Posted by Steve Adkins on January 12, 2010 at 12:00pm
That troublesome contract!I want to spend a minutes to talk about that “troublesome contract” that you know is going to be problems from the very beginning. You just get that feeling from the very beginning. Everyone in this business gets one every so often, right? Or am I just lucky with more than my fair share?It all started the day before Christmas Eve. I get a call about 3 PM from an agent wanting to show the house to a potential buyer, he’s in the driveway. I tell him about the house and that he is welcome to show the house any time….so he asks me how does he get in? What? I tell him it’s on a Supra lock box, which he could use his Supra key to get in. Then he tells me he didn’t have his key with him. How can you show houses to a buyer without your Supra Key?This agent was expecting me to drop what I was doing and drive 15 miles to open the house because he was not prepared. More on this shortly. Mind you I was elbow deep in auto repairs with the dash of my truck disassembled as I replace the heater core. Needless to say it would take me 2 hours at best to get there. I told him I was leaving town for Christmas the next day and would be back late Sunday, he could call me Monday to set an appointment….which he did. Surprisingly!He calls me Monday morning and we set a time for the afternoon, 2 pm. Good, I rearrange my schedule for the day, no problems. I ask him if he was a real estate agent and if he had a Supra key, he said he was and that his key is broken. Yea OK and that bad feeling starts to grow. At 12:30 he calls me again to ask if he can more up the time, that he was already on the way with his buyer. No problems, it’s a light day and I stop what I was doing and leave the office to meet them.I start thinking this is going well when the buyer walks into the house and starts gasping for breath! She just keeps saying “I love it, I love it”. Good signs from the buyer! I start smiling as I know this trip worked out, the first one like this to ever go my way. The buyer loves the house and they both said that they were going back to his office to write the offer and send it to me that afternoon. As I’m driving back to the office I’m wondering if this was a dream? These “give-me’s” never happen to me! But I’ll take it if it really comes thru.Well, late afternoon the next day I hear from the agent again. He has a few questions so he can fill out the contracts, no problems as I have gotten use to that. Just before leaving the office around 4:30 pm I get the contract. Cool! Full price, no closing cost, 10-day closing….I’m thinking cash deal! Sweet! The asset manager is going to love this as it’s our last REO property in this subdivision. This is a new construction REO and we started with 11 houses in the late spring. This one had some minor issues and no Certificate of Occupancy issued, of course the bank was not going to finish that one small issue. So it has taken longer to sell then the others, and the bank understands why.Ok, back to the contract. I keep reading and there are some minor special stipulations that will need to be removed, no problems. Then there’s a check mark in the contract about an FHA Exhibit (but no exhibit) and then the last page is an un-dated letter of ptr-approval from a lender/broker I have never heard of. I start thinking that a 10 day closing and FHA do not play well together! Again, no problems, I’ll call the agent and get this straightened out before sending the package to the asset manager. I called to ask him is this a cash deal or FHA. If it’s FHA he needed a lot longer for a closing date. He says that 30 days will be fine and that it was FHA and that he left the closing cost blank because he wants the seller to pay ALL closing cost. Then he tells me that this is a Neighborhood Stabilization Program loan. Ok, the last one I did took almost 60 days to close, so I told him that the bank will only agree one closing extension. If he under estimates how long it will close because he has not talked to the lender, the bank can and will find the buyer in default and keep all earnest money. So we agree on a 45 day closing.An hour later he calls back to say that he wants to raise the offer price in hopes the bank will pay more closing cost. We go round and round about this for a few minutes and I tell him to call the loan officer and work out the details and send me a new (and complete) offer. He agrees and sends me a new offer the next day. It’s still not complete, but I can work with it. So I start trying to contact the loan officer to verify the pre-approval letter.After 3 days and 5 voice messages later of trying to reach the loan officer, the agent happens to call me. I tell him that everything is on hold until I talk to the loan officer. I finally reach her the next day (after 3 more attempts). She’s familiar with the buyer but says that the letter was issued more than 2 months ago and she would have to re-verify everything again with the buyer. She did call me back on New Year’s eve to say that she was waiting on the agent to bring her some documents, he was already a day late in doing so.I have not heard from the L/O or the agent yet this week, needless to say I have ZERO faith this deal will ever get to the closing table. I don’t want to say that the agent is unprofessional, but he is under trained and has no supervision.So what’s your “troublesome contract” story? I would like to know I’m not the only one who gets these!Steve Adkins - RealtorThe Adkins GroupBetter Homes and Gardens Real Estate Metro Brokerswww.The-Adkins-Group.com
I'm now 3 weeks into this contract and still waiting for the updated letter of approval from the lender. It seams that the buyer and agent cannot provide the proper documentation needed. Go figure!
It's always something. Short sale with an all cash offer, buyer contacted me and asked me to represent. offered full price, bank approved, now I find out about a judgement against the property after the HO assured me there was nothing. First time to get burned on a short sale after it was approved. Lesson learned. Title search before the listing hits mls. I have contacted the attorney for the judgement to see if they will lift the judgement if I give them a portion of my commission, as they won't get anything if it goes to foreclosure. I'll let you know what they say.
The scary thing about this situation is that I am dealing with something similar, except the supra, but the buyer's agent is a real estate office manager with several years of experience, and the loan officer is from one of the big four.
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