We live in a townhouse in a really adorable neighborhood. There are always kids riding bikes and always friends just down the street for me to talk to and the boys to play with. We really love it here but with interests rates so low and home prices dropping it's the perfect time for us to upgrade to a larger house on a piece of land. We called our Realtor who is awesome, BTW, and asked if she'd take us to see what's out there.
We found the house.
The "I'd like to be buried in the back yard because I'm dying of old age or because this house needs so much work it's going to kill me" house. Either way.
Fast forward to now, our house is on the market, there has been a lot of interest, we're feeling pretty good about things and we're negotiating with the Bank (read: evil, evil bank) who owns our little foreclosure of a house. The negotiations are not going well, or maybe the bank's asset manager is schizophrenic, who knows.
First they're willing to fix things. Then we have to wait till after the home inspection before they're willing to agree to fix most things. Then after the home inspection they'll fix the dual zone HVAC and the mold but not the roof which has about a billion leaks in it. Then while we're negotiating how much we'll get as a credit and how much it's going to cost to have X, Y, Z fixed they then decide they're not fixing anything. Um, excuse me? So we've sunk more than a grand into inspections for the home, the well, the septic field and the roof and hvac estimates and now they tell us they're not willing to fix anything?! Since our entire deal was negotiated with the understanding that they would be willing to fix some things and now they're changing their minds entirely the Husband and I are thinking they didn't negotiate in good faith and we're PISSED.
Who knows how this will end. Maybe there has been some miscommunication between the bank's asset manager and the seller agent. Mayb we're still on track or maybe we've some how managed to misunderstand everything from the very beginning... but I highly doubt that.
As of tonight, we're a little pissed, a little confused and somehow still convinced that this is the right house for us. But by tomorrow we might be asking for both our earnest money back and compensation for the costs we've incurred thus far. But I hope we'll be sitting fireside singing Cum Baya by tomorrow.
Update:
Cum Baya, my Lord; Cum Baya.
Yup, we were just confused. Thank goodness! I'd explain more but I'm off to get my hard did, without the kids! Woo Hoo!
7 comments:
it sucks that the bank has gone back on what they said, but if you think about it...even if they said that they weren't going to fix anything you still would have gotten a home inspection so you would know what you would have to fix when you moved in...either way, if you end up with the house, and you were willing to take it at the price with no fixes, the don't worry about the money on the inspection...it will have been worth it
that's the problem, if they said they were unwilling to fix anything we would have withdrawn our offer. We knew it needed a new roof and HVAC before we made the offer.
and we know we don't have 30 grand laying around to do what needs to be done right away. grrr....
Real estate is not a nice business. The banks don't care about you, the sellers don't care about you, and mostly, the selling agent doesn't care about you. I'm glad you are working with an agent that is on your side. I hate to sound so negative, but we've been there. Sounds to me like the sellers have gotten additional interest in their house... Good luck - I'll be sending good thoughts your way!!!
So sorry you're having to deal with this. At least you haven't actually sold your house yet so if this falls through you won't be out on the streets.
I'm sure your realtor is on top of all of this but the bank may need reminding that an oral agreement is still legally binding (and if you have e-mails etc to back it up...).
Also, you may not me aware of this but you can get an FHA "fixer-upper" mortgage for exactly this sort of situation (you want to buy a house that needs work but you don't have the cash to do immediately necessary repairs and such). You can even fold up to six months of mortgage payments into the principle while repairs are being done if you can't or don't want to live in the house then. It was something that Field and I were considering (I looked at a lot of dumps). If you want you can have the name/number of our broker; he's been great.
Kate- I was thinking that too, at least this house isn't already "sold". That's the other thing that makes this bank so freeking unreasonable. They won't accept offers that use the FHA 203K loan. Do they think they're going to find a cash buyer? Not likely in this market.
I can recommend a good roofer! I hope it all works out. There is so much that can go wrong....here's hoping that it will all be fine!
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