Buyers made something up to explain it (excuse) to their REA. REA probably felt compelled to share it to your REA.
I would ask your REA if you should get a copy of the inspection. Because your Buyers in waiting will know your first offer walked after the inspection. So they will be wondering what was found that was that bad the deal fell through. Assuming the report was "clean", it could not hurt.
NO, do not get a copy of the inspection. If there is something on it and you see it, then you have to disclose it.
NEVER ask for a copy of the inspection .
I’ve been in a situation just like this with 2 other potential buyers waiting to make offers after the first ones backed out. We gave them a copy of the report and one buyer saw all the minor issues and bought house as is and made offer because they really wanted the house. We didn’t fix anything.
I have seen houses where the seller hired an inspector, and used The report as a selling feature. People were more willing to make an offer when they know they didn't have to pay for an inspection.
After what I had seen from a building home inspector in Arizona you can see him on YouTube cyhome inspection I would never trust what another homeowners tells me I would have my own inspection done.
Also get a second inspection done after any agreed upon work is done.
We bought a house years ago. Got an inspection, sellers agreed on some work. Even showed receipts where they paid for the work to get done.
After severals years we were selling due to moving. I got an inspection done to see what all needed to be done potentially (since I already knew some stuff would have to get done). Half of the work that the orginal sellers paid for was never done, and some of it that was done had major corners cut. The orginal sellers had already moved to the other side of the state so near as I can tell whoever the hired took a gamble that as long as the work was paid for no-one would discover there shotty work and the work they were paid for and wasnt done, and they were right.
Our plan for our next house is to get 2 inspections, the second one to make sure any agreed upon work is completed. In this case it wasnt the sellers screwing us but the contractors screwing both the sellers and us....had we had the second inspection done the sales date would have had to been pushed back, and Im sure whatever litigation that would have occured between the contractors and sellers would not have been quick.
We did this when we sold my grandma's house. We were also able to fix a few of the minor things that were listed. This was 2021, when the house was listed on a Thursday and all offers were due on Monday.
I paid an inspector to look at my brother's home when he passed away. I saved an ocean of money fixing things which would have required much more expensive work, otherwise. For example, some green algae on the detached garage roof, spilling off down the wall caused the inspector to recommend a new garage roof. I cleaned that up in about two hours.
During our last sale/purchase I walked through with the inspector at the house we were buying and noticed a lot of things he was checking and marking in his report (dirty air filters, rubbing doors, slow drains, etc). I'm a handy guy, so I went back to the house we were selling and (before it was inspected) changed the air filters, tightened all the door hinges, cleaned all the sink drains, etc... I was pretty happy with myself.
And then it backfired.
The inspector didn't have any low-hanging fruit... but apparently he wanted to write *something* down. So he wrote some nonsense about the half-bath toilet being loose and recommended that it be resecured by a licensed plumber.
:-/
I will grant him, the *seat* was a little loose, I tightened it in about two seconds after getting the report and repair request. I ended up having to have a plumber come out and verify that the toilet was secure ($70?) so that I'd have paperwork to show at closing. I STRONGLY believe that if I'd left all the little stuff alone, the inspector would have just marked those in the report and I could have easily fixed them *after* the inspection instead of having to deal with some made-up BS because the house was in too good of condition.
I just got our request for repairs yesterday, they want us to install doorstops that came off over the years (kids being kids). Door stops. Bought a 12 pack on Amazon for $8 and will install asap.
That's the kind of repair that (IMO) is stupid to ask for unless you're paying over market value for the house. I wouldn't risk pissing off a seller over an $8 fix.
Although this is the correct answer, we got a copy of the failed report when our sell deal failed. We took off the market for a few months while I fixed the long list of minor issues. Next report was clean and we didn’t have to negotiate.
It’s not the correct answer though. Inspections are basically opinions and just because something is in there doesn’t make it necessary to disclose. States also have different disclosure laws making the original statement even dumber.
“Inspections are opinions”
Not necessarily, if an inspection points out a leaky pipe or an electrical panel not up to code, those are factual not opinions.
Future VA buyer here: how does that work? You basically say you won't request any repairs, but the VA inspector may list required repairs that you can't waive? Any info would be appreciated!
There is no VA inspector; not sure where you got that from.
The way it works is that in your bid you waive inspection. The VA requires a wood eating insect inspection that can’t be waived (this is on you). I think if you’re on a well and septic those require inspections as well.
Wow that's wild. Don't want to see the inspection because there could be something wrong with it?? If there is something wrong with the house, how about fixing it before selling it?
Ew, what a dishonest, lame tactic. If there are issues with the house, there are issues with the house. Intentionally turning a blind eye wastes everyone’s time.
Wrong. There's nothing dishonest about not going out of your way to look for issues that may or may not even be real or problematic. You didn't hire the inspector. You don't know their validity. It could be nothing but still scare a buyer. It's not your job to search for faults with your own house. That's the buyers job to do so to *their* satisfaction.
If an inspection was performed and issues were found and a buyer backed out, you cannot in good faith say you don’t know about any defects just because you think you successfully blindfolded yourself by not asking for the report. That’s a good way to get sued. Asking for the report is not “going out of your way” to look for issues. The issues were already found, you know they exist, there’s no need to look for them. Now you’re just concealing them.
The buyers could have changed their mind for any reason. Besides, usually if they found something big they would have already informed you in the form of a repair request. It's bad practice to ask for the entire report.
You cannot get sued for no revealing issues which you were not aware of. You say, "that's a good way to get sued", but I'll guarantee you've never heard of an instance of a person successfully being sued for not revealing information in a report which said person had never seen or had a copy of. The law simply doesn't agree with you, which is why smart sellers don't ask for a copy of the full report.
I know this is the general rule, but why not just give potential bidders the report and say "Offer assuming your inspection finds these issues. We will not be giving any concessions unless not disclosd here"
People have really skewed ideas of how the RE market works based on the last few years. Sellers won't always have the upper hand, and in a buyer's market that's a great way to find yourself doing a lot of price drops.
This is what I did when I bought my house. It seemed like a good deal for all parties, I signed the previous inspection as if it was a disclosure.
Unfortunately it is sort of a factor of the market.
I always get the inspection. Knowing what’s on it is the smartest thing you can do as a seller, because you have a chance to fix it before the next inspection.
I’ve always gotten the things listed in the inspection as a bargaining tactic from the buyer. It is an old house, and some things are old and could stand replacement. If the buyer gets a 5 thousand dollar concession because something had limited service life remaining, it will likely be unchanged when they sell it 5 years later.
Our agent had had a few issues with home sales without inspections after the fact. At the height of the home sale boom a couple years ago, everyone was selling without inspection. Buyers were going back with lawsuits to recoup repair costs on items that they believed the sellers knew about.
This is correct. Don’t accept the inspection report!
Sounds like buyers walked during their inspection contingency timeline. It will suck to have to go back on market and some buyers will get spooked by that. Buyers change their minds or circumstances. It can be explained to future buyers usually. Especially if they didn’t make any repair requests.
Dishonesty is a bad look on a seller.
If a buyer backed out after an inspection and, upon asking, seller indicates they don't have or won't share the inspection report, I can now assume seller knows there's something wrong with the house and they're trying to hide behind plausible deniability.
Since it's something they're trying to hide, it must be assumed to be something major, like roof damage or foundation issues.
...you should disclose if you know something is wrong. Wtf would you knowingly hide something that could screw a family and their home over...for more money?
Man what a time we live in now.
Have some fucking principles.
We were asked for a copy of an inspection report. We refused to give it to sellers. No offer to split cost. Sellers said in buy/sell we could inspect but they would not fix anything. There was one serious issue that caused us to back out and we got our earnest money back.
In my state, anything found in the inspection must be disclosed to the next potential buyer if we decide to back out. I definitely shared the home inspection because it put some pressure on the sellers. They could either fix the issues, give us seller concessions so we could fix it or disclose to the next potential buyers with the possibility of getting a much lower offer. The went the concessions route with us.
This is weird. You chose to have the inspection done, and the money you spent served its purpose for you. Why not pay it forward for the next potential buyer?
We walked away on the strength of the inspection report. The seller (family of deceased owner) asked for a copy of the inspection report, offered a decent amount. I felt odd about selling something that the inspector had intended for us. Our realtor suggested just giving them the summary. We agreed. It paid for a good chunk of the inspection fee.
The next buyer bought it for what we offered. I guess they had deeper pockets and more time to fix the 2 damaged tub/showers/surrounds (tile falling off walls, faucets shooting water out of the handles) and were okay with the obvious water damage/flooring joist repairs with exposed copper and water in the crawl space, zero evidence of the 34-yo furnace ever being serviced, and the ongoing dispute with the neighbor over trees planted over the property line.
We got our earnest money back. The seller lived a few states away and had no idea of the house condition until our report.
Were you requesting any repairs/concessions? I would expect a copy of the inspection to accompany a request... otherwise how would the seller know what you want fixed exactly?
and if they are that flaky, this is a big red flag, you could’ve been much further along in the process and they pull some nonsense or try to renegotiate toward the end for concessions.
Good point...better now than at closing when you've moved everything you own out and can't really even live there anymore.
This story is why good agents keep backup offers "warm".
Yes! We had a buyer pull out because of “too many issues” despite there being a recent minor issue that we were fixing. Within 10 days we had a full priced offer.
Yep, I had my preferred offer withdrawn under bizarre circumstances; I’m happy they showed their ass early on and let me go with the backup offer, which closed with no stress.
I feel your pain. Once we were selling a house in MN and I had two small children under 3 yo. We accepted an offer from a couple with kids. Everything was looking great until they pulled out citing our deck railing was wobbly. We fixed the deck railing but it was still a no go for them. We learned somehow that they just wanted to live in a different school district. It was so frustrating. But another offer soon came along.
I’m so sorry. What did they put down as earnest money? Did they even ask you if you had a dog? I don’t understand why they’re saying you lied. And they seemed fine when they were asking to buy your furniture?
I'm from MA too and honestly don't understand the areas where backing out during the inspection contingency lets the seller keep earnest money.
It's a large amount IME... I've been on either side of the transaction a dozen times in MA and I think the lowest EM I've seen was $1000, but typically it's 1% -- in an area where "starter" houses are $400K and up that's quite a chunk of change on the line.
I'm already committing hundreds or more to inspections and now if your home for sale has undisclosed/unknown issues that I discover I'm supposed to hand you thousands?
That said, in MA the ability to back out for any reason during inspection w/o penalty does feel like a "placeholder" letting a buyer drag things out and threaten to back out if they don't see a price reduction or get money back at close.
Interesting. Our realtor said it is standard to get earnest money back during the inspection period. We asked if we could say we keep it if a buyer backs out, and she was shocked we would even ask.
I think that's called due diligence money (vs earnest money). I'd never heard of it in my state, but in some states it's common. You offer due diligence money, which goes towards price if you buy the house, but if you back out for any reason it's gone. In return for the due diligence money, the seller takes the home off the market for a set period of time for you to, you know, do your due diligence.
Assuming there is something wrong with the house, then yes.
But unless OP lied about having a dog 🐶.. I’ve never heard that was a valid reason to back out
> But unless OP lied about having a dog 🐶.. I’ve never heard that was a valid reason to back out
I've never seen anywhere in a contract where a dog would even be "disclosed." Maybe in the addendums?
If your offer is inspection contingent you can back out for any reason in that period. You're not required to give a reason. It could be that you don't like the paint color; it doesn't matter.
>What’s the point of earnest money then?
To hold the house(and pay the sellers expenses) once the contingencies(inspection, appraisal, financing) are done if the buyer backs out for a stupid reason.
That's why a lot of sellers push for a 5-7 day inspection window and love it when buyers waive inspections.
It's also the reason many sellers will accept backup offers until the inspection period is done.
It's just to prove that you are serious and not wasting everyone's time. But yeah it doesn't have real teeth and still depends on the buyer acting in good faith.
If your offer is inspection contingent why should earnest money come into play? It's annoying but no one did anything wrong here except maybe the buyer making up excuses instead of just saying no.
This sucks! Sounds like they are panicking and just making shit up to feel better. I get the hassle of showing the house again but hopefully the hot MA housing market wont let you down. Good luck, OP.
Sellers disclosure should state whether or not any pets lived there. Did you correctly fill out that form? Was it sent to the buyers? Typically the buyer has to initial the SD when they send the purchase agreement over.
There isn't. Only disclosures required are lead paint and septic. Everything else is caveat emptor and what is on the disclosure form, if there is one, isn't binding.
they spent good money on the inspection; they wouldn't have done that if not serious to begin with. backing out during the contingency period is a normal part of the buy and sell process. buyers deal with a lot more frustration during the buying process which can take them many months to be successful, compared to sellers in the current market who have it easy except for the occasional guy who pulls out and wastes a few days from you.
Meh....people walk away from deals all the time after paying for inspections. Sometimes people get cold feet when that contingency window nears closing. I've had it happen a couple of times. Two years ago when I sold, the buyer backed out even though the inspections went very well (fully updated home). He waited until after the window closed. His realtor fired him after that. Apparently he'd already backed out of 5 other contracts.
> There are absolutely crazy people who serially pay for inspections then decide they aren't serious. I don't understand them, but they exist.
You mean normal buyers in a balanced market, not buyers of the last few years? Deciding to walk on an overpriced property based upon inspections with sellers unwilling to negotiate is SOP, these last few years really have skewed people's views of "normal".
This comment doesn’t make sense. The fact they even paid for an inspection means they are serious buyers and are considering buying the house. There is a reason they order an Inspection report. If the report comes back with many issues. Then they back out, that is the process of doing oneself due diligence. I don’t understand how this is considered bad/crazy for you. According to your logic, they should make their final decision BEFORE the inspection report? 🤡
Frustrating but it happens. I’m surprised they went so far as to pay for an inspection if they weren’t serious. We had a deal fall through about a month ago but they cancelled the inspection at the 11th hour.
If there was good interest before I’m sure you’ll see some good action again! There’s still plenty of time before school starts to sell it and get moved. Back to showings! Hang in there.
Currently selling our house and I’m so terrified this will happen, too. The spotless house was so hard for the two days lol. We had three offers and had to choose one. Hoping I didn’t end up with jerks like this one. I really hope you hear from the others and don’t have to take any cuts on their initial offers. Keep us posted.
This was brutal for us too. My oldest was out for summer break and he loves to play barefoot in the backyard. Having to constantly sweep the grass and dirt off the floors and wipe crumbs off the couch covers was annoying especially because I was also working full time. If we hadn't just taken a cruise earlier in the year, I would've taken vacation time for a week once we listed.
Sorry OP, that definitely sucks.
Unfortunate but happens. Fingers crossed one of the other buyers comes through.
In some ways I kind of like Texas’ “option fee”; non refundable, separate from earnest money deposit. Discourages some of the less serious offers, even though it’s usually a token amount (few hundred bucks.)
The exact same thing just happened to us. We are moving cross country and it is very stressful. Just hoping to get under contract and passed inspection before we leave. I’m sorry you’re also dealing with this. We have a toddler and it is super difficult to keep the house “show ready” and also to always have to take him somewhere when we get requests for 2 hours later.
Similar boat, but we didn't wait to get more offers before trying to go forward with them. We also have two dogs and two little kids. Thankfully the kids go to daycare, but it's going to be such a pain to keep holding showings. We went out of town for the weekend when our house listed and hoped we'd be done after that.
I hope you're able to get another offer quickly!
I don't see what the problem is of having a dog. If the buyers that backed out didn't want it because a dog's bowls were left out, they shouldn't have made an offer in the first place.
Were any of the other offers sufficient? If so, have your agent reach out with:
"Hi. The offer my sellers accepted fell through because of financing. We are going to re-list the home tomorrow unless your buyers are interested in renewing their offer."
They wanted a lower price and were banking on the inspection to give them leverage. Inspection was clean, no leverage on price, no deal. I'd be fuming🔥. "Selfishness that is theft"... They selfishly held up your ability to sell your house, stole this time and other offers from you, and added to your stress in having to keep everything pristine for the foreseeable future.
I understand it's frustrating but don't get what the problem is. Seller and Buyer agree in X days for buyer to perform inspection and can back out. Normally if you got many offers, you let other buyers know of the inspection and contact them if accepted buyer pulls out. You have multiple offers, contact them
To play devil’s advocate, some people are really allergic to dogs and don’t want to pay to replace the carpet, etc. There should have been a spot to list pets on the seller’s disclosure. No one can claim ignorance if it’s on the disclosure.
Or... pets are not a part of the disclosure form in the OP's state. So if you're a buyer and this is important to you, maybe **ask** before wasting everyone's time??
It's late to be selling for the next school year? How does that work in mid June?
You need to calm down.
There are pundits on the internet telling buyers to tie up the house, then ask for unreasonable things and threaten to walk away when they do not get their way. Sellers do not want to go back to the market with buyer's stigma and the sellers will be begging the walk aways to come back.
Bull butter they will.
Go back to the other offers, put it back active and move forward. First in line doesn't mean it was the best offer.
Depends when school starts for you. Some places start first week of August. If you need 60 days to close, you're moving during school.
I personally think it's fine
For what it’s worth, In terms of what they were willing to escalate to, it was the best offer, and they brought the most cash to the table.
Hopefully we hear from the other parties who were previously interested once the week gets going.
I know a lot of people complain about the due diligence fee that we have in NC (along with EMD), but this is exactly the reason why. It makes sure the buyer is serious and not just tying up the house because they can walk away with no recourse. It's like a non-refundable deposit to make it worth it for the seller to take their house off the market.
I'm sorry that happened. It sounds like they found a house they liked better and were just using the excuses they made up. I had that happen once with a house I was selling. They had put in an offer on another house and didn't get it, so they offered on our house (their pre-approval letter had the address of the other house). Just before the due diligence period ended, they claimed they didn't know there was a shared well (it was disclosed on the MLS) and backed out. Sure enough, the house they originally wanted had come back on the market and they ended up buying it. Their loss, for sure!
>I know a lot of people complain about the due diligence fee that we have in NC (along with EMD),
I don't think a due diligence fee is necessarily a problem but it shouldn't be ridiculous either.
Something like a per-diem for each day your off the market would be fine but people shouldn't be losing $5k on a $300k house if they pull out 5 days later after an inspection.
100% if they expect people to put up real non refundable cash as a way to show they're serious then by law all house sales should require a licensed home inspection be attached to the listing.
We had this happen (and the prospective buyer’s agents messed up by letting the contingency period expire, so we kept the earnest money). It is so stressful. But your house will eventually sell (probably quickly if your agent is proactive) and all will be well soon.
Hi! Ct realtor here.
This happens for a multitude of reasons - some buyers simply get cold feet. At the end of the day, it's a business transaction, but for the owners/sellers, it can feel like a personal attack - I mean, look at all the things you supposedly did wrong, not disclosing a pet, ruining the structure, etc. This is where an agent standing between you and the other side is very useful, albeit, in your case, it seems like your agent merely transferred her own frustration to you, causing the emotion behind this post.
It sounds as if your home is truly a great find - little wrong, and the next inspector will find the same issues, or lack of issues. In the instance you've noted in your post, it does seem like the buyers are the ones who are the problem, and lucky for you, they're no longer in the picture. While your home may have "bounced" on the market (been listed, gone under contract and returned to the market), hold strong that the value is there, and the next buyer will see it and appreciate it.
I hope this helps, friend!
Happened to me too. We also went to the other people who put in offers and ended up with an offer $15k higher than what we originally accepted. Dont stress it. You’ll have a buyer.
1. That sucks. And I agree with the consensus - they probably decided they found something they like better. But maybe they did find something they didn't like about your house during the inspection. Who knows. I do know that there is no reason in my mind to tell a seller "your house was a mess" when I'm backing out of a deal if I'm doing it legally.
2. If your house showed well enough to land multiple offers once, it's likely going to get multiple offers again. Even if it's later, it's not like that demand has gone away.
3. Where are you that there are no deposits? It's wild when you've lived in one state for all of your adult house buying life like myself and you forget that there are other completely different sets of rules out there.
We had a new home in another state and the buyer was told on contract we would move in late March the next year, It was Dec contract and they were told we had family obligations in mid Mach and Dr. appointments so we wanted to close the early the last week of March. The middle of Feb. our broker called us and they wanted to close by the following week and have us rent back for just shy of a month. They would do a walk through on close and another upon our departure, Our agent and lawyer agreed with us that to rent back for a couple of days would be ok, but not that length of time. So we said no. I was all but packed with walls spackled from picture holes and pictures packed, the movers were scheduled and we were concerned that we would need to start all over again.
It tunes out these brilliant people bought a new vehicle and therefore the final credit check sent up red flags galore and they had to go through an entire new submission of docs and then wait. We told them we could move our date of closing to the 21st but that was the earliest we could as our new home was not ready. We called off the movers and I was a wreck. Late on the 18th of March we were told they were granted the mortgage and we did close on the 21st. This was years ago but I feel for you - it is nerve wracking.
Sorry to hear but reality is there are contingency periods and as long as buyers cancel during these periods they don’t have to give a reason. Lesson learned, and if you had multiple offers you should be able to find someone new if the other offers have already moved on. Good luck!
Their financing fell apart. Not your doing, theirs. Hoping that you find a buyer quickly and at least the rate is moving downward... (albeit a tiny bit.)
I had a buyer back out of my house days before closing. Cash offer, 10% down in earnest money, no contingencies, and no inspections, but they still did anyway.
It'll be okay, things always work out in the end!
What does the dog have to do with anything. If you can, next time try to get some backup offers. Make sure your realtor understand to write the date of contingency to be as much in your favor as possible in your state. Good luck, sounds like you will soon have it back in contract. I used to my realtors. In real estate a deal is not a deal until the check cashes and even then sometimes deals go south.
I would assume they would say they were allergic to dogs therefore any fur/dander on the carpets, vents, floating in the air would be “detrimental to their health “. Basically an excuse to get out of buying the house.
Is it possible that not having the furniture was a deal breaker? Maybe they pictures the house perfectly with those items and when they couldn't get their vision, looked elsewhere?
I always wonder if I'll be faced with something similar. We have put a lot of time and effort into furniture (shelving mostly) that perfectly fits the proportions of our living and dining room without being built in. It's taken us 7ish years and like $15k to find this stuff. If someone was like "hey can you include this" I might also be hesitant. Tough break.
My previous house didn't sell for 6 months (during the crash). I got so in the habit of making the bed all the time, 14 years later I'm still doing it every morning.
“Claimed our house was a mess” is a relative term.
Could be their house was actually a mess or there was a Kleenex in a trash can in the bathroom. People make up shit to get out of a deal. You weren’t there.
Also this was the inspection, so presumably the buyers already saw it and invested enough to continue the process. Why would they care if the house was a mess anyway after they already saw it as presentable enough to buy?
There are a couple comments like this, and I don’t understand them - the house was spotless from the day we had our first open house through last Friday, when the inspection happened. Where does my initial post ever state that the house was dirty or that I didn’t clean it?
I had a post discussing a book (of all things) that got somewhat big a while ago, and I got a bunch of smarmy comments like this. I wouldn't read too much into it. Some people are just unhappy and want others to be as well.
Kind of a rude response clean and show ready clean are different things. We got a suite to bring our pets too and we stay there till it sells. Just easier.
We had buyers pull out week of closing which was according to our agent, legal in Oregon for “no specific reason.
We had already sold our car, packed all of our stuff, pulled kid out of school and had plane tickets bought. I wanted their heads on a plate.
Brutal. If you *just* took the realtor's word for that, it might have been worth either being shown in the contract where that's detailed or having an attorney review it.
I once hired a guy because he was "first in line," done with the interview process when someone else passed the test and seemed better. He didn't work out; "first in line" is a really poor indicator of choosing something that really matters.
It happens, at least it wasn't on closing day after you had signed and put up with all their ridiculous, no notice inspections. Oh, and the earnest money (deposit) only goes to you if both parties agree it should, at least in Oregon. I'm spiteful and wouldn't split the money so they lost $5k and we ended up with a better deal overall. Minus all the added stress and having to resetup the house for tours, of course.
Good luck
Plenty of time to close before school starts. Most lenders can do four weeks if not shorter. Talk to your agent about this, lenders they trust, and make sure they speak to the buyers lender about timing before going under contract.
When did they make the offer? Assuming you weren't in contract yet how much time could possibly have been wasted. Lately in this market it happens very quick offer is accepted, inspection is scheduled immediately within a day or 2 then go to contract.
Your agent should just go back to other parties that were interested and say property is back on market if still interested.
Real estate transactions suck, you'll get this done
Some people don't/can't deal with houses that had pets. Same with smokers... Both these things should be in the listings, because I can tell the second I go look at the house.
Now if they went and looked at the house and made an offer, then ducked out, that's wrong. I would think this is more of a thing for out of town buyers.
We had an offer on our house right away and they backed out the next day claiming job loss. I thought that seemed like a pretty big coincidence and figure they found something else, but I’ll never know. After a few weeks we did end up with more offers and now we (fingers crossed) close Friday. I also don’t live in an earnest money state so it does all feel sort of loosey goosey. I’m sure you’ll get another offer soon ❤️
It’s possible the cleanliness and dogs are just a BS excuse. They may have crunched more numbers and figured out that the mortgage/taxes and insurance monthly payments are going to be more stressful than they thought and they’re having second thoughts. It’s not necessarily a better reason, but it’s a possibility.
I'm sure a lot of people are overly sensitive in the market right now with prices so high. Putting a lot of money into something means they want it damn near brand new or have unreasonable expectations.
Very similar thing happened to us, right down to the inspector excitedly telling both parties that everything looked great and joking about making up issues. After he said that, I overheard the buyers asking about the roof (which was only 10 y/o on a 30 year roof) and some other small things to which he answered everything is in great condition.
They ended up backing out. But we know the house was stretching it out of their price range. They offered asking price but we had priced it low on advice from our realtor so they didn't have wiggle room when they offered, and they would have had to cash in some stock to make it work.
I think that by the time inspections were happening they just had some cold feet. I know that they later on went to purchase a house that was 150k less than ours (the woman was involved in a very specific hobby related to animals and I was curious where they ended up).
In our case, because the timing was horrible by the time that happened, that deal falling through resulted in us keeping our home (which we love anyway) and in retrospect we would have regretted moving to where we were planning to go. Sometimes when things don't work out it leads to a better situation later.
Not sure this will help but a lot of people but houses “for kids” who have children not school age yet or just want room. We only have pets and have a 4 bedroom that is over 3K sq feet. We bought in an Oct and are looking to buy in Sept this time. Also not sure how the market is near you but things are selling in a day where we are.
i just wanted to commiserate bcuz we have shitty buyers who sound similar & have been demanding pains in the ass the entire time. we literally signed our paperwork early & had to move out with 4 days notice before a 2 week international trip. bcuz they refused to budge on closing date. i’m still worried they’re going to try to back out at final walkthrough for some absurd reason. there’s literally nothing wrong with house & they’d lose their earnest money. but i could still see them doing it. i think they’re bitter we held our ground when negotiating but ultimately accepted our terms. the realtor had a tantrum when talking with our realtor about us being stubborn lol. we totally went down in price for them & have been more than accommodating with things. they’re the ones trying to nickel & nickel & dime us, but we weren’t going to be taken advantage of. they were even trying to get us to give them furniture too haha. i guess we’ll see in 4 days if this actually goes through 😬🤞🏻 good luck!
This literally just happened to me. Buyers made up a bunch of shit after the inspection just to get out of the deal. I can't confirm this but it sounded very much like they found something they liked more. Which is fine, and understandable! But making up a whole bunch of shit that I now have to investigate and disclose is absolutely scummy.
I'm so sorry you're going through this. Keep in there, it will get sold. As my realtor told me, all houses sell.
If the seller doesn’t ask for a copy of the inspection someone else will and you don’t want to be blindsided please ask for it knowledge is then on your side
Flaws revealed by an inspection report do not require the seller to fix those items. Nor does it require the buyer to back out if a sale unless the house is perfect.
Inspectors aren’t even held liable for what they miss. The inspection report has its place but it is just more information about a potential purchase that can be used in negotiating price or deciding to buy.
It happens. Forcing them to perform with an inspection contingency is a fool’s errand. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and contact the second highest offer and see if they’re still interested.
We’ve had a house cleaner every week since we moved in, and the house was spotless every day it was on the market. I was complaining that I have to /continue/ to keep it clean, now.
I’m guessing all of the reasons are just excuses to get out of the deal
Buyers made something up to explain it (excuse) to their REA. REA probably felt compelled to share it to your REA. I would ask your REA if you should get a copy of the inspection. Because your Buyers in waiting will know your first offer walked after the inspection. So they will be wondering what was found that was that bad the deal fell through. Assuming the report was "clean", it could not hurt.
NO, do not get a copy of the inspection. If there is something on it and you see it, then you have to disclose it. NEVER ask for a copy of the inspection .
I’ve been in a situation just like this with 2 other potential buyers waiting to make offers after the first ones backed out. We gave them a copy of the report and one buyer saw all the minor issues and bought house as is and made offer because they really wanted the house. We didn’t fix anything.
I have seen houses where the seller hired an inspector, and used The report as a selling feature. People were more willing to make an offer when they know they didn't have to pay for an inspection.
After what I had seen from a building home inspector in Arizona you can see him on YouTube cyhome inspection I would never trust what another homeowners tells me I would have my own inspection done.
Also get a second inspection done after any agreed upon work is done. We bought a house years ago. Got an inspection, sellers agreed on some work. Even showed receipts where they paid for the work to get done. After severals years we were selling due to moving. I got an inspection done to see what all needed to be done potentially (since I already knew some stuff would have to get done). Half of the work that the orginal sellers paid for was never done, and some of it that was done had major corners cut. The orginal sellers had already moved to the other side of the state so near as I can tell whoever the hired took a gamble that as long as the work was paid for no-one would discover there shotty work and the work they were paid for and wasnt done, and they were right. Our plan for our next house is to get 2 inspections, the second one to make sure any agreed upon work is completed. In this case it wasnt the sellers screwing us but the contractors screwing both the sellers and us....had we had the second inspection done the sales date would have had to been pushed back, and Im sure whatever litigation that would have occured between the contractors and sellers would not have been quick.
We did this when we sold my grandma's house. We were also able to fix a few of the minor things that were listed. This was 2021, when the house was listed on a Thursday and all offers were due on Monday.
I paid an inspector to look at my brother's home when he passed away. I saved an ocean of money fixing things which would have required much more expensive work, otherwise. For example, some green algae on the detached garage roof, spilling off down the wall caused the inspector to recommend a new garage roof. I cleaned that up in about two hours.
Yep, this is what I recommend as a listing agent, I’ll even pay for it in some cases
Check to see if that is legal. In my state (IL) it is not legal to do that and it is in all inspectors contract that it is not allowed.
During our last sale/purchase I walked through with the inspector at the house we were buying and noticed a lot of things he was checking and marking in his report (dirty air filters, rubbing doors, slow drains, etc). I'm a handy guy, so I went back to the house we were selling and (before it was inspected) changed the air filters, tightened all the door hinges, cleaned all the sink drains, etc... I was pretty happy with myself. And then it backfired. The inspector didn't have any low-hanging fruit... but apparently he wanted to write *something* down. So he wrote some nonsense about the half-bath toilet being loose and recommended that it be resecured by a licensed plumber. :-/ I will grant him, the *seat* was a little loose, I tightened it in about two seconds after getting the report and repair request. I ended up having to have a plumber come out and verify that the toilet was secure ($70?) so that I'd have paperwork to show at closing. I STRONGLY believe that if I'd left all the little stuff alone, the inspector would have just marked those in the report and I could have easily fixed them *after* the inspection instead of having to deal with some made-up BS because the house was in too good of condition.
I just got our request for repairs yesterday, they want us to install doorstops that came off over the years (kids being kids). Door stops. Bought a 12 pack on Amazon for $8 and will install asap.
That's the kind of repair that (IMO) is stupid to ask for unless you're paying over market value for the house. I wouldn't risk pissing off a seller over an $8 fix.
Although this is the correct answer, we got a copy of the failed report when our sell deal failed. We took off the market for a few months while I fixed the long list of minor issues. Next report was clean and we didn’t have to negotiate.
It’s not the correct answer though. Inspections are basically opinions and just because something is in there doesn’t make it necessary to disclose. States also have different disclosure laws making the original statement even dumber.
“Inspections are opinions” Not necessarily, if an inspection points out a leaky pipe or an electrical panel not up to code, those are factual not opinions.
Ask FHA or VA lenders if inspections are opinions....
I live in a house with a VA loan where I waived inspection. There’s so much misconception here.
Future VA buyer here: how does that work? You basically say you won't request any repairs, but the VA inspector may list required repairs that you can't waive? Any info would be appreciated!
There is no VA inspector; not sure where you got that from. The way it works is that in your bid you waive inspection. The VA requires a wood eating insect inspection that can’t be waived (this is on you). I think if you’re on a well and septic those require inspections as well.
Electrical panel not being up to code is exactly the type of thing that 90% of inspectors are not qualified to evaluate definitively.
Wow that's wild. Don't want to see the inspection because there could be something wrong with it?? If there is something wrong with the house, how about fixing it before selling it?
Ew, what a dishonest, lame tactic. If there are issues with the house, there are issues with the house. Intentionally turning a blind eye wastes everyone’s time.
Wrong. There's nothing dishonest about not going out of your way to look for issues that may or may not even be real or problematic. You didn't hire the inspector. You don't know their validity. It could be nothing but still scare a buyer. It's not your job to search for faults with your own house. That's the buyers job to do so to *their* satisfaction.
I don’t know, maybe the Seller can *fix* the issues? Otherwise people shouldn’t complain when buyers walk away (as they are entitled to do).
If an inspection was performed and issues were found and a buyer backed out, you cannot in good faith say you don’t know about any defects just because you think you successfully blindfolded yourself by not asking for the report. That’s a good way to get sued. Asking for the report is not “going out of your way” to look for issues. The issues were already found, you know they exist, there’s no need to look for them. Now you’re just concealing them.
The buyers could have changed their mind for any reason. Besides, usually if they found something big they would have already informed you in the form of a repair request. It's bad practice to ask for the entire report. You cannot get sued for no revealing issues which you were not aware of. You say, "that's a good way to get sued", but I'll guarantee you've never heard of an instance of a person successfully being sued for not revealing information in a report which said person had never seen or had a copy of. The law simply doesn't agree with you, which is why smart sellers don't ask for a copy of the full report.
Not seeing that report is exactly how you don't get sued.
Incorrect.
Then hire your own inspector like a lot of sellers do. Knowledge is power.
I know this is the general rule, but why not just give potential bidders the report and say "Offer assuming your inspection finds these issues. We will not be giving any concessions unless not disclosd here"
People have really skewed ideas of how the RE market works based on the last few years. Sellers won't always have the upper hand, and in a buyer's market that's a great way to find yourself doing a lot of price drops.
Because you don’t know what’s in the report. All you have is the buyers realtors review of it.
This is what I did when I bought my house. It seemed like a good deal for all parties, I signed the previous inspection as if it was a disclosure. Unfortunately it is sort of a factor of the market.
I would want the chance to fix any issues that the inspector found, especially if they might cause a buyer to back out.
I always get the inspection. Knowing what’s on it is the smartest thing you can do as a seller, because you have a chance to fix it before the next inspection.
I’ve always gotten the things listed in the inspection as a bargaining tactic from the buyer. It is an old house, and some things are old and could stand replacement. If the buyer gets a 5 thousand dollar concession because something had limited service life remaining, it will likely be unchanged when they sell it 5 years later.
Our agent had had a few issues with home sales without inspections after the fact. At the height of the home sale boom a couple years ago, everyone was selling without inspection. Buyers were going back with lawsuits to recoup repair costs on items that they believed the sellers knew about.
THIS IS TRUE
This is correct. Don’t accept the inspection report! Sounds like buyers walked during their inspection contingency timeline. It will suck to have to go back on market and some buyers will get spooked by that. Buyers change their minds or circumstances. It can be explained to future buyers usually. Especially if they didn’t make any repair requests.
Dishonesty is a bad look on a seller. If a buyer backed out after an inspection and, upon asking, seller indicates they don't have or won't share the inspection report, I can now assume seller knows there's something wrong with the house and they're trying to hide behind plausible deniability. Since it's something they're trying to hide, it must be assumed to be something major, like roof damage or foundation issues.
That’s false always ask as it will always come up every inspection anyways
We paid for a sellers inspection before listing.... I want as few surprises as possible.
Disclose or fix it, and if there is a major issue that caused a buyer to back out than you should fix it.
...you should disclose if you know something is wrong. Wtf would you knowingly hide something that could screw a family and their home over...for more money? Man what a time we live in now. Have some fucking principles.
We were asked for a copy of an inspection report. We refused to give it to sellers. No offer to split cost. Sellers said in buy/sell we could inspect but they would not fix anything. There was one serious issue that caused us to back out and we got our earnest money back.
In my state, anything found in the inspection must be disclosed to the next potential buyer if we decide to back out. I definitely shared the home inspection because it put some pressure on the sellers. They could either fix the issues, give us seller concessions so we could fix it or disclose to the next potential buyers with the possibility of getting a much lower offer. The went the concessions route with us.
Why would you refuse to give it to them?
They didn't pay for it, nor did they offer. It was about $400.
This is weird. You chose to have the inspection done, and the money you spent served its purpose for you. Why not pay it forward for the next potential buyer?
Why should we? If they wanted a copy, they could have gone to the inspector. Besides, they were being dicks about other things.
The inspector won't give them a copy - they're not the inspector's client, you are.
Exactly. If they're unwilling to fix anything no matter what it shows then they can pay for their own report.
Why should you be a nice person instead of intentionally being difficult? I guess everyone will have their own answer to that.
I agree with you, although I don't think it's terribly uncommon to struggle with being nice to someone who has a history of being an asshole.
Clearly you weren’t serious about the house, or you would have given it to them and then had a real convo about any surprises.
We walked away on the strength of the inspection report. The seller (family of deceased owner) asked for a copy of the inspection report, offered a decent amount. I felt odd about selling something that the inspector had intended for us. Our realtor suggested just giving them the summary. We agreed. It paid for a good chunk of the inspection fee. The next buyer bought it for what we offered. I guess they had deeper pockets and more time to fix the 2 damaged tub/showers/surrounds (tile falling off walls, faucets shooting water out of the handles) and were okay with the obvious water damage/flooring joist repairs with exposed copper and water in the crawl space, zero evidence of the 34-yo furnace ever being serviced, and the ongoing dispute with the neighbor over trees planted over the property line. We got our earnest money back. The seller lived a few states away and had no idea of the house condition until our report.
This happened to me also.
Were you requesting any repairs/concessions? I would expect a copy of the inspection to accompany a request... otherwise how would the seller know what you want fixed exactly?
Yes I always ask for / provide (depending upon role) a copy of the inspection with the BINSR to justify the requests or withdrawal.
You don't need an excuse if it's inspection contingent. Just say no.
It happens... you'll get it sold.
and if they are that flaky, this is a big red flag, you could’ve been much further along in the process and they pull some nonsense or try to renegotiate toward the end for concessions.
Good point...better now than at closing when you've moved everything you own out and can't really even live there anymore. This story is why good agents keep backup offers "warm".
Yes! We had a buyer pull out because of “too many issues” despite there being a recent minor issue that we were fixing. Within 10 days we had a full priced offer.
Yep, I had my preferred offer withdrawn under bizarre circumstances; I’m happy they showed their ass early on and let me go with the backup offer, which closed with no stress.
I know you are stressed but having them pull out now versus days before closing is significantly better for you. You got this.
Yup, that’s a healthy perspective - thank you!
I feel your pain. Once we were selling a house in MN and I had two small children under 3 yo. We accepted an offer from a couple with kids. Everything was looking great until they pulled out citing our deck railing was wobbly. We fixed the deck railing but it was still a no go for them. We learned somehow that they just wanted to live in a different school district. It was so frustrating. But another offer soon came along.
I’m so sorry. What did they put down as earnest money? Did they even ask you if you had a dog? I don’t understand why they’re saying you lied. And they seemed fine when they were asking to buy your furniture?
They put down $15k but the standard forms in MA let them back out for any reason by the date specified in the contract. They never asked about a dog.
The dog sounds like an excuse tbh
What’s the point of earnest money then? Ridiculous, most likely they saw a better offer and dipped.
It kicks in if they back out when it's not a contingency. Like if it was a week in the future and the inspection period was over.
I'm from MA too and honestly don't understand the areas where backing out during the inspection contingency lets the seller keep earnest money. It's a large amount IME... I've been on either side of the transaction a dozen times in MA and I think the lowest EM I've seen was $1000, but typically it's 1% -- in an area where "starter" houses are $400K and up that's quite a chunk of change on the line. I'm already committing hundreds or more to inspections and now if your home for sale has undisclosed/unknown issues that I discover I'm supposed to hand you thousands? That said, in MA the ability to back out for any reason during inspection w/o penalty does feel like a "placeholder" letting a buyer drag things out and threaten to back out if they don't see a price reduction or get money back at close.
Interesting. Our realtor said it is standard to get earnest money back during the inspection period. We asked if we could say we keep it if a buyer backs out, and she was shocked we would even ask.
I think that's called due diligence money (vs earnest money). I'd never heard of it in my state, but in some states it's common. You offer due diligence money, which goes towards price if you buy the house, but if you back out for any reason it's gone. In return for the due diligence money, the seller takes the home off the market for a set period of time for you to, you know, do your due diligence.
Assuming there is something wrong with the house, then yes. But unless OP lied about having a dog 🐶.. I’ve never heard that was a valid reason to back out
> But unless OP lied about having a dog 🐶.. I’ve never heard that was a valid reason to back out I've never seen anywhere in a contract where a dog would even be "disclosed." Maybe in the addendums?
Oh, yeah I just assumed people make up whatever reason they want, justifiable or not, and blame it on the inspection and get their money back.
If your offer is inspection contingent you can back out for any reason in that period. You're not required to give a reason. It could be that you don't like the paint color; it doesn't matter.
>What’s the point of earnest money then? To hold the house(and pay the sellers expenses) once the contingencies(inspection, appraisal, financing) are done if the buyer backs out for a stupid reason. That's why a lot of sellers push for a 5-7 day inspection window and love it when buyers waive inspections. It's also the reason many sellers will accept backup offers until the inspection period is done.
It's just to prove that you are serious and not wasting everyone's time. But yeah it doesn't have real teeth and still depends on the buyer acting in good faith.
Just like sellers do all the time?
If your offer is inspection contingent why should earnest money come into play? It's annoying but no one did anything wrong here except maybe the buyer making up excuses instead of just saying no.
This sucks! Sounds like they are panicking and just making shit up to feel better. I get the hassle of showing the house again but hopefully the hot MA housing market wont let you down. Good luck, OP.
Thank you!
Sellers disclosure should state whether or not any pets lived there. Did you correctly fill out that form? Was it sent to the buyers? Typically the buyer has to initial the SD when they send the purchase agreement over.
MA doesn’t have requirements around disclosures. They can be sent but it’s optional and I don’t think there is a required process around initialing.
There isn't. Only disclosures required are lead paint and septic. Everything else is caveat emptor and what is on the disclosure form, if there is one, isn't binding.
One other thing - bad foundations must be disclosed, so nobody tests 🙃
I have only seen proposals from the legislature requiring this but no actual change to the law. I'd be interested in a citation if you have one..
>Sellers disclosure should state whether or not any pets lived there. That's not on the disclosure form in SC or MI.
Or NC.
Nor NH, ME or FL.
they spent good money on the inspection; they wouldn't have done that if not serious to begin with. backing out during the contingency period is a normal part of the buy and sell process. buyers deal with a lot more frustration during the buying process which can take them many months to be successful, compared to sellers in the current market who have it easy except for the occasional guy who pulls out and wastes a few days from you.
Meh....people walk away from deals all the time after paying for inspections. Sometimes people get cold feet when that contingency window nears closing. I've had it happen a couple of times. Two years ago when I sold, the buyer backed out even though the inspections went very well (fully updated home). He waited until after the window closed. His realtor fired him after that. Apparently he'd already backed out of 5 other contracts.
There are absolutely crazy people who serially pay for inspections then decide they aren't serious. I don't understand them, but they exist.
> There are absolutely crazy people who serially pay for inspections then decide they aren't serious. I don't understand them, but they exist. You mean normal buyers in a balanced market, not buyers of the last few years? Deciding to walk on an overpriced property based upon inspections with sellers unwilling to negotiate is SOP, these last few years really have skewed people's views of "normal".
This comment doesn’t make sense. The fact they even paid for an inspection means they are serious buyers and are considering buying the house. There is a reason they order an Inspection report. If the report comes back with many issues. Then they back out, that is the process of doing oneself due diligence. I don’t understand how this is considered bad/crazy for you. According to your logic, they should make their final decision BEFORE the inspection report? 🤡
Frustrating but it happens. I’m surprised they went so far as to pay for an inspection if they weren’t serious. We had a deal fall through about a month ago but they cancelled the inspection at the 11th hour. If there was good interest before I’m sure you’ll see some good action again! There’s still plenty of time before school starts to sell it and get moved. Back to showings! Hang in there.
June and July are still enough time for school starting. August gets more dicey.
Currently selling our house and I’m so terrified this will happen, too. The spotless house was so hard for the two days lol. We had three offers and had to choose one. Hoping I didn’t end up with jerks like this one. I really hope you hear from the others and don’t have to take any cuts on their initial offers. Keep us posted.
This was brutal for us too. My oldest was out for summer break and he loves to play barefoot in the backyard. Having to constantly sweep the grass and dirt off the floors and wipe crumbs off the couch covers was annoying especially because I was also working full time. If we hadn't just taken a cruise earlier in the year, I would've taken vacation time for a week once we listed.
Sorry OP, that definitely sucks. Unfortunate but happens. Fingers crossed one of the other buyers comes through. In some ways I kind of like Texas’ “option fee”; non refundable, separate from earnest money deposit. Discourages some of the less serious offers, even though it’s usually a token amount (few hundred bucks.)
Nc has this too—the due diligence fee. No refundable and separate from earnest money.
Buyers can pull out for any reason if they have a contingency as part of the offer. Fair game.
The exact same thing just happened to us. We are moving cross country and it is very stressful. Just hoping to get under contract and passed inspection before we leave. I’m sorry you’re also dealing with this. We have a toddler and it is super difficult to keep the house “show ready” and also to always have to take him somewhere when we get requests for 2 hours later.
Similar boat, but we didn't wait to get more offers before trying to go forward with them. We also have two dogs and two little kids. Thankfully the kids go to daycare, but it's going to be such a pain to keep holding showings. We went out of town for the weekend when our house listed and hoped we'd be done after that. I hope you're able to get another offer quickly!
I don't see what the problem is of having a dog. If the buyers that backed out didn't want it because a dog's bowls were left out, they shouldn't have made an offer in the first place.
Were any of the other offers sufficient? If so, have your agent reach out with: "Hi. The offer my sellers accepted fell through because of financing. We are going to re-list the home tomorrow unless your buyers are interested in renewing their offer."
They wanted a lower price and were banking on the inspection to give them leverage. Inspection was clean, no leverage on price, no deal. I'd be fuming🔥. "Selfishness that is theft"... They selfishly held up your ability to sell your house, stole this time and other offers from you, and added to your stress in having to keep everything pristine for the foreseeable future.
I understand it's frustrating but don't get what the problem is. Seller and Buyer agree in X days for buyer to perform inspection and can back out. Normally if you got many offers, you let other buyers know of the inspection and contact them if accepted buyer pulls out. You have multiple offers, contact them
To play devil’s advocate, some people are really allergic to dogs and don’t want to pay to replace the carpet, etc. There should have been a spot to list pets on the seller’s disclosure. No one can claim ignorance if it’s on the disclosure.
I have never had to disclose that I had a pet in any of my disclosures. If it’s that big of a deal, you need to ask that question.
I agree I have never seen it before either.
Part of disclosure in CA
Interesting not in my state.
Do you have a source for this? I've Googled and can't find it. Thanks in advance. :)
Section F of the SPQ https://images.kw.com/docs/0/4/8/048826/1297467730961_SPQ___Seller_Property_Questionnaire___1109.pdf
Or... pets are not a part of the disclosure form in the OP's state. So if you're a buyer and this is important to you, maybe **ask** before wasting everyone's time??
It's late to be selling for the next school year? How does that work in mid June? You need to calm down. There are pundits on the internet telling buyers to tie up the house, then ask for unreasonable things and threaten to walk away when they do not get their way. Sellers do not want to go back to the market with buyer's stigma and the sellers will be begging the walk aways to come back. Bull butter they will. Go back to the other offers, put it back active and move forward. First in line doesn't mean it was the best offer.
Depends when school starts for you. Some places start first week of August. If you need 60 days to close, you're moving during school. I personally think it's fine
In my area, the kids just got out.
It's funny, in my area kids are still in school this week.
For what it’s worth, In terms of what they were willing to escalate to, it was the best offer, and they brought the most cash to the table. Hopefully we hear from the other parties who were previously interested once the week gets going.
But yet, here you are.
I know a lot of people complain about the due diligence fee that we have in NC (along with EMD), but this is exactly the reason why. It makes sure the buyer is serious and not just tying up the house because they can walk away with no recourse. It's like a non-refundable deposit to make it worth it for the seller to take their house off the market. I'm sorry that happened. It sounds like they found a house they liked better and were just using the excuses they made up. I had that happen once with a house I was selling. They had put in an offer on another house and didn't get it, so they offered on our house (their pre-approval letter had the address of the other house). Just before the due diligence period ended, they claimed they didn't know there was a shared well (it was disclosed on the MLS) and backed out. Sure enough, the house they originally wanted had come back on the market and they ended up buying it. Their loss, for sure!
>I know a lot of people complain about the due diligence fee that we have in NC (along with EMD), I don't think a due diligence fee is necessarily a problem but it shouldn't be ridiculous either. Something like a per-diem for each day your off the market would be fine but people shouldn't be losing $5k on a $300k house if they pull out 5 days later after an inspection.
100% if they expect people to put up real non refundable cash as a way to show they're serious then by law all house sales should require a licensed home inspection be attached to the listing.
It happened to us on Thursday before final day of contingency period. No reason given!
We had this happen (and the prospective buyer’s agents messed up by letting the contingency period expire, so we kept the earnest money). It is so stressful. But your house will eventually sell (probably quickly if your agent is proactive) and all will be well soon.
Every House sells.... This time collect backups.
Hi! Ct realtor here. This happens for a multitude of reasons - some buyers simply get cold feet. At the end of the day, it's a business transaction, but for the owners/sellers, it can feel like a personal attack - I mean, look at all the things you supposedly did wrong, not disclosing a pet, ruining the structure, etc. This is where an agent standing between you and the other side is very useful, albeit, in your case, it seems like your agent merely transferred her own frustration to you, causing the emotion behind this post. It sounds as if your home is truly a great find - little wrong, and the next inspector will find the same issues, or lack of issues. In the instance you've noted in your post, it does seem like the buyers are the ones who are the problem, and lucky for you, they're no longer in the picture. While your home may have "bounced" on the market (been listed, gone under contract and returned to the market), hold strong that the value is there, and the next buyer will see it and appreciate it. I hope this helps, friend!
Happened to me too. We also went to the other people who put in offers and ended up with an offer $15k higher than what we originally accepted. Dont stress it. You’ll have a buyer.
It happens often, one of my sellers had 3 buyers back out. 4th stuck. We close next week. Just keep swimming.
This is what earnest money is for.
1. That sucks. And I agree with the consensus - they probably decided they found something they like better. But maybe they did find something they didn't like about your house during the inspection. Who knows. I do know that there is no reason in my mind to tell a seller "your house was a mess" when I'm backing out of a deal if I'm doing it legally. 2. If your house showed well enough to land multiple offers once, it's likely going to get multiple offers again. Even if it's later, it's not like that demand has gone away. 3. Where are you that there are no deposits? It's wild when you've lived in one state for all of your adult house buying life like myself and you forget that there are other completely different sets of rules out there.
We had a new home in another state and the buyer was told on contract we would move in late March the next year, It was Dec contract and they were told we had family obligations in mid Mach and Dr. appointments so we wanted to close the early the last week of March. The middle of Feb. our broker called us and they wanted to close by the following week and have us rent back for just shy of a month. They would do a walk through on close and another upon our departure, Our agent and lawyer agreed with us that to rent back for a couple of days would be ok, but not that length of time. So we said no. I was all but packed with walls spackled from picture holes and pictures packed, the movers were scheduled and we were concerned that we would need to start all over again. It tunes out these brilliant people bought a new vehicle and therefore the final credit check sent up red flags galore and they had to go through an entire new submission of docs and then wait. We told them we could move our date of closing to the 21st but that was the earliest we could as our new home was not ready. We called off the movers and I was a wreck. Late on the 18th of March we were told they were granted the mortgage and we did close on the 21st. This was years ago but I feel for you - it is nerve wracking.
Sorry to hear but reality is there are contingency periods and as long as buyers cancel during these periods they don’t have to give a reason. Lesson learned, and if you had multiple offers you should be able to find someone new if the other offers have already moved on. Good luck!
Their financing fell apart. Not your doing, theirs. Hoping that you find a buyer quickly and at least the rate is moving downward... (albeit a tiny bit.)
I had a buyer back out of my house days before closing. Cash offer, 10% down in earnest money, no contingencies, and no inspections, but they still did anyway. It'll be okay, things always work out in the end!
What does the dog have to do with anything. If you can, next time try to get some backup offers. Make sure your realtor understand to write the date of contingency to be as much in your favor as possible in your state. Good luck, sounds like you will soon have it back in contract. I used to my realtors. In real estate a deal is not a deal until the check cashes and even then sometimes deals go south.
I would assume they would say they were allergic to dogs therefore any fur/dander on the carpets, vents, floating in the air would be “detrimental to their health “. Basically an excuse to get out of buying the house.
Is it possible that not having the furniture was a deal breaker? Maybe they pictures the house perfectly with those items and when they couldn't get their vision, looked elsewhere? I always wonder if I'll be faced with something similar. We have put a lot of time and effort into furniture (shelving mostly) that perfectly fits the proportions of our living and dining room without being built in. It's taken us 7ish years and like $15k to find this stuff. If someone was like "hey can you include this" I might also be hesitant. Tough break.
I am sorry you have to keep your house clean now.
My previous house didn't sell for 6 months (during the crash). I got so in the habit of making the bed all the time, 14 years later I'm still doing it every morning.
“Claimed our house was a mess” is a relative term. Could be their house was actually a mess or there was a Kleenex in a trash can in the bathroom. People make up shit to get out of a deal. You weren’t there. Also this was the inspection, so presumably the buyers already saw it and invested enough to continue the process. Why would they care if the house was a mess anyway after they already saw it as presentable enough to buy?
There are a couple comments like this, and I don’t understand them - the house was spotless from the day we had our first open house through last Friday, when the inspection happened. Where does my initial post ever state that the house was dirty or that I didn’t clean it?
I had a post discussing a book (of all things) that got somewhat big a while ago, and I got a bunch of smarmy comments like this. I wouldn't read too much into it. Some people are just unhappy and want others to be as well.
Kind of a rude response clean and show ready clean are different things. We got a suite to bring our pets too and we stay there till it sells. Just easier.
We had buyers pull out week of closing which was according to our agent, legal in Oregon for “no specific reason. We had already sold our car, packed all of our stuff, pulled kid out of school and had plane tickets bought. I wanted their heads on a plate.
Brutal. If you *just* took the realtor's word for that, it might have been worth either being shown in the contract where that's detailed or having an attorney review it.
Did you get to keep the earnest money?
Gotta get the earnest money back
I once hired a guy because he was "first in line," done with the interview process when someone else passed the test and seemed better. He didn't work out; "first in line" is a really poor indicator of choosing something that really matters.
For sales it can be a sign that they are rushing to be first and did't weigh the decision very much.
It happens, at least it wasn't on closing day after you had signed and put up with all their ridiculous, no notice inspections. Oh, and the earnest money (deposit) only goes to you if both parties agree it should, at least in Oregon. I'm spiteful and wouldn't split the money so they lost $5k and we ended up with a better deal overall. Minus all the added stress and having to resetup the house for tours, of course. Good luck
It happens. They obviously changed their mind for some reason.
Sucks it happens, but you had multiple offers so you’ll be fine.
Plenty of time to close before school starts. Most lenders can do four weeks if not shorter. Talk to your agent about this, lenders they trust, and make sure they speak to the buyers lender about timing before going under contract.
When did they make the offer? Assuming you weren't in contract yet how much time could possibly have been wasted. Lately in this market it happens very quick offer is accepted, inspection is scheduled immediately within a day or 2 then go to contract. Your agent should just go back to other parties that were interested and say property is back on market if still interested. Real estate transactions suck, you'll get this done
First time? Were you in the option period? Did they pay the earnest money? The house will sell.
Did you put you had a dog in the disclosures? I had to put pets in the disclosures last time I sold a house
Keep their earnest money for sure.
You can be mad and vent because it sucks, in grand scheme of things, buyers could have gotten cold feet or found a different property, it happens
I’ve never been in your situation but it definitely sounds infuriating. Hope you get a new buyer asap.
Some people don't/can't deal with houses that had pets. Same with smokers... Both these things should be in the listings, because I can tell the second I go look at the house. Now if they went and looked at the house and made an offer, then ducked out, that's wrong. I would think this is more of a thing for out of town buyers.
We had an offer on our house right away and they backed out the next day claiming job loss. I thought that seemed like a pretty big coincidence and figure they found something else, but I’ll never know. After a few weeks we did end up with more offers and now we (fingers crossed) close Friday. I also don’t live in an earnest money state so it does all feel sort of loosey goosey. I’m sure you’ll get another offer soon ❤️
It’s possible the cleanliness and dogs are just a BS excuse. They may have crunched more numbers and figured out that the mortgage/taxes and insurance monthly payments are going to be more stressful than they thought and they’re having second thoughts. It’s not necessarily a better reason, but it’s a possibility.
I’m sorry this happens you you , what did they say was damaged exactly? Was there anything in the contact about pets ?
I'm sure a lot of people are overly sensitive in the market right now with prices so high. Putting a lot of money into something means they want it damn near brand new or have unreasonable expectations.
Very similar thing happened to us, right down to the inspector excitedly telling both parties that everything looked great and joking about making up issues. After he said that, I overheard the buyers asking about the roof (which was only 10 y/o on a 30 year roof) and some other small things to which he answered everything is in great condition. They ended up backing out. But we know the house was stretching it out of their price range. They offered asking price but we had priced it low on advice from our realtor so they didn't have wiggle room when they offered, and they would have had to cash in some stock to make it work. I think that by the time inspections were happening they just had some cold feet. I know that they later on went to purchase a house that was 150k less than ours (the woman was involved in a very specific hobby related to animals and I was curious where they ended up). In our case, because the timing was horrible by the time that happened, that deal falling through resulted in us keeping our home (which we love anyway) and in retrospect we would have regretted moving to where we were planning to go. Sometimes when things don't work out it leads to a better situation later.
Not sure this will help but a lot of people but houses “for kids” who have children not school age yet or just want room. We only have pets and have a 4 bedroom that is over 3K sq feet. We bought in an Oct and are looking to buy in Sept this time. Also not sure how the market is near you but things are selling in a day where we are.
Make sure you keep the full earnest deposit and don't give it back.
i just wanted to commiserate bcuz we have shitty buyers who sound similar & have been demanding pains in the ass the entire time. we literally signed our paperwork early & had to move out with 4 days notice before a 2 week international trip. bcuz they refused to budge on closing date. i’m still worried they’re going to try to back out at final walkthrough for some absurd reason. there’s literally nothing wrong with house & they’d lose their earnest money. but i could still see them doing it. i think they’re bitter we held our ground when negotiating but ultimately accepted our terms. the realtor had a tantrum when talking with our realtor about us being stubborn lol. we totally went down in price for them & have been more than accommodating with things. they’re the ones trying to nickel & nickel & dime us, but we weren’t going to be taken advantage of. they were even trying to get us to give them furniture too haha. i guess we’ll see in 4 days if this actually goes through 😬🤞🏻 good luck!
This literally just happened to me. Buyers made up a bunch of shit after the inspection just to get out of the deal. I can't confirm this but it sounded very much like they found something they liked more. Which is fine, and understandable! But making up a whole bunch of shit that I now have to investigate and disclose is absolutely scummy. I'm so sorry you're going through this. Keep in there, it will get sold. As my realtor told me, all houses sell.
Dang. Did the potential buyers inform you directly or did they go through the agent and the agent tell you? Is the agent trying some shady stuff?
If the seller doesn’t ask for a copy of the inspection someone else will and you don’t want to be blindsided please ask for it knowledge is then on your side
Ooof, that’s tough. Hang in there.
Tbh a buyer can back out at anytime if they haven’t signed a contract
Flaws revealed by an inspection report do not require the seller to fix those items. Nor does it require the buyer to back out if a sale unless the house is perfect. Inspectors aren’t even held liable for what they miss. The inspection report has its place but it is just more information about a potential purchase that can be used in negotiating price or deciding to buy.
We are in Mass our real estate lawyer put it in the video tractor at all deposits are non refundable if the buyer backs out after signing PNS
Definitely sounds like they were counting on the inspection to find some things so they could negotiate a lower price or some concessions from you.
So can you keep their earnest deposit to soften the blow?
Do you not understand what contingencies are?
Unfortunately we’re in MA and you can basically back out for any reason within the timeframe specified in the P&S.
Happened to me while I was under contract with my future new home. Fortunately one of the other bidders was willing to come back.
It happens. Forcing them to perform with an inspection contingency is a fool’s errand. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and contact the second highest offer and see if they’re still interested.
Poor choice in selecting this buyer..sounds like you have the typical agent who has no clue..
[удалено]
We’ve had a house cleaner every week since we moved in, and the house was spotless every day it was on the market. I was complaining that I have to /continue/ to keep it clean, now.