I like thumper’s approach. If you insist on repairs of something that need no repairs, have some skin in the game.
“Besides, you are doing this backwards. Before get listed, you will have home and termite done on your penny and hand it to the buyer asking them to accept the reports and waive all contingencies.”
Every market is different. The buyers will laugh at this proposition in my neck of the woods.
^ In my state dual agency requires written disclosure to both buyer and seller, and the agent is legally required to be neutral, which means they cannot fulfill the obligation of the agent to provide the best loyalty, confidentiality, and service to their client.
Dual agency by a single agent is now pretty much rarely seen here, as the brokers don’t want the liability. It still happens within the same agency, but this can work as long as the agents play it straight.
CB didn’t just fall of the turnip truck, so I am sure she understands the ramifications of her agent playing both sides. In this case I believe she is getting a significant break on the commission, which may make it worth it in the end. It may not if the agent is playing games to keep this deal alive, without moving to the backup offers. This agent has an incentive to make CB happy though, because of their long term relationship, so she may not be doing the buyer justice either.
It is a conflict of interest from the get-go, and you can see it is starting to get messy.
Yes, I agree that it is a conflict of interest. Dual agency (representing both parties) is allowed in California, but there is a lot of papers notifying both sides and have to be signed. It is an advantage to the Seller (if they negotiated commission properly in their listing agreement) and, in this case, an advantage to the Buyer to get a lower price.
We have done two other deals where she represented both sides. They went more smoothly. This transaction is not going as smoothly solely because they have stopped ‘trusting’ her and are being coy and secretive regarding all these inspections.
I had a long talk with my agent and told her to focus on representing the buyers - I can take care of myself. She is very wary of liability and so, I will be communicating my instructions via email just so that we are both very safe. Since we have worked together almost daily for 6 years, she instinctively knows how I am going to approach each issue.
I am a stickler for contracts. If a Buyer commits to certain dates in the contract I expect them to meet those dates. This is communicated very clearly during the initial contract signing. Do they understand that they have contractually committed to closing in 21 days? Do they understand that they have to release appraisal contingency by X date? Does their lender agree to these contractual dates? Can they meet these dates? I won’t sign the contract until my agent has spoken to the lender and received a commitment (even though they may not be able to meet that commitment later, at least they know they made a commitment and the burden is on them to perform)
Regarding ‘As Is’… all California purchase contracts are As Is, Buyer Beware, Buyer do inspections. Dozens of pages of Buyer Advisories that have to be signed by everyone. AND, I write a separate 5-6 page disclosure about everything done to the house and known issues and deliver to Buyer on Day 1 of escrow. It clearly states ‘As Is’, no guarantees or warranties except those specifically provided by the manufacturer of something. I make the Buyer sign this document along with all the other disclosures.
All of this doesn’t mean diddly squat to Buyers in our area. They just go down their merry way writing up a list of repairs, expecting every screw in the house to be perfect, etc. When I bought my house 20 years ago, there was no such thing as all these expectations that everything in the house has to be perfect. I don’t even think there was a Request for Repairs form. I believe that this new culture is a result of Real Estate Agents.
Waiving all contingencies usually only happens on distressed properties where investors are buying All Cash. Doesn’t happen when a Buyer is financing the purchase, or on properties that are selling at full market value. A Buyer cannot waive all contingencies if they have to get a loan.
Not true, in selling my mom’s condo, the buyer waive all contingencies even they are getting a loan, they are putting %60 down!
I’m not sure the agents are driving this.
My wife sees this the worst mostly among certain ethnicities, but in general people these days are less and less willing to do anything for themselves. When was the last time anyone changed their own oil in their car, for example? And this is the reason half of our grocery stores are now cooked-in-store food.
So it’s not all that surprising that it goes to real estate as well, where people will walk from a property if the paint color is wrong or kill a deal if the curtains aren’t included (actually happened to my wife!)
coralbrook. My s is closing tomorrow. Putting 30% down. Financing the rest. All contingencies waived.
Some buyers ask for a price adjustment to get some work done and then do not do it. Just gets the price down.
If a Buyer is putting more than 20% down, they can take the risk of waiving contingencies. They know that their loan will be easier because the bank is taking less risk on Loan to Value. Also, if the appraisal doesn’t come in at the purchase price, they have a cushion of cash to make up the difference in down payment. When Buyers are in a multiple offer situation, waiving contingencies is the best way to get your offer accepted.
This Buyer wants to put only 20% down. We did not have any other offers in hand so we couldn’t ‘push’ for waiving of contingencies. I did push for shorter time frame on closing and removing the contingencies but it looks like we are going to push right up to those dates. Because they are from out of state they wouldn’t budge on removing Physical Inspection contingency (I’m guessing here).
Notrichenough… you are probably correct. Buyers want to walk into a house thinking it is ‘maintenance free’. In my case, I have a lot of Buyers that think “she has a full crew right there, we should ask for all this stuff to get fixed, o added to the house, because it is easy for her to do”.
Just out of curiosity… Why would Sellers insist on taking curtains with them? Are the curtains really going to exactly fit the windows in some new house they are buying? That just doesn’t make sense to me.
Some people have very expensive, custom-made curtains and window treatments that go with their furnishings and can be used in many other houses.
Cb. I wish the previous owners of my old house had taken all of their curtains 
Like I said…I was happy to pay a vendor to fix something…and produce the paid invoice. I was not going to give the buyers a nickel off the purchase price they had agreed to pay.
But when they all agreed to pay a share…it was a deal.
Both agents were sick of dealing with my buyers…who were consuming their time.
Who the heck knows what goes through the minds of crazy people. There were custom curtains in one room, and unlikely to fit the sellers’ new place, but the sellers wanted to keep them even though the buyers wanted them, and a half-million dollar deal fell apart over it. I guess they had some sort of emotional attachment to them,
This was right before the crash, and the sellers never got another offer that was close. So a year later the house hadn’t sold, prices were down 20%, we stopped checking after that.
DW had another deal almost blow up at the closing over grass clippings. People are crazy.
Real Time Update
So, the Buyers have forwarded the invoice from XYZ Foundation company to my agent with some wording to the effect “Please forward this to Seller so that she can pay XYZ company to do the repair”. What?? just an offhand expectation that I’m going to go do this without any formal request??
BTW… $1,900 for XYZ company to go under the house and ‘shoot’ epoxy into one crack. There seems to be some contradiction in the ‘scope of work’ about whether they are shooting into the one crack or there are some minor other hairline cracks they are going to epoxy. My guess is 1-3 hrs of work.
But my agent called and said that she feels really bad about the whole thing and will pay for the entire repair herself because she is the one that brought in original inspector that started all this. I told her that I will not be giving my business to XYZ Foundation Company (issues with them before) and that, if she feels she needs to pay for this, we are going to call two other foundation companies to get estimates. She is working on that now.
Real Time Update
So, the Buyers have forwarded the invoice from XYZ Foundation company to my agent with some wording to the effect “Please forward this to Seller so that she can pay XYZ company to do the repair”. What?? just an offhand expectation that I’m going to go do this without any formal request??
BTW… $1,900 for XYZ company to go under the house and ‘shoot’ epoxy into one crack. There seems to be some contradiction in the ‘scope of work’ about whether they are shooting into the one crack or there are some minor other hairline cracks they are going to epoxy. My guess is 1-3 hrs of work.
But my agent called and said that she feels really bad about the whole thing and will pay for the entire repair herself because she is the one that brought in original inspector that started all this. I told her that I will not be giving my business to XYZ Foundation Company (issues with them before) and that, if she feels she needs to pay for this, we are going to call two other foundation companies to get estimates. She is working on that now.
Wow.
Oh man- didn’t realize your realtor (well, representing both of you) brought this horrible inspector!!! Oh my!
ARGH!! There needs to be an ARGH!! button.
My realtor is the one who recommended the inspector to the Buyers for the original home inspection. It is customary that a buyer’s agent will give recommendations to their buyers since the buyers would not know where to start looking for a reputable home inspector. But, the Buyer technically ‘hires’ the inspector and pays for it.
Yes, the Buyers are paying for all these inspections. That is customary because the inspectors need to be representing them and reporting findings to them. Legally, the Buyers do not have to share any written report or findings with the Seller. As a Seller it is usually in your best interest NOT TO RECEIVE the written report or be present during inspection. In California, any written inspection report, or any verbal inspection findings, have to be disclosed to any other future buyer if the transaction does not complete. Obviously you should be ethical and disclose anything you know about, but sometimes these reports get ridiculous and it’s best not to muddy the waters with stupid stuff like “screw loose in door handle”.
In this case, some issues were so strange and/or detailed that I asked for the written report with photos to try to figure out exactly what or where the issue was. For example, after going up in the attic we could not figure out what the big deal was with the rolled insulation. There wasn’t any horizontal rolled insulation in the area noted. That’s when I finally looked at the picture in the report and realized the inspector was talking about vertical insulation going up the wall to the roof and no repair should be required.