was finished, other people saw the house. I had another offer at $580,000 with a mortgage. With attorney review over we obviously didn’t show the house any longer.
The buyers had the home inspection on Wednesday, April 22nd. All we heard afterwards was a concern about the siding (buckling) and a crack in the master bathroom grout. They supposedly called out a siding specialist to come the next day on the 23rd. My agent was calling their agent asking how the siding specialist went and this guy never answered. Finally he tells my agent that they have a few requests and that we’ll hear from their lawyer on Monday. Nothing on Monday and at the end of the day Tuesday their lawyer calls my lawyer and says we’ll have a response on Wednesday. No response on Wednesday except to ask us for the HOA documents. My lawyer sends those Wednesday morning. My lawyer had been sending emails asking for a follow up as we never even received the inspection report. Their law office was blatantly ignoring my lawyer. My lawyer said in his 43 years in this business he never dealt with a law group that acted this way.
This morning their lawyer sends my lawyer an email saying they want to terminate the contract as “they were not satisfied with the HOA documentation”. My agent says he’s never had someone cancel over something like that. We all believe they kept changing the date they were going to give us a response as they were probably waiting to hear back about another house and this was the excuse they used to get out of the contract.
Throughout all this we found out that their agent is one of their relatives and they recently sold a 1.7 million dollar house. Their agent being a relative explains a lot as their agent went silent and stopped answering my agent’s calls.
Why didn’t they just use the inspection as a reason to cancel? Any ideas?
Is this type of nonsense normal in Real Estate? I really hope we can sell it fast this time around. I’m angry that these people wasted so much of my time.
Buyers Wasted My Time…
byu/Puzzleheaded-Taro911 inRealEstate
Posted by Puzzleheaded-Taro911
6 Comments
Totally normal. Welcome to the world of real estate.
The best offer is the one that closes.
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What does their agent being a relative have to do with it ?
If you’re pausing your selling process then you should be asking for an earnest money deposit. On a 600k house it probably should be $4k. If they waste your time you keep their money. Made one on the house we just bought, had my clients pay them when I was an agent 15 yrs ago… MD not NJ.
I don’t know what type of lawyer you have. That’s never had somebody cancel over HOA documents. Especially in over 55 communities that is the most common reason for people not to buy into the community in my area, and if they haven’t seen them before they placed the offer. The restrictions absolutely are gonna make a lot of people back out.
I don’t know if it’s doable in your area but in my area we get all these things to the buyer beforehand so they’re not tying up the property before they know if it’ll actually work for them
If time is short, get your own inspection report and give it to prospective buyers that tour the house (have agent put in listing documents). Try to avoid this inspection delay nonsense. zwill be downvotef/criticizef for this but it’s a smart move.