Home buying thread

There is nothing customary in anything real estate. If you don't want to wait for repairs you walk. You can make any request you want but the seller doesn't have to agree to anything. If you fall behind on your contract obligations (mortgage approval, further deposit of money) they can turn around and look for another contract while they let you spin your wheels. As a buyer you have the right to walk away or take the original deal as is.

You have all the power as a buyer after the contract is signed. You have a ton of ways to get out of the contract if you so choose. Lending denial, inspection, repair request etc..

Now you can't force a seller to do anything except sell the property as described in the original purchase and sale agreement. Anything that comes after is for the buyers protection so you have an out, its not designed to force the seller to actually do anything. They can say (they don't have to say anything actually), "hey if you want the property it is as is I'm not fixing shit" and you have the choice to walk with your deposit money or accept the property as is. If they do decide to fix something up for you its either because:

1. They don't know they can tell you no
2. They are being nice and helping you out
3. They don't want to lose the contract

Realtors will sometimes take care of stuff as well if their seller or buyer is being a jack ass and its something relatively minor. I've had realtors cover pressure cleanings and maids to come in an clean the house when it's empty because the buyer was a cunt and as a seller I didn't give two shits in a hot market if the cunt bought it or not so the realtor paid the $ to make the sale.

Prior to the signing of the original contract, seller has all the power.

After signing, buyer has all the outs, as in they can get out of the contract if they want. Nothing can be forced except the original contract the seller agreed to. The option is accept or walk. Regardless of what comes after, so long as the buyer meets all the obligations the original signed contract is what determines the sale unless both parties agree to the change.

I don't know how it works in every state but in CT if a flaw is found with the house during an inspection and the sale falls through (i.e. the seller refuses to fix) the seller then has to list all known issues for any potential future buyers. So basically they are only hurting themselves if they don't fix it because everyone else that comes through will know about everything that was found during your inspection and then also order their own which may find more. It's not prudent for the seller to not fix issues here in CT.

No idea how that works in other states.

Khane_sl said:

I don't know how it works in every state but in CT if a flaw is found with the house during an inspection and the sale falls through (i.e. the seller refuses to fix) the seller then has to list all known issues for any potential future buyers. So basically they are only hurting themselves if they don't fix it because everyone else that comes through will know about everything that was found during your inspection and then also order their own which may find more. It's not prudent for the seller to not fix issues here in CT.

No idea how that works in other states.

Click to expand...

As far as I've seen that's generally the rule except if you sell something as-is. If you later found out they failed to disclose anything they were aware of they are liable.

Khane_sl said:

I don't know how it works in every state but in CT if a flaw is found with the house during an inspection and the sale falls through (i.e. the seller refuses to fix) the seller then has to list all known issues for any potential future buyers. So basically they are only hurting themselves if they don't fix it because everyone else that comes through will know about everything that was found during your inspection and then also order their own which may find more. It's not prudent for the seller to not fix issues here in CT.

No idea how that works in other states.

Click to expand...

I believe that is everywhere. That said, people don't give a shit and don't disclose things all the time. Reality is there isn't much you can do about it as legal avenues are very expensive and even if you win the odds of you actually collecting everything are slim. Most of America doesn't have much of anything and most of what they do have is tied up in homes which are protected in many states.

Reality is, if the place is falling apart or has a significant issue any reputable inspector would catch it and you'd move on. Should they fail to do so you have recourse on their liability insurance. If its something like a roof leak, good luck proving they knew about it or didn't attempt to fix it (as in they thought it was fixed and acted in good faith).

Most of that stuff gets hammered out at inspection time. If it doesn't get caught the vast majority of the time the buyer deals with it without recourse.

Regardless in the real world, major stuff is pretty obvious and isn't going to get by you or your inspector very often. Usually when it does its fairly minor. Usually when its major you can smell the mold when you go into the house, see the water marks on the ceiling, repair work to ceiling, moisture on the trusses etc You see that with a lot of foreclosures and the banks sell them as is with responsibility on the buyer to inspect for a reason.

I would prefer to have the house discounted and do the repair myself rather than have it fixed by the seller. You know they're getting the absolute lowest price contractor to do it and they don't give a shit as long as it passes the inspection and I've sold a coupe of houses that were inspected to know that doesn't count for shit. One inspector came out and was too fat to use the ladder to look at the roof etc....but he passed it. He also never looked in the attic or crawl space in a two story house. But whatever, I wasn't buying and the buyer paid him.

Pretty annoyed. Termite clearance was supposed to be done Wednesday, but apparently the guy who was supposed to do it didn't get it put on his schedule -- but his office knew about it. So they did it Thursday, but apparently never submitted it to anyone. So now it's Memorial Day weekend and we'll just be hoping that this asshat submits it on Tuesday morning.

On Monday I asked my lender to give me copies of all the paperwork we'll sign for closing (at the suggestion of the title company) so we could look it over prior to signing. You know, instead of sitting there for hours reading it. I even said if you can just give me the templates you use, that'd be fine. Googling this, it sounds like most lenders will get it to you about 72 hours prior to closing. Not my lender though! On Monday she says "We've got your appraisal and it's a 3 day turnaround for loan docs. We'll have them for you to sign on Thursday." On Tuesday, "We'll get the loan docs to you 24 hours in advance (Wednesday)." On Wednesday, "So sorry, I don't have any for you yet. It will be out for tomorrow." On Friday, when we're supposed to be signing this shit, "I saw that your loan docs got ordered (which is what should've happened Monday) but have not seen the docs go out yet. I expect them on Tuesday."

These people are all fucking worthless. I probably could've closed before the long weekend and started cleaning and moving into the new house. Now I'm worried we won't even be closing next week.

Let this be fair warning to anyone else going through this process. I literally just went through this with my loan. This is why I said, oh you've ordered an appraisal, you're just getting started. The amount of waiting you'll be doing will enrage you, continually.

Yeah, I took your advice to constantly bug them (pretty much every day this week) and it was still all for nothing. I'll be jaded like you if I'm sitting here without a house next weekend.

Yea no, not every day. Twice every hour. You call every company, skip trace every sub, call them on their cell and beat the shit out of their phone number until they stick to their schedule. It's like herding cats.

When did you buy your house? I'm pretty sure most of this due to the new post-bubble regulations.

Loan docs were sent to escrow today. Was calling them all fucking morning and they wouldn't answer or return my calls. So I said fuck it and drove to their office (where they didn't seem pleased to see me). Apparently they're so busy(?) that they won't be able to get us in until "hopefully" tomorrow.

I'm so sick of anyone involved in this process. Real estate seems to harbor the worst kinds of people.

Not sure if anyone has refinanced recently, but I just did with Bank of America.

Bought my house 5 years ago, and had 5.125% 30-year fixed (which was a nice rate back in march/april 2010) ... just got 3.25% 15-year fixed for 0 points, and I save $50/month compared to what I was paying for 30-year fixed at the higher interest rate.

Elurin_sl said:

Loan docs were sent to escrow today. Was calling them all fucking morning and they wouldn't answer or return my calls. So I said fuck it and drove to their office (where they didn't seem pleased to see me). Apparently they're so busy(?) that they won't be able to get us in until "hopefully" tomorrow.

I'm so sick of anyone involved in this process. Real estate seems to harbor the worst kinds of people.

Click to expand...

It was like that for us in a sense, not as bad as for you though.

Everyday I felt like I was walking some tightrope where if I made a mis-step I'd fall to my death. There were a few items where if I hadn't asked the lender about, we would've got fucked on and the closing would've been delayed. I wasn't sure when in the timeline I needed to purchase home insurance, so one day I asked and she said "Oh I need that binder by tomorrow" WHAT THE FUCK LADY

It's amusing to me that people in real estate think that multitasking is an excuse for being worthless. I hate to break it to you, but most people juggle significantly larger amounts of projects and don't get to just use excuses of "Oh, I'm so busy." No, instead you just get fired for being worthless.

Elurin_sl said:

It's amusing to me that people in real estate think that multitasking is an excuse for being worthless. I hate to break it to you, but most people juggle significantly larger amounts of projects and don't get to just use excuses of "Oh, I'm so busy." No, instead you just get fired for being worthless.

Click to expand...

There's a mix of competent and incompetent agents out there. You have to be wary of both. The incompetent ones can miss important details that might hurt you, and the competent ones might be competent enough to scam you.

Very few of them seem to be looking beyond their commission checks. They don't respect the hundreds of thousands of dollars and decades commitment.