Home buying thread

Now we have to make a highest and best offer on the house. We already offered asking price, so I'm not sure if we already are the highest.

Noodleface_sl said:

Now we have to make a highest and best offer on the house. We already offered asking price, so I'm not sure if we already are the highest.

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Noodleface_sl said:

The selling agent is ignorin all offers while ours is presented. Works with our buying agent in the same office

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Conspiring to milk as much commission out of you as possible? (Sorry but I don't trust real estate agents at all.)

She ignored the first day of offers but I guess a lot poured in. I don't trust agents either.. I do trust my friend though, so at least I have the buying agent on my side.

We raised our offer $10k because that was our comfortable max anyways and the property to us was worth it. Anything more than that and I wouldn't feel right about it.

I'm ok with losing the house, but the wife is in full panic mode.

Good luck. When the wife and I went to buy a house we probably looked at 40+ houses, had an offer in on a short-sale that was strung along for 6+ months by the banks before the market fell enough for us to afford what we currently bought.

The house we ended up in is perfect for a number of reasons, but man my wife was a wreck during the process.

We made an offer on a house this morning. They are considering one other offer that came in last night, but they owners told our agent they much prefer it go to us as it is great family house (we have 3 girls, they have 3 boys just a bit older) a block from the elementary school and the other offer is from an older couple. Hopefully ours is acceptable. This has been so fast, we're a little shocked. Seen a lot of scummy houses and some pretty decent ones, but when we walked into this one and looked around, we could totally see ourselves there. It was actually the very first one we viewed. Fingers crossed now.

Jeez lindz moving faster than me almost

Yeah it is pretty insane, feels right though. We're looking at a 60 day close though, so you'll be in first if yours goes through! We'll hear back by tomorrow evening at the latest about the offer though, maybe even tonight because they have to get back to the other people tonight.

Yeah was just on the phone with my agent. We had put in a clause about raising the purchase price and using the extra as closing costs but I guess the seller didn't like that. Had to spend some time moving a large amount of money around to satisfy this goddamn son of a bitch. My head feels like it's going to explode.

We'll find out by noon tomorrow. If we didn't get it, at least i'll be able to breathe for a day or two. Our agent says we have a very strong offer, and the agent is from his office, so fingers crossed.


As an aside, I've said this multiple times but it still is weird to me. My wife's name is Lindsey and uses the name lindz in video games (back in 8-bit days you could only use short names). Now we're all buying houses at the same time. It's just strange coincidences.

Yeah it really is. lol

And I'm an "ay" not "ey".

Noodleface_sl said:

Yeah was just on the phone with my agent. We had put in a clause about raising the purchase price and using the extra as closing costs but I guess the seller didn't like that. Had to spend some time moving a large amount of money around to satisfy this goddamn son of a bitch. My head feels like it's going to explode.

We'll find out by noon tomorrow. If we didn't get it, at least i'll be able to breathe for a day or two. Our agent says we have a very strong offer, and the agent is from his office, so fingers crossed.


As an aside, I've said this multiple times but it still is weird to me. My wife's name is Lindsey and uses the name lindz in video games (back in 8-bit days you could only use short names). Now we're all buying houses at the same time. It's just strange coincidences.

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Agents in the same office is a bad thing. Being friends with the agent means squat.

If your offer was strong to begin with, and you raised it by $10,000, then you are about to get screwed. Offers are supposed to have expirations on them, anyway.

Tell your agent that you rescind your offer, get another agent, and look elsewhere.

Just a small update, they accepted our offer!

Actually, our agent was able to talk them down to $265k from our high of $270k. I originally thought an investment place owned the house and flipped it, but I guess it was a regular homeowner who remodeled it. When our agent told him "our story", he decided we were the right ones. He even threw in some furniture as a house-warming gift for us.

I guess all that's left is the home inspection, sending in certain explanation letters, and closing. Not sure how often this stuff goes wrong, so I'm still crossing my fingers.

Congrats man , good luck!

My goodness what a mess with our situation.

So the sellers are building a new home in the area and it sounds like they have got themselves in a bit of a financial bind. They are asking over value on the house they are selling, we put in a generous offer and they countered with what we feel is just too high. We made one final offer, but their Realtor feels they just can't do it with their financial strain. Our Realtors have been on the phone with each other and us all day trying to get this to work.

The first suggestion is we do a rent back. We close April 30th, then let them rent the property from us for a month and a half abouts, until our current lease is up. Our Realtor did not recommend doing this, but the offer is there. Anyone have experience doing this? Becoming a landlord for a month seems like a whole big mess I don't want to deal with and I'd have to do a ton of research.

Next thing we're looking at is that the Realtors are talking about cutting their commission a bit to make up the difference. It is minor, only 4k but enough for both of us to dig in our heels - us because we feel they are asking too much and our first offer was generous and them because they just don't have the cash. Does anyone know how common this practice is? My Realtor said it happens all the time, but it makes me uncomfortable because I like her a lot and she has worked hard for us so I don't want to see her lose money she earned.

Whatever they make on commission wouldn't be your concern. Ultimately selling the house already has the commission worked into the final price, so really the seller is the one hurting your agent. If the agent is ok with that then I wouldn't care, but it really shouldn't involve you.

As for renting for a month... that just sounds like a shitfest to me. I've never done it, but I'm not sure it's something I'd ever want to deal with either. People can do some damage in one month to a house, especially if they know they'll only be there for a month and wipe their hands of it.

Yeah it is the seller hurting her, but it still makes me feel bad!

lindz_sl said:

So the sellers are building a new home in the area and it sounds like they have got themselves in a bit of a financial bind. They are asking over value on the house they are selling, we put in a generous offer and they countered with what we feel is just too high. We made one final offer, but their Realtor feels they just can't do it with their financial strain. Our Realtors have been on the phone with each other and us all day trying to get this to work.

The first suggestion is we do a rent back. We close April 30th, then let them rent the property from us for a month and a half abouts, until our current lease is up. Our Realtor did not recommend doing this, but the offer is there. Anyone have experience doing this? Becoming a landlord for a month seems like a whole big mess I don't want to deal with and I'd have to do a ton of research.

Next thing we're looking at is that the Realtors are talking about cutting their commission a bit to make up the difference. It is minor, only 4k but enough for both of us to dig in our heels - us because we feel they are asking too much and our first offer was generous and them because they just don't have the cash. Does anyone know how common this practice is? My Realtor said it happens all the time, but it makes me uncomfortable because I like her a lot and she has worked hard for us so I don't want to see her lose money she earned.

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For the first part, I would follow your realtors advice. Problem comes if they aren't ready to move out at the end of the rent-back for whatever reason, basically you are stuck going through the eviction process to get them out ofyourhouse. Process can take 3 months or longer depending on local laws and then you are stuck making a mortgage payment as well as finding a place to live month-to-month while you wait for it to all get sorted out and possibly paying rent and legal fees on top of it all.

I have heard of realtors taking less of a commission to get a deal done. If she would rather do that than to watch the deal fall through that is on her, as long as you aren't being asked to throw in more cash I don't see the problem at all.

Congrats Noodle! Gl and hopefully nothing bad shows up in the inspections.

lindz there is no way in hell I'd ever do the renting thing. opiate82 sums it up pretty well - you do not want to be at the mercy of these fools if they decide the move out date just doesn't work for them. Likewise, bumping the price because of their own fuckup? Don't fall into the trap of thinking since you're this far into the process you need to push forward. If they won't accept your best offer, that's on them, tell 'em take it or leave it. If the realtors work out a deal to make it happen wrt their commissions, that's on them. Otherwise make it clear your best offer is just that, take it or leave it. There ARE other homes for sale out there, and you will fall in love with them too.

I don't expect anything bad to show up as it was completely gutted, but I guess you never know!

Shit has been seriously stressful these last few days. I just noticed my face broke out all over the place too and I think I see some additional greys on my head.

When it comes to home inspections, be more worried if something DOESN'T show up. There is always something, usually a bunch of little shit. Just hope for nothing major, and if there is, either get the seller to fix it before you move in or get a concession on the sell price to fix it yourself.