I so hate re agents...

[Rastus]

Good job Tab.

[TAB]

Good job Tab.

Honestly, it did not feel like a good job.  More like what a waste of time.    It was a simple yes or no type deal... now the re agent is out a job, the broker is eating a multi thousand dollar fine and they are both out my legal bills.   
I swear I don't go looking for problems.

[TAB]

Ran into another gem today.

So the property in question was 7.l arces with a house that is condemned form a fire.  Its a total loss, needs to be scraped.  Now the cost of doing so is 10-15k. The going rate for the aera is 30k an arce+ value of the improvements.  3 have sold for that price in the last 2 months and 3 empty lots in the last 6 months.   Priced all at 29-30.5k per arce+ improvements.   So the value of this land should be. 7.1x 30000 -x. Where x is the price of removing thr structure plus a little bit more for the inconvenience.   So call x 20k.   Thats 193k.   So i put in an offer at 190k, figurung5 they say 200k, we split the difference  and we meet in thr middle at 195k.  Which i am 100% ok with it.   Naturally the listing agent says too me " its worth way more than that it has a house on  it that for 75k can be made new again..."   " i have been a contractor for 15 years and a in construction  my whole life, even the foundation  had signs of heat damage"   "oh, you could fix it up for like 20k if you did all the work yourself "   

I swear, i dont go looking for these people.

[Timothy]

Don?t concern yourself with their ignorance. 

I had a guy get angry when I said putting a Swarovski scope on an air rifle might be a bit excessive!

He left...

[PegLeg45]

Those folks are cut from the same cloth that car salesmen are cut from.....the ones that say, "SURE!! That half-ton pick-up with the six cylinder will easily tow that 10,000 lb camper with NO PROBLEMS!!"

[Sponsor]

[Timothy]

It might could tow it, barely...

Stopping is another issue!

[Magoo541]

We are looking for a second house close to us for one of our kids fresh out of college and the wife's parents when she moves on next year. 
1st house offered just under asking, I wasn't a fan but the wife and daughter liked it.  Seller wanted to started a bidding war so we withdrew the offer.
2nd house, make an offer $5k under asking and it is accepted.  We do our inspections and find some issues, about $6k to fix.  Ask for an extension on inspection phase as we were still getting estimates and the seller agrees to the extension but says he won't pay more than $1500 towards repairs.  Made the offer last night to reflect the $6k (split between the offer and closing costs).
Already looking for another house. 
We know it is the top of the market but with the interest rate we can get and having cash sitting in the bank doing little to anything we felt like it would be a good investment.  Now I'm thinking we just pay off our house and just wait but I'm surrounded and out numbered.... 

[TAB]

We are looking for a second house close to us for one of our kids fresh out of college and the wife's parents when she moves on next year. 
1st house offered just under asking, I wasn't a fan but the wife and daughter liked it.  Seller wanted to started a bidding war so we withdrew the offer.
2nd house, make an offer $5k under asking and it is accepted.  We do our inspections and find some issues, about $6k to fix.  Ask for an extension on inspection phase as we were still getting estimates and the seller agrees to the extension but says he won't pay more than $1500 towards repairs.  Made the offer last night to reflect the $6k (split between the offer and closing costs).
Already looking for another house. 
We know it is the top of the market but with the interest rate we can get and having cash sitting in the bank doing little to anything we felt like it would be a good investment.  Now I'm thinking we just pay off our house and just wait but I'm surrounded and out numbered.... 

One yhing i have done and highly recomend others to do is find a decent contractor. Have him walk thr house at the same time as the inspector.  Then have him write a letter using the issues found during the inspection line by line with pricing.  I always get about 75% of what is ask for.    Even paying a few hundred bucks its worth it.  I have saved several hundreds of thousands for my custmers

[Jim Kennedy-ar154me]

One thing I have done and highly recommend others to do is find a decent contractor.

And therein is the rub. There are very few "decent" contractors out there. While I know they exist, and ARE worth their weight in gold, they are very hard to find. My wife and I had a house built 2 1/2 years ago. We researched HARD to find a contractor, This one had an A+ rating with both BBB and the local contractor association. We even talked with a couple of his previous customers. Quoted us 5 months to build and it took him over a year to finish and he came in over $100,000.00 over the "estimate". We are still finding things done wrong. He did NOT followup on his crews and some of the work looked like it was done by 9-year-olds. He left us with a very sour taste regarding contractors in general. I know there ARE good ones out there. I just wish we would have found one.

[Pathfinder]

It seems to be epidemic in the RE industry.

As most here know, my lovely bride and I moved to GA last year, so the RE issues are fresh in our minds.

One, my wife and the RE agent (her sister BTW) were looking at selling the house in KY for about $30k less than what I thought it should sell for. After looking at comps, and after some unnecessarily vigorous discussion, we settled on a listing price that was $10k less than I suggested. It sold in ONE day for asking price. Granted, it was in the primo school districts, and is a lovely house into which we had poured a bit of cash fixing what my wife had called 20 years of differed maintenance.

Here's the kicker - we could have gotten more. The buying agent sent over the contract without a key document that would allow us to consider other offers. Our agent (my SIL) had us sign the contract anyhow, saying it sometimes happened that the paper would follow shortly, especially in this case since the agent was on the road showing houses. In fact, it was ploy by the other agent to prevent us from considering other (i.e., higher) offers - which we did get. Due to her shenanigan's and my SIL's - for lack of a better word - incompetence, I figure we lost $5-8k on the deal.

Two, the house we bought in GA is a lovely 4br 3 bath house, mostly on one floor. The problem is that the listing agent had it down as a 3.5 bath house and we never tumbled to the missing half-bath. No biggie, we got a deal based on comps - the house had been sitting empty for 4 months after the last set of renters had moved out.

HOWEVER, the building inspector, after completing the inspection - a nearly worthless expense based on my previous buying and selling experiences, delivered his report. He missed things like the non-working and never will work gas fireplace, the back steps pulling off the foundation, the rot in the platform holding the a/c condenser, stuff like that. On the good, side though, he did manage somehow to find the missing half-bath - even took a picture of it. Heaven only knows whose half-bath he used, but it sure ain't in this house! Fraud???