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Thread: Do You Hate Real Estate Transactions?

  1. #1
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    Do You Hate Real Estate Transactions?

    I am beginning to hate real estate transactions. Buying a simple rental home is turning into a tug-of-war with the listing agent. He's unpleasant at best and down-right unprofessional at worst. He wants to insert a bunch of his rules such as no contingencies, no disclosures, etc. It's a cash offer.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rich Riddle View Post
    I am beginning to hate real estate transactions. Buying a simple rental home is turning into a tug-of-war with the listing agent. He's unpleasant at best and down-right unprofessional at worst. He wants to insert a bunch of his rules such as no contingencies, no disclosures, etc. It's a cash offer.
    Rich

    Walk away and find another investment property. Something sounds "off" here.
    No disclosure agreement, I don't think so.
    "The first thing you need to know, will likely be the last thing you learn." (Unknown)

  3. #3
    If I told you the nightmare I'm in, you'd probably feel blessed having to deal with just an unprofessional realtor. After all that I've been through, if I ever have to buy or sell real estate again, I will decide how things go and if someone doesn't like it, they can walk away.
    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." - Mark Twain

  4. #4
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    Isn't it against the law not to have a disclosure statement?

  5. #5
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    Rich,
    Ignore the listing agent's attitude. He's just trying to maximize his commission. I've run into dozens like him - dozens - and it's not at all odd behavior.
    Just stick to your guns and exercise your advantage (cash offer).

    Some agents have the attitude they control the sales and some are much easier to work with.

    You have to somewhat walk in that agent's shoes. A typical house sale involves a buyer that can see "a holiday gathering of the family around a cozy food filled dining room table" - where as an investor just see's an outdated light fixture in that dining room that's going to need replaced.
    That throws a selling agent off their game. Knowing there isn't the normal typical chain of things to "heat up a buyer", they resort to a very defensive stance.

    You're right - it is a tug of war. The huge advantage you have in the game though is that you don't have to play.
    Make an offer (usually a low ball, might as well try it right? You never know how motivated a seller might be) - mull over the counter (if any) - figure out where you need to be monetarily - then counter with that as a take it or leave it, along with the usual contingencies.

    As a FWIW - the rental we just bought this past April is our 5th. We made offers on 5 different properties before we bought it.
    Matter of fact, our first offer on this place ($75K)(cash deal & we would close on it immediately (after inspections, etc)) was rejected by the seller - - pretty scornfully....the selling agent displayed a bit of an "attitude" also.
    The seller didn't even counter - they were asking $89K - they just said not a chance.

    A month went by and we heard from the selling agent. He wondered if we were still interested. We told him $81K was our take it or leave it price & that we would close in a week, sooner if they wanted (same thing, cash deal).
    Inspections reveled the bathroom sub floor was rotted and needed replaced ( I already knew that) and a wood boring insect infestation (carpenter ants). We deducted $700 to cover those and settled on $80.3K as the price.
    The selling agent did a 180 on attitude also and was actually the one responsible for initiating the second offer from us.

    Something else to consider it's October and past prime selling time. The selling agent is probably trying to distract you from that and make you concentrate your efforts on things that obviously aren't going to change - such as no contingencies, no disclosures.

    Isn't it against the law not to have a disclosure statement?
    Not really - but - in a civil action, a seller not disclosing information is (usually) dead meat.
    Nearly all bank owned properties are sold w/no disclosures. The above property we bought was sold by the children of the owner and since they didn't live in the house, they weren't on the line to disclose anything.
    Last edited by Rich Engelhardt; 10-07-2015 at 7:53 AM.
    My granddad always said, :As one door closes, another opens".
    Wonderful man, terrible cabinet maker...

  6. #6
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    Real estate agents can be perhaps be some of the laziest people I've met when it comes to providing a service. I've never had to deal with one that was adversarial but, I have had to drive a few through doing their job several times. Unless you like the terms, which it sounds like you don't, walk away. Passion, obsession or sentimentality have no place in a real estate transaction IMHO.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  7. #7
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    I left an e-mail with the seller's principal broker indicating if they couldn't act professional don't bother to contact me again. They stopped. There was no way on earth I was purchasing a rental property from a seller who owned it for 11 years with no disclosures. He offered to verbally, "tell what had been done to the property, but nothing in writing." I was born at night, just not last night.

  8. #8
    Broker has a license. Here licensing board takes WRITTEN complaints VERY SERIOUSLY! File a written complaint, as most likely he is doing same with others.

  9. #9
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    d b (<--two thumbs up)
    You done right. Sometimes you just have to move on and let someone else be on the hook.
    It's not like there's any shortage of places for sale.
    My granddad always said, :As one door closes, another opens".
    Wonderful man, terrible cabinet maker...

  10. #10
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    Your real estate market must not be doing as well as ours if there is an abundance of houses for sale. The pickings are pretty slim were I am at if you want anything reasonably affordable. The city I live in currently has one house for sale under $200,000 and only a handful under $250,000. I bought my house last summer and had to spend a long time looking to find it. A great many houses at the lower end of the price range sold the same day or next day after being listed. I had my agent try to schedule a showing on a lot of them, but they were already sold.

    There is a nice house for $250,000 just listed yesterday. I would be shocked if it wasn't sold in a week. I live in a far flung suburb. In the city people are going crazy about houses. Decent houses can have a dozen showings the first day with multiple offers. Some folks report having had to move to a hotel because their house had so many showings scheduled.

  11. #11
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    We have tons of nice affordable houses in really good areas.
    One hundred and forty four 3BR, single or double bath in my zip code for under $120K.

    In not so desirable locations, you could buy from five to eight decent houses for that $250K!

    In really undesirable locations - such as the Akron University area - you could probobly pick up 10 rental units for that $250K.

    One of our rentals - a real nice ~ 1000 sq foot ranch built in the late 1950's is valued at between $55 and $75K, depending on the source.
    We paid $89.9K for it in 2002.
    Similar houses in the are go for $50 to $75K.

    What's odd is that the low prices haven't brought a lot of out of town speculators/buyers.
    Oh well, for the time being us local investors are happy.
    My granddad always said, :As one door closes, another opens".
    Wonderful man, terrible cabinet maker...

  12. #12
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    Rich, you should be able to walk away from this difficult seller, unless this house has something special or your local market has very few sellers. I would submit an offer that you are willing to pay. Include a clause that if they refuse to provide disclosures/contingencies, then the offer price gets reduced by 10K. It sounds like they are trying to hide something and you need some concession if there really is something going on.

    We had a really good agent when we were buying a vacation home. We offered 75% of the asking price and they declined. Our agent suggested to increase the offer to what we were willing to pay and include the words "final offer". We offered 80% and they accepted. We had to be willing to walk away if they didn't accept.

    Steve

  13. #13
    Funniest thing I've ever had a real estate agent ask was, what's your second offer if they don't accept the first one. It will save us time later. Ya right, I'm really going to do that. He was dead serious.

  14. #14
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    We must have had a good agent. Ours talked me into making a lower offer than I was thinking, and he was right.


  15. #15
    The bad thing about Iowa is the real estate agent can represent the buyer as well as the seller. You wouldn't believe how mad the agent gets when you don't go through them for a house they have listed. They don't like to split the profit with another real estate agent. It really leads to some shady deals. When we bought the house we live in now I went through a different agency than the one who had the house listed. They didn't want my agent to show me the house, they called me direct and wanted to show me the house.

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