Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

[Vanquisher]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

We got really lucky, I guess. The people we bought this house from left the extra paint to match the deck, outdoor trim, indoor trim, walls, etc. - all labeled. They left lightbulbs for every room and fixture in the house. They were really great!

I have no advice. Dot your i's and cross your t's and leap! I am so excited for you. Do you have a link you can show me?

[ladymoreta]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

Congratulations, and good luck!

The sellers were great for our home. They also left us paint, and the house was very clean. (We still hired someone to come do a deep clean before we moved in.) They also put up new vanilla plug-ins, so it smelled awesome.

I think it's pretty standard, but make sure they pay for a year of home warranty. We've used ours a couple of times already on stuff that passed inspection, but wasn't quite right. You should also specifically request a termite inspection, and that they pay for the treatment if any are found.

It's easy to go into it with an "us" verses "them" attitude, but if they're decent people, they can be really helpful. The sellers introduced us to one of our neighbors, and they told us a trick about one of the reset buttons on an electrical outlet. They also told us about some good places to eat. Little things, but it helped with the scary-ness of moving into our first home.

[poky]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

We found appliance manuals and paint and even leftover tile (the house had been built 30 years before we bought it, and only lived in by one family in that time). The extra tile was great for taking to the paint store when we wanted to paint new colors.

Honestly, I wish they had taken some of the butt-ugly 70's light fixtures. Would have saved us the trouble of removing them to replace them the first week after we moved in.

Sorry I can't help much; ours went really smoothly and we had no idea what we were doing. Our buyer's agent walked us through everything.

[DCJenn]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

I have blocked the Poltergiest lady from my mind- the one that insisted there was a poltergiest in the kitchen.

So, Kristen V. you can get all of my wrath, too.

We're in the process of having the bottom floor of the DC house repainted, the bathroom regrouted, the house cleaned and the yard tidied prior to it being re-listed.

Good luck- there are few things more stressful than buying your first home.

(I'm on home #5 at this point) (of course, home #4 is still available, if anyone wants to live in DC!)

Jenn

[MrsK]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

I have blocked the Poltergiest lady from my mind- the one that insisted there was a poltergiest in the kitchen.

This is too funny! Was she actually trying to sell the home? I mean, a poltergeist is generally not a selling point.

[DCJenn]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

No, she's the reason why I still have the DC house. If you have access to the blogs, go back to July of 2006 and you can read the whole sordid affair. She tried to get out of buying our house because (among other things) she claimed there was a Poltergeist in the kitchen. We kept her five figured earnest money deposit though!

(which brings up another thing- never put more than 3k down as an earnest money deposit.)

jenn

[MrsK]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

No, she's the reason why I still have the DC house. If you have access to the blogs, go back to July of 2006 and you can read the whole sordid affair. She tried to get out of buying our house because (among other things) she claimed there was a Poltergeist in the kitchen. We kept her five figured earnest money deposit though!

(which brings up another thing- never put more than 3k down as an earnest money deposit.)

jenn

Wow! That's a new one on me. (And I've had a closing postponed because the buyer's astrologist objected to the closing date.) You definitely earned that deposit.

[Cumberland]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

We did FSBO on one house, and the new buyer was a total putz. He finally got around to the home inspection 48 hours before closing and of course came up with something major wrong. I still to this day dont know why he took so long to get it, since he was calling us or at our house every day checking on something. He called my DH an arrogant something or other and my DH told him to come pick up his earnest money and we would cancel the sales contract. After some serious calming down of my DH, we ended up splitting the difference in the repair cost and adding an addendum to the contract that the house was then sold as is, and we would not be responsible for any future repairs. The buyer also gave me a lecture about making sure we did not leave anything in the house or yard and to make sure I took the trash out to the curb We were all about the same age and had friends in common, I really didnt think i needed to be talked to like a 4 year old. That is FSBO for you, but we did pocket the 6% that would have gone to the realtor.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

Thanks for all the stories. They made me feel better and scared me even more at the same time. Well, we already have a lawyer involved and we didn't even make an offer yet. There's a private road owned by this property that goes off the street but is also shared by 3 more homes. The deed mentions a Private Road Maintainance Agreement but the seller (or his agent) isn't being very helpful about disclosing any information regarding that. The private road is pretty long and all gravel and there's no way I will be taking care of it for other people. So our agent got a lawyer involved to get to the bottom of this supposed agreement.

Anyone has experience with shared driveways?

[MrsK]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

Has your lawyer obtained a title search yet? The private road maintenance agreement would most likely be in the chain of title.

[SuzySunshine]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

I agree with the title search, make sure you know of all easements that might be on the property as well. My parents had an easement on their property that they didn't know about when they bought their property and it has turned into a headache. My BIL works for an oil company and he is currently dealing with a mess in Pennsylvania about them having the right to expand their gas line and owners of multi million dollar homes who didn't know or didn't pay attention to the fact that this line was on their property are up in arms.

Just make sure you cover all of your bases and you'll be fine!

[Vishenka69]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

We signed the offer tonight. I made sure to include all the points/suggestions in the contract. Thanks again.

[SuzySunshine]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

Congratulations - keep us posted!

[Vishenka69]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

After all that neurosis, I don't think this is going to happen after all. Here's the breakdown.

We offered 18% less than asking price (which our realtor said was overpriced by at least 10%), the house has been on the market for almost a year and a half and prices have dropped about 20% in our area. What we offered is exactly what they still owe on the house. They came back with 4% less than asking price and said it was their final offer. I told our realtor that unless they're willing to negotiate, we're walking. That was 2 hours ago. They also know that we're leaving the country for two weeks this weekend. At least if we're not buying a house, we can go on a fab vacation for New Year.

I hate this process. Luckily we're not pressured to buy but I don't know how many times I can go through this.

[MrsK]

Re: Making an offer/closing - words of advice?

After all that neurosis, I don't think this is going to happen after all. Here's the breakdown.

We offered 18% less than asking price (which our realtor said was overpriced by at least 10%), the house has been on the market for almost a year and a half and prices have dropped about 20% in our area. What we offered is exactly what they still owe on the house. They came back with 4% less than asking price and said it was their final offer. I told our realtor that unless they're willing to negotiate, we're walking. That was 2 hours ago. They also know that we're leaving the country for two weeks this weekend. At least if we're not buying a house, we can go on a fab vacation for New Year.

I hate this process. Luckily we're not pressured to buy but I don't know how many times I can go through this.

If you pay exactly what they still owe on the house, they will be coming up short at closing. Remember, they have to pay the brokerage commission, tax prorations, and other costs of the transaction. All of those are deduced from the Cash to the Seller. The Seller would either have to bring $$ to the closing or they would have to persuade their lender to accept a short sale.