Well, fuck me. Mrs. Megaman001 and myself bought a house after three months of looking. The market out here in Rochester, MN is so aggressive that even our offers of 10k above asking was not enough to seal the deal. Here is how things went down. We saw probably 50 houses and made three separate offers.
House #1 - Loved it! Beautiful, well maintained! Made an offer, found out that the entire basement had been finished with zero permits, zero inspections, and zero documentation! We asked for an inspection to, you know, make sure that the house was not going to burn down. Sellers absolutely refused out of hand. We later found out they upgraded their appliances then sold the house 'as is' about two weeks later.
House #2 - Christ, beautiful house! Not only a beautiful house but a full bar in the basement with a built in projector screen. Made an offer 10k above asking, they refused and sold to a buyer who purchased it 'as is' without any inspections.
House #3 - This place overlooked a lake and was on a hill and had a view that would be just lovely. Offer, 10k above asking again! Lost out to someone who put in an offer of '2.5k above the highest offer you receive'. Later found out the deal fell apart because the highest offer they took lost their financing.
Fourth time is the charm. Inspection went great (new furnace last year, new central air, all new appliances, new bathrooms / fixtures, roof is only 7 years old). Just waiting on the bank appraisal, but based on what we've seen it was priced reasonably.
i am really looking forward to setting fire to a huge pile of money once we move in.
What is happening here? Did they agree to a contract they regret and are trying to weasel out of it?
Seems that way. Their first realtor apparently didn't understand or didn't convey the full responsibility after the contract was signed. When the first inspection was done the seller tried to back out after the repairs turned out to be more than they expected. When we refused they then tried to renegotiate for us to pay for the more expensive repairs. Which we also refused. Fast forward to the reinspection and the expensive repairs hadn't happened.
After some talking with our realtor we found out the repairs would exceed his proceeds. She suggested we ask for the remaining proceeds and offer to pay for the rest of the repairs ourselves. We're a lot more sympathetic to that situation and agreed since having to go in to debt to sell your house sucks.
And now here we are. I don't know if we'll be closing on time but we will be at some point and changing the locks same day.
Rad and our realtor have arrived at the house to talk to the seller and his realtor. Today is supposed to be the day we close but who the hell knows anymore.
I get to play the waiting game over in Hawaii.
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DaimarA Million Feet Tall of AwesomeRegistered Userregular
I'll be checking the news for a double murder/hostage situation.
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
We've been buying stuff for the house (little things like a door bell, a pantry, and replacing the incandescent light globes with CFLs), and discovering things like the bathroom fan really doesn't do much at all, the rings on the stove DO glow red hot if you leave them on for a minute, but if you then put a saucepan on them all the heat seems to disappear into an alternate dimension instead of heating up my tomato soup...
We need to get a new tap for the kitchen sink because the cold tap has fallen apart. The shower head is just too low for me so we'll be investing in a super nice showerhead setup...
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KakodaimonosCode fondlerHelping the 1% get richerRegistered Userregular
It's only 50 gallons per minute. So if you get a 5000 gallon water heater, you're all set.
Rad and realtor walked in with their manager faces, laid out what we wanted and where we were willing to compromise, and got it. The situation was apparently very one sided in our favor. Everything gets signed in a couple hours and hopefully tonight I get to start typing out all the details.
Waiting on emergency maintenance. They have up to a one hour response time, apparently.
Edit: They actually showed up like six minutes after I posted this. Apparently it's the pipe that my upstairs neighbor's washer drains into that is causing the problem. Now they are sawing into my ceiling. Also means all that water is dirty laundry water.
Last year we go house hunting. We find a house we like, put in an offer, sign a contract, everything is great. The sellers then proceed to take days to reply to everything. They'd moved to Boston and insisted on having everything mailed to them to be hand signed rather than digitally. We spent two and a half months trying to buy their house with our realtor doing everything he could to move the process along but no luck. We eventually had to withdraw or risk getting booted from our apartment. So we renewed our apartment lease and waited a year.
Ten months later we go house hunting with the same agent. Making a bit more so we bump up our max a little which opens up a whole new world of homes. Lots to choose from but we have definite favorites, eventually putting in an offer 10k under for our top pick. And we wait. A couple days later call our realtor to no avail. Next day I send him a text and eventually he replies saying he'll catch me up the following day. Nothing more for two more days. And then more waiting. Eventually we call his office's manager only to find out that he appears to have just stopped doing his job and no one knows why. Also the house was under contract so sorry.
We're p fucking livid at that point but his manager that I'll call Lucy vowed that she would find us a house, a house we loved, and move heaven and earth to get it for us. She started trawling listings and assigned two more agents to our case alone. We were still angry but it helped to have someone so dedicated.
And holy shit was she ever.
The next day Rad noticed that our house was back on the market around nine at night. I sent Lucy a text saying as much and got a phone call seconds later saying she was on it and that that house was ours. Thirty minutes later she had documents from our finance guy ready to sign and our offer was in. It takes her a day to negotiate the sellers in to covering 10k in closing in return for us paying full price. The sellers accepted and boom! We're buying our house!
Except not so fast cause shit got dumb. The home inspection found some minor flaws with some windows, the roof, plumbing, and deck. Nothing major but it all potentially added up to about 8k with the deck being a big variable. Seller wasn't expecting this and asked us to cover a portion. We said no. He agreed to repair whatever the inspector found, his problem.
Now up to this point the seller was working with a realtor in California. A few days after the previous discussion we're CCed on an e-mail to Lucy informing her that seller's realtor would challenge our contract in court because the repair requirement was unfair and unreasonable. Lucy called us moments later to assure us everything was fine and she'd be replying shortly after a couple Maryland lawyers reviewed it. A few hours later she sent an icily polite e-mail that boiled down to "Bring it you out of line scrub."
Cue the seller dumping his realtor to try talking to our directly. He realized he wouldn't get much selling the house and his realtor screwed up not knowing what the rules were. He asked what it would take to get us to walk away from the house. Which was still nothing. However, Lucy offered to have one of her agents cover his side of the sale and they'd pay for all repairs out of their commission since at that point Lucy just wanted a smooth ride to us having the house. Not much money for him but repairs would be covered. But he declines and goes back to his original company.
This brings us to about three weeks of Lucy pestering them every few days about the status of repairs. During that time we were supposed to get other documents that they dragged their feet with resulting in an extension on closing. It culminated a few days ago with possibly my favorite e-mail from Lucy to them:
I am at a complete loss for words that these repairs have not been completed to date and that a more aggressive approach has not been taken to meet the terms of the contract. Why is it that 3 1/2 days prior to an extension in settlement are we just getting around to a status report on the repairs? Why is it that 3 1/2 days prior to an extension in settlement have all of the repairs not been completed? We have been under contract for 7 1/2 weeks and the repair request has been in the possession of the seller and his agent for 6 weeks as of tomorrow.
Lady was fuckin' done with this shit. That brought us to her and my wife doing the reinspection yesterday, finding none of the expensive stuff repaired, and making furious phone calls immediately. Lucy found out that he'd be losing money selling the house and sent the offer to use his sale proceeds to cover about 4k in repairs and we'd just pay for the rest to have it be done with. The seller instead opted to change out the door lock boxes in what I can only assume was an impulsive decision in the hopes that we'd give up. After that Lucy spoke with the seller's realtor and made it clear that we were closing today fuck anyone's preference.
Today they met the seller and his realtor at the house to close. Both of them walked in with their manager faces on ready to wreck shit. Lucy laid out every problem with the house, explained we had the right to sue if the repairs weren't covered in full, and that we were being generous in offering to cover some of them of our own free will at this point. It was made clear that they had better carefully word their proposal. Any negotiating was done with in under an hour.
We (by which I really mean my wife Rad and Lucy) eventually settled on Rad and I paying to repair the roof and windows for about 3k. The seller is covering the plumbing which was only few hundred and handling the deck. The deck's something of a gamble as it's estimated to cost anywhere between $500 and $4,000 to bring back up to code. It's pretty much his only chance at maybe making money off the place. The repairing contractor will be picked by our realtor and we won't see any of the money.
tl;dr
I've spent the last couple months in Hawaii and the weather has been delightful, I know the world's most amazing realtor, and this is what my kitchen looks like:
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
I don't have the surface area that would require a shower setup that obscene.
Level up, bruh.
I believe in you.
We bought a new showerhead setup! All I have to do now is install it. It's not QUITE that baller, but it's not bad. And there will be tiling. Much tiling! Not all of the tiling, but at least we are getting rid of the carpet in the kitchen (and the dining area and the hallway).
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
We also bought some new taps and a spout for the kitchen sink! The cold tap and the spout are fitted, the hot tap has resulted in the death of two cheap tap spanners. I will have to get myself a super-deep 22mm 1/2" drive socket...
We also bought some new taps and a spout for the kitchen sink! The cold tap and the spout are fitted, the hot tap has resulted in the death of two cheap tap spanners. I will have to get myself a super-deep 22mm 1/2" drive socket...
If everything goes as planned, I will soon become one of you!
I won't bother going into full detail until the house is actually ours, but we've gotten past the offer stage, and the inspection went mostly well, except for small things like "You should probably put GFCI electric sockets in the garage and kitchen."
Then we found out the house came with more Radon than we'd like it to... Sellers wanted to sell as is and cut us a check to fix it ourselves... our lender said it had to be fixed before ownership... so the sellers are fixing it!
Last night, they replaced the corroded pipe that was the problem. Right now, there is a guy tearing out my bathroom ceiling. He is then going to put in the new ceiling, which seems like a lot of work for one dude.
I paid an inspector under the table so I could save $500. I now have a broken valley beam on my roof which revealed that the whole roof was poorly made and I have estimates to repair it that are as high as $50,000.
So not only should you get an inspector, but make sure you have it in writing along with proof of malpractice insurance. This is not something you want to skimp out on.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
We didn't do an official inspection, but my father in a law is a contractor and looked at it. You could tell it was a head above the others from the start though. Hasn't made me broke yet.
I'm curious how the contracts work there. Here it is typically 5 days to have an inspection. 2 days to request repairs. 2 days for sellers to accept or counter. 2 days for buyers to accept or counter.
If buyers counter the agreement is cancelled and everyone can just go home no consequences.
I'm glad to see out advice helped you out. Ballin kitchen.
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
Our contract dictated any and all deficiencies found during inspection had to be repaired or payed for by the seller. We also had a VA inspection which tends to be much more thorough from my understanding and they found stuff the previous inspector did not.
Also the seller's inspector he was using to justify the deck was structurally okay wasn't an actual home inspector but a roofer. Which was just another in a series of dumb decisions on his part.
All I know is that @quid owes me something massive after dealing with this shit.
Mic drop, I'm out. (Except I'm not and now I have to live with him in this snazzy house but there's still all the moving and repairs/painting/lawncare to do.)
Our contract dictated any and all deficiencies found during inspection had to be repaired or payed for by the seller. We also had a VA inspection which tends to be much more thorough from my understanding and they found stuff the previous inspector did not.
Yes, but surely they had an option to back out in a certain time period after the requested repairs?
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
Also the seller's inspector he was using to justify the deck was structurally okay wasn't an actual home inspector but a roofer. Which was just another in a series of dumb decisions on his part.
Posts
BY CHANGING THE LOCK BOXES ON THE DOOR
BECAUSE OF FUCKING COURSE HE DID
House #1 - Loved it! Beautiful, well maintained! Made an offer, found out that the entire basement had been finished with zero permits, zero inspections, and zero documentation! We asked for an inspection to, you know, make sure that the house was not going to burn down. Sellers absolutely refused out of hand. We later found out they upgraded their appliances then sold the house 'as is' about two weeks later.
House #2 - Christ, beautiful house! Not only a beautiful house but a full bar in the basement with a built in projector screen. Made an offer 10k above asking, they refused and sold to a buyer who purchased it 'as is' without any inspections.
House #3 - This place overlooked a lake and was on a hill and had a view that would be just lovely. Offer, 10k above asking again! Lost out to someone who put in an offer of '2.5k above the highest offer you receive'. Later found out the deal fell apart because the highest offer they took lost their financing.
Fourth time is the charm. Inspection went great (new furnace last year, new central air, all new appliances, new bathrooms / fixtures, roof is only 7 years old). Just waiting on the bank appraisal, but based on what we've seen it was priced reasonably.
i am really looking forward to setting fire to a huge pile of money once we move in.
What is happening here? Did they agree to a contract they regret and are trying to weasel out of it?
but they're listening to every word I say
Seems that way. Their first realtor apparently didn't understand or didn't convey the full responsibility after the contract was signed. When the first inspection was done the seller tried to back out after the repairs turned out to be more than they expected. When we refused they then tried to renegotiate for us to pay for the more expensive repairs. Which we also refused. Fast forward to the reinspection and the expensive repairs hadn't happened.
After some talking with our realtor we found out the repairs would exceed his proceeds. She suggested we ask for the remaining proceeds and offer to pay for the rest of the repairs ourselves. We're a lot more sympathetic to that situation and agreed since having to go in to debt to sell your house sucks.
And now here we are. I don't know if we'll be closing on time but we will be at some point and changing the locks same day.
Here's mine as of Tuesday. Since then it has doors and shingles on the covered porch and there appears to be the start of plumbing.
I get to play the waiting game over in Hawaii.
Omg omg
It's happeniiiiiiiiiing!
We need to get a new tap for the kitchen sink because the cold tap has fallen apart. The shower head is just too low for me so we'll be investing in a super nice showerhead setup...
It's only 50 gallons per minute. So if you get a 5000 gallon water heater, you're all set.
I believe in you.
YOU DON'T TELL ME HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE.
Rad and realtor walked in with their manager faces, laid out what we wanted and where we were willing to compromise, and got it. The situation was apparently very one sided in our favor. Everything gets signed in a couple hours and hopefully tonight I get to start typing out all the details.
Waiting on emergency maintenance. They have up to a one hour response time, apparently.
Edit: They actually showed up like six minutes after I posted this. Apparently it's the pipe that my upstairs neighbor's washer drains into that is causing the problem. Now they are sawing into my ceiling. Also means all that water is dirty laundry water.
Last year we go house hunting. We find a house we like, put in an offer, sign a contract, everything is great. The sellers then proceed to take days to reply to everything. They'd moved to Boston and insisted on having everything mailed to them to be hand signed rather than digitally. We spent two and a half months trying to buy their house with our realtor doing everything he could to move the process along but no luck. We eventually had to withdraw or risk getting booted from our apartment. So we renewed our apartment lease and waited a year.
Ten months later we go house hunting with the same agent. Making a bit more so we bump up our max a little which opens up a whole new world of homes. Lots to choose from but we have definite favorites, eventually putting in an offer 10k under for our top pick. And we wait. A couple days later call our realtor to no avail. Next day I send him a text and eventually he replies saying he'll catch me up the following day. Nothing more for two more days. And then more waiting. Eventually we call his office's manager only to find out that he appears to have just stopped doing his job and no one knows why. Also the house was under contract so sorry.
We're p fucking livid at that point but his manager that I'll call Lucy vowed that she would find us a house, a house we loved, and move heaven and earth to get it for us. She started trawling listings and assigned two more agents to our case alone. We were still angry but it helped to have someone so dedicated.
And holy shit was she ever.
The next day Rad noticed that our house was back on the market around nine at night. I sent Lucy a text saying as much and got a phone call seconds later saying she was on it and that that house was ours. Thirty minutes later she had documents from our finance guy ready to sign and our offer was in. It takes her a day to negotiate the sellers in to covering 10k in closing in return for us paying full price. The sellers accepted and boom! We're buying our house!
Except not so fast cause shit got dumb. The home inspection found some minor flaws with some windows, the roof, plumbing, and deck. Nothing major but it all potentially added up to about 8k with the deck being a big variable. Seller wasn't expecting this and asked us to cover a portion. We said no. He agreed to repair whatever the inspector found, his problem.
Now up to this point the seller was working with a realtor in California. A few days after the previous discussion we're CCed on an e-mail to Lucy informing her that seller's realtor would challenge our contract in court because the repair requirement was unfair and unreasonable. Lucy called us moments later to assure us everything was fine and she'd be replying shortly after a couple Maryland lawyers reviewed it. A few hours later she sent an icily polite e-mail that boiled down to "Bring it you out of line scrub."
Cue the seller dumping his realtor to try talking to our directly. He realized he wouldn't get much selling the house and his realtor screwed up not knowing what the rules were. He asked what it would take to get us to walk away from the house. Which was still nothing. However, Lucy offered to have one of her agents cover his side of the sale and they'd pay for all repairs out of their commission since at that point Lucy just wanted a smooth ride to us having the house. Not much money for him but repairs would be covered. But he declines and goes back to his original company.
This brings us to about three weeks of Lucy pestering them every few days about the status of repairs. During that time we were supposed to get other documents that they dragged their feet with resulting in an extension on closing. It culminated a few days ago with possibly my favorite e-mail from Lucy to them:
Lady was fuckin' done with this shit. That brought us to her and my wife doing the reinspection yesterday, finding none of the expensive stuff repaired, and making furious phone calls immediately. Lucy found out that he'd be losing money selling the house and sent the offer to use his sale proceeds to cover about 4k in repairs and we'd just pay for the rest to have it be done with. The seller instead opted to change out the door lock boxes in what I can only assume was an impulsive decision in the hopes that we'd give up. After that Lucy spoke with the seller's realtor and made it clear that we were closing today fuck anyone's preference.
Today they met the seller and his realtor at the house to close. Both of them walked in with their manager faces on ready to wreck shit. Lucy laid out every problem with the house, explained we had the right to sue if the repairs weren't covered in full, and that we were being generous in offering to cover some of them of our own free will at this point. It was made clear that they had better carefully word their proposal. Any negotiating was done with in under an hour.
We (by which I really mean my wife Rad and Lucy) eventually settled on Rad and I paying to repair the roof and windows for about 3k. The seller is covering the plumbing which was only few hundred and handling the deck. The deck's something of a gamble as it's estimated to cost anywhere between $500 and $4,000 to bring back up to code. It's pretty much his only chance at maybe making money off the place. The repairing contractor will be picked by our realtor and we won't see any of the money.
tl;dr
I've spent the last couple months in Hawaii and the weather has been delightful, I know the world's most amazing realtor, and this is what my kitchen looks like:
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Mine is still not finished!
Satans..... hints.....
BEHOLD MY FIRE ALTAR.
MAKE YOU SACFIFICE TO THE KITCHEN GOSS.
Satans..... hints.....
We bought a new showerhead setup! All I have to do now is install it. It's not QUITE that baller, but it's not bad. And there will be tiling. Much tiling! Not all of the tiling, but at least we are getting rid of the carpet in the kitchen (and the dining area and the hallway).
Kitchens are a fun place to stand around and have a bit of a natter, but I dunno if I know any gossip worth sacrificing someone over?
Satans..... hints.....
oh baby...
If everything goes as planned, I will soon become one of you!
I won't bother going into full detail until the house is actually ours, but we've gotten past the offer stage, and the inspection went mostly well, except for small things like "You should probably put GFCI electric sockets in the garage and kitchen."
Then we found out the house came with more Radon than we'd like it to... Sellers wanted to sell as is and cut us a check to fix it ourselves... our lender said it had to be fixed before ownership... so the sellers are fixing it!
If all goes well, we'll close early June!
1. Water heater immediately broke after they moved in.
2. Furnace died and started venting poisonous fumes into the home.
I think he's down something like 18k after all of that.
This is not how I planned on spending my weekend.
So not only should you get an inspector, but make sure you have it in writing along with proof of malpractice insurance. This is not something you want to skimp out on.
But under normal circumstances I'd recommend it.
@Quid
I'm curious how the contracts work there. Here it is typically 5 days to have an inspection. 2 days to request repairs. 2 days for sellers to accept or counter. 2 days for buyers to accept or counter.
If buyers counter the agreement is cancelled and everyone can just go home no consequences.
I'm glad to see out advice helped you out. Ballin kitchen.
but they're listening to every word I say
Mic drop, I'm out. (Except I'm not and now I have to live with him in this snazzy house but there's still all the moving and repairs/painting/lawncare to do.)
Yes, but surely they had an option to back out in a certain time period after the requested repairs?
but they're listening to every word I say
But it's like a roof for the ground!
"checks out"