CAG home owner topic. Buying or selling a home? Have a maintance issue? Help is here!

[quote name='Dead of Knight']So having part of the city being bought out by the Chinese and a casino are supposed to be good things?[/QUOTE]

I dont give a shit who buys what as long as its bringing jobs, money and entertainment to the area. The Chinese are fixing up the river side and putting in a bunch of stores and resteraunts. Your saying thats a bad thing?

Also you ignored the part where I said they are renovating part of downtown with a few parks and retirement homes. In other words your living up to the super bitch tag ;)
 
[quote name='slowdive21']Ohio is a beautiful state. There are just very few white collar jobs.[/QUOTE]

It WAS a beautiful state. But then the state let industry shit on it and leave without cleaning up the mess. We had no problem finding white collar jobs there.

Plus, there are too many wannabe rednecks. Folks, you are one state away from bordering Canada. Stop acting like you're from Alabama, you're not.

[quote name='MSI Magus']

Also you ignored the part where I said they are renovating part of downtown with a few parks and retirement homes. In other words your living up to the super bitch tag ;)[/QUOTE]

Ok, I'll bite. Retirement homes? Wouldn't want to drive near there. MA has enough old people driving around. And considering how shitty Ohio drivers are to begin with, I can't imagine how bad it would be.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']It WAS a beautiful state. But then the state let industry shit on it and leave without cleaning up the mess. We had no problem finding white collar jobs there.

Plus, there are too many wannabe rednecks. Folks, you are one state away from bordering Canada. Stop acting like you're from Alabama, you're not.
[/QUOTE]

Same could be said for Boston/Cambridge. I was just there for the 4th and it was dirty as hell. Garbage in the streets (I know that is an east coast thing, but still gross). Really disappointing to see it in that state. I won't even get into the racism in MA.
 
[quote name='slowdive21']Same could be said for Boston/Cambridge. I was just there for the 4th and it was dirty as hell. Garbage in the streets (I know that is an east coast thing, but still gross). Really disappointing to see it in that state. I won't even get into the racism in MA.[/QUOTE]
Well, it WAS the 4th. Otherwise, Boston and Cambridge aren't that bad. Actually, they're pretty damn clean for dense urban centers. If you think Boston is bad, wtf do yo uthink about NYC? LOLZ
 
Yeah, I'm not sure how retirement homes are viewed as a positive development to people our ages (20s and 30s). :lol: Even parks tend to be useless. A city really just needs one big, functional park (running trails, ball parks, pool etc.). Most of the other parks tend to just be playgrounds and picnic areas etc. The only developments I really care about are restaurants, entertainment options, cultural options (museums, art galleries etc.).

Ohio was never my cup of tea. Just too damn flat. Better than WV were I grew up since it at least has cities. But Cleveland and Cincy are pretty crappy with how much they've declined with the death of factory jobs. But maybe they'll turn it around. Pittsburgh is a good example of an old rust belt city that's done a good job of at least redeveloping the downtown area.


As for city cleanliness--yeah, dense urban centers generally aren't going to be clean like smaller towns or the wealthy suburbs. On that front, the cleanest city I've been to in the US is San Diego. And that's just because they have a huge street cleaning crew that's out every night sweeping the streets and picking up stuff on the sidewalks etc.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Yeah, I'm not sure how retirement homes are viewed as a positive development to people our ages (20s and 30s). :lol: Even parks tend to be useless. A city really just needs one big, functional park (running trails, ball parks, pool etc.). Most of the other parks tend to just be playgrounds and picnic areas etc. The only developments I really care about are restaurants, entertainment options, cultural options (museums, art galleries etc.).

Ohio was never my cup of tea. Just too damn flat. Better than WV were I grew up since it at least has cities. But Cleveland and Cincy are pretty crappy with how much they've declined with the death of factory jobs. But maybe they'll turn it around. Pittsburgh is a good example of an old rust belt city that's done a good job of at least redeveloping the downtown area.


As for city cleanliness--yeah, dense urban centers generally aren't going to be clean like smaller towns or the wealthy suburbs. On that front, the cleanest city I've been to in the US is San Diego. And that's just because they have a huge street cleaning crew that's out every night sweeping the streets and picking up stuff on the sidewalks etc.[/QUOTE]

Cant disagree enough on both ends. First off the area that they are putting the old folks home in are run down buildings in the more ghetto part of town. So basically they are taking old abandoned crappy buildings and replacing them with parks and retirement homes, things that actually add value to the community. Second off parks rock and ill take as many as they will give me. My wife and I go walking several times a week and walking the same trail over and over and over gets boring, its nice to have different places to walk. Parks also help clean the air if you have enough of them.

So again what we have is jobs being created renovating these areas, then jobs being created for the new park rangers and people working the retirement homes. The city is made more beutifull and the homeless have less reason to bum around. Every angle of this is a win.

Anyways as I said, I am still not a big fan of Toledo, but at least there are some steps being made to fix it up. Just most people like DoK stay ignorant to the areas they live in and assume because its shit its always going to be shit. To quote a favorite song - It sucks that you think where I come from is wack, but as long as thats enough to keep your ass from coming back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn6iU_c2cM0

Good song that everyone should learn a lesson from. Maybe DoK wouldn't have been so miserable had she heard it ;) Id rather be elsewhere, but ill appreciate where I come from at least and there are some great things here.
 
[quote name='dohdough']Well, it WAS the 4th. Otherwise, Boston and Cambridge aren't that bad. Actually, they're pretty damn clean for dense urban centers. If you think Boston is bad, wtf do yo uthink about NYC? LOLZ[/QUOTE]

I haven't been to NYC, but I'm sure it is far worse than Boston. ;) I guess I am spoiled with Chicago being a clean city.

[quote name='dmaul1114']

Ohio was never my cup of tea. Just too damn flat. [/QUOTE]

Northern Ohio is pretty flat. If you venture to Central/Southern Ohio the landscape gets better. This is a really nice state park.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hocking_Hills_State_Park
 
[quote name='slowdive21']Same could be said for Boston/Cambridge. I was just there for the 4th and it was dirty as hell. Garbage in the streets (I know that is an east coast thing, but still gross). Really disappointing to see it in that state. I won't even get into the racism in MA.[/QUOTE]

The fuck? You're telling me there isn't shit in the streets on the 4th in Columbus, OH? Or fuck, any other major city? How the fuck can you judge how clean a city is when you go there on one of the messiest days of the year? Also, not many cities in the US can beat Boston for public transportation. They even have extensive train service to many suburbs and even cities in RI, making commuting easy and removing a lot of the need to even use a car. Much better than constantly driving with retards on Ohio roads. People in Ohio and other states that don't have good public transportation (most states) are getting fucked with gas prices and it is only going to get worse. People in places like Boston simply do not give a fuck.

Can we please get back to the home part of this topic though? To kick it off, we got the 2 inspections done today. It was definitely worth it to do both as both guys caught things the other guy didn't. Again, definitely worth it to spend the extra $300-400 on a second guy rather than buy a house that costs ~1000x as much with problems that could have been caught early on.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']The fuck? You're telling me there isn't shit in the streets on the 4th in Columbus, OH? Or fuck, any other major city? How the fuck can you judge how clean a city is when you go there on one of the messiest days of the year? Also, not many cities in the US can beat Boston for public transportation. They even have extensive train service to many suburbs and even cities in RI, making commuting easy and removing a lot of the need to even use a car. Much better than constantly driving with retards on Ohio roads. People in Ohio and other states that don't have good public transportation (most states) are getting fucked with gas prices and it is only going to get worse. People in places like Boston simply do not give a fuck.

Can we please get back to the home part of this topic though? To kick it off, we got the 2 inspections done today. It was definitely worth it to do both as both guys caught things the other guy didn't. Again, definitely worth it to spend the extra $300-400 on a second guy rather than buy a house that costs ~1000x as much with problems that could have been caught early on.[/QUOTE]

One city being better then another does not make the other the asshole of America as you made it sound. As I said we hope to move to Massachusetts or better yet Maine in a few years, but for now it is not something we can do and thus ill appreciate where we live for what it has to offer(which is more then you make it sound).

As for the more positive stuff, I defintly wish we had had two inspectors. Glad to hear you did and that they caught things the other didnt.

Edot - If any any of this doesnt make sense sorry, iv had 5 or 6 shots and 2 long island ice teas tonight and im on blood pressure meds which send me sky high when I drink. Im kind of drunk so hopefully this all came out right(i tried to reread everything a few times)
 
I perfer the suburbs to the city 10 to 1. I'm actually so glad to we chose not to live IN Portland. There's great public transportation in Portland but I couldnt imagine dragging two small kids onto a bus to ride ot the closest grocery store (which portland has few of, they perfer "local markets"), standing at the bus stop with bags, coralling kids, a nightmare.
Let alone there are few to any discount retairlers (Wal Mart, Target, etc) in Portland. One Wal-Mart for a city of 500,000+.

What is nice about lving down here is the Parks and how everything is kept so clean and new. I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. Anchorage hasn't built a new park in over 10 years (probably close to 20.) voters never approved the bonds down here. Public school playgrounds used to get firebombed in the summer by bored kids, and the public parks just looked trash as well.

Compare that to Portland suburubs. Just in the 4 years we've been living here there's been two new parks within a 5 mile radius of us and one more to be built. Two suburb year round community centers complete with great pools.
Yeah it's what your taxes go for, but to me it's worth it.
 
Well, I can definitely say Chicago is much cleaner then NYC or Baltimore, but of course the 12 percent sales tax covers all of that.:) That's one thing I don't miss about Chicago.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']One city being better then another does not make the other the asshole of America as you made it sound. As I said we hope to move to Massachusetts or better yet Maine in a few years, but for now it is not something we can do and thus ill appreciate where we live for what it has to offer(which is more then you make it sound).

As for the more positive stuff, I defintly wish we had had two inspectors. Glad to hear you did and that they caught things the other didnt.

Edot - If any any of this doesnt make sense sorry, iv had 5 or 6 shots and 2 long island ice teas tonight and im on blood pressure meds which send me sky high when I drink. Im kind of drunk so hopefully this all came out right(i tried to reread everything a few times)[/QUOTE]

Hey Magus, did you get your drain fixed?
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']That is fairly coherent for a drunk post.[/QUOTE]

Considering I only kind of sort of remember making that post....yes I cant believe how cohernt that post was. Think I laid down like 5 mins after making that and passed out watching horror movies ;)

@Lyricsborn - As DoK showed its really worth it to get a second home inspector, lord knows I wish I had. Ours missed all sorts of stuff and a few months later when we were dealing with a basement company because of our water issue all 3 of the companies that came out said they couldnt believe the inspector missed the issue.

@eldergamer - Are there many resteraunts where you live? Again me and my wife are stuck where we are for another 5 or 6 years, but we plan on moving after that. Right now we have no planned place and are just trying to find a few potential places then visit before setting down. Right now someplace in Maine is by far the front runner.

@keithp - Nope. We keep our grocery list on our Ipad and the program we used for it was malfunctioning. it meant we bought stuff off memory and thus forgot to get the strong ass LP stuff that others reccomended. Thanks for asking though, greatly appreciated. Do you know how much that stuff usually runs? Amazon has it for around $8 but we didnt want to buy it from them in case it was half as much at Walmart/Menards or something.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus'] Do you know how much that stuff usually runs? Amazon has it for around $8 but we didnt want to buy it from them in case it was half as much at Walmart/Menards or something.[/QUOTE]

I think it's usually around $4 and change. So yeah, definitely get it local.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']I think it's usually around $4 and change. So yeah, definitely get it local.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, I had a hunch Amazon was way overpriced unless the bottle is abnormally large.
 
This is such a fucking disaster. My husband made a list of the top things we wanted to the sellers to fix before we move in or lop money off the price. We didn't even list all the things that were wrong, just the top things. So my husband talked to one of our seller's agents, and the seller's agent is saying we should just basically let it all go. That is BULLSHIT. These are some serious repairs. The gutters are wooden and rotted and need to be replaced. The seller's agent said those would only take $500 to repair. No, they need to be replaced completely with aluminum gutters, and I know from when my parents replaced their gutters some years ago on their Rhode Island house that it cost at least $6k. And I know how important having decent gutters are (hell, just look at some of the posts here). He also said we should just scrub the mold in the basement with bleach. Again, BULLSHIT. This needs to be taken care of BEFORE we move in. We weren't even mentioning that the roof needs to be replaced in a couple years, or that pipes in the kitchen and basement need to be replaced because they're rusting.

I spoke with my parents on the phone and they agree completely with me. They had to do a ton of repairs on their RI house before they sold it, and they just had to eat the cost. The sellers of this house are apparently willing to do NOTHING except get a gas furnace guy in here to check it, since it hasn't been checked in 2 years. We are paying $295k for this house, and if we leave things the way they are, there's probably at least $20k in repairs due in the next couple years. NO. fuckING. WAY. Sorry.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']This is such a fucking disaster. My husband made a list of the top things we wanted to the sellers to fix before we move in or lop money off the price. We didn't even list all the things that were wrong, just the top things. So my husband talked to one of our seller's agents, and the seller's agent is saying we should just basically let it all go. That is BULLSHIT. These are some serious repairs. The gutters are wooden and rotted and need to be replaced. The seller's agent said those would only take $500 to repair. No, they need to be replaced completely with aluminum gutters, and I know from when my parents replaced their gutters some years ago on their Rhode Island house that it cost at least $6k. And I know how important having decent gutters are (hell, just look at some of the posts here). He also said we should just scrub the mold in the basement with bleach. Again, BULLSHIT. This needs to be taken care of BEFORE we move in. We weren't even mentioning that the roof needs to be replaced in a couple years, or that pipes in the kitchen and basement need to be replaced because they're rusting.

I spoke with my parents on the phone and they agree completely with me. They had to do a ton of repairs on their RI house before they sold it, and they just had to eat the cost. The sellers of this house are apparently willing to do NOTHING except get a gas furnace guy in here to check it, since it hasn't been checked in 2 years. We are paying $295k for this house, and if we leave things the way they are, there's probably at least $20k in repairs due in the next couple years. NO. fuckING. WAY. Sorry.[/QUOTE]

Remind them its a buyers market. Remind them that besides the housing market collapse that America has been downgraded and legislation should soon be going through making it harder for some people to qualify for loans and then top it all off with the reminder that the baby boomers are starting to retire which will equal a massive number of new homes going on the market over the next 20 years. Its a buyers market and will be for years to come, if your realtor wont fight for what you want make it clear another will.
 
So my dad said we should make a list of repairs we want done and attach a dollar value to it that they can take off the price of the house if they don't want it done (and he says no one wants to do shit so it'd probably just be a full price reduction). He said the worst they can say is no. I agree. I just can't believe the seller's agent was completely blowing off our very legitimate concerns.
 
@MSIMagus

I live near Portland, OR. Not Portland Maine. Plenty of restaurants there. (If you like the pretenious, give you the life story of each ingredient type). But seeing as I have two small kids we don't eat anywhere that requires more than 5 minutes for the food to be ready.
 
My husband just wrote a big email to our sellers' agents. Fun fun fun. He also listed about 20 things that came up in the inspection reports were are NOT insisting they have fixed. If they can't get like five things fixed or lopped off the price when there's tons of other things wrong with it, then fuck 'em. It's not like it's the only house in the town we're looking in. Hell, there's a couple houses we were looking at that just lowered their prices, and one of those lowered their price by a whopping $50k. It's not like they are the only game in town.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']So my dad said we should make a list of repairs we want done and attach a dollar value to it that they can take off the price of the house if they don't want it done (and he says no one wants to do shit so it'd probably just be a full price reduction). He said the worst they can say is no. I agree. I just can't believe the seller's agent was completely blowing off our very legitimate concerns.[/QUOTE]

Well you said it fell out of agreement twice, this is probably why.

Your dad is right, offer a reduced price and if they don't meet you most of the way, walk. The thing people tend to forget is even amazing inspectors never catch everything, just be wary homes neglected in obvious ways tend to have been neglected in less obvious ways as well.
 
One of the times it fell out of agreement was supposedly because the buyer could not sell their old house, but who knows how true that was. Maybe the real reason was they couldn't get financing because that deal was at $310k and the house is not worth that much with all the repairs needed. We're at $295k now, and hoping for a $5k reduction if it's not fixed. The sad thing is the house is very pretty interior wise and very structurally sound, but the exterior needs serious work and there's some big issues in the basement area that need to be cleared.

Oh yeah, did I mention our seller agent called my husband "nitpicky" because we wanted 5 things out of the 25+ things wrong with the house fixed?
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']Cant disagree enough on both ends. First off the area that they are putting the old folks home in are run down buildings in the more ghetto part of town. So basically they are taking old abandoned crappy buildings and replacing them with parks and retirement homes, things that actually add value to the community. Second off parks rock and ill take as many as they will give me. My wife and I go walking several times a week and walking the same trail over and over and over gets boring, its nice to have different places to walk. Parks also help clean the air if you have enough of them.
[/QUOTE]

Well, to the first--as we've discussed in the vs. forum--I hate those type of gentrification efforts that do nothing to help the poor people. But just displace them somewhere else and build something worth more money in place of their homes (the senior center in this case). They should clean up the ghetto areas in ways that help the people stuck there....but again, that's a vs. forum topic.

As for the parks, fair enough. I live a block away from a huge park with ball fields, a .52 mile track, trails, a lake etc. and hardly ever go. I pretty much hate the outdoors these days and just get all my exercise at the gym. :D But sure, it's a benefit for people like you who use them.

It just seems like you're not much of an urban person and will always be happier in smaller cities and suburbs, where as I'm totally an urban person now and never want to live outside of a big city again. Just different strokes for different folks.

[quote name='eldergamer']I perfer the suburbs to the city 10 to 1. I'm actually so glad to we chose not to live IN Portland. There's great public transportation in Portland but I couldnt imagine dragging two small kids onto a bus to ride ot the closest grocery store (which portland has few of, they perfer "local markets"), standing at the bus stop with bags, coralling kids, a nightmare.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, in general city life isn't the greatest if you have kids for sure. Hard to afford a big enough place, and all the issues you note. Though public transit doesn't have to be used. I live in the city but have a car and drive most everywhere. Though my city's public transit is pretty crappy anyway. Unless you live very close to a grocery store you need a car in most cities anyway as it's too much hassle lugging groceries on the bus or subway.
 
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Advice: Don't do real estate with someone you know. The main seller's agent is my mom's friend from when she was a kid. She's also working with her fiance, the one who was raising his voice at my husband and calling him nitpicky over the phone. So when my husband called our main agent to tell her our concerns, she said maybe we should just go through the lawyers now for any further concessions. WTF? Isn't that supposed to be YOUR job? Sure the lawyers will review the agreements, but I don't expect them to do their work for you.

So pissed. If this falls through we might just dump them for another agent that we DON'T know. I'm sure that'll be great for my mother's friendship with this woman... oh well.
 
Seriously folks, please comment on my last post. Is it common for lawyers to become involved about them getting things fixed? Shouldn't the realtors do this first? Someone let me know what they think...
 
I dont exactly have the most experience in this area, but still iv never heard of lawyers having to get evolved. Just sounds like them racking up fees that you dont need to pay. Honestly again if your realtor cant get the deal done or the buyer is not motivated just move on, there are a million of both right now.
 
Yeah, the P&S agreement has yet to be signed. I am thinking that this is something the realtors can handle for now, they are just being lazy. If they want to screw us further, sure we can get lawyers involved. But I don't think it's necessary at this point. Just looking to get some other opinions on this but I think we're in the right on this one. It just seems like the realtors are just trying to close ASAP without doing any real work of their own, and then passing on the costs to us. Don't they know that lawyer don't work on commission like them, but rather billable hours? That can be in the hundreds of dollars an hour? What's the point of having them negotiate when they'll take a big chunk of it for their own if it's not necessary at this point?
 
Double post sorry

Edit - I will add though. My biggest regret in buying my house is that we did not lowball and demand more. It really is a buyers market and unless you are in a rush to get in a house then you really should be asking for the moon right now. Yes you may lose the house, but there are just so many other great homes available right now that you can easily find a replacement with a seller that is willing to bend over backwards for you. My aunt just sold her home that appraised for almost $300,000 for under $200,000 and she agreed to a whole crap ton of demands, she said she did it because she knew even if it was not a good deal it was one of the only offers they had gotten in the last year despite her being in a trendy/gorgous/booming part of town. SHE is what you want to find. If a seller is not giving in to the majority of your demands in this market then id question what kind of deal I was getting.
 
We're not looking to screw anyone, we're just looking for a fair deal. Which is what we aren't getting right now. And I can't understand why our realtors won't advocate for us.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']We're not looking to screw anyone, we're just looking for a fair deal. Which is what we aren't getting right now. And I can't understand why our realtors won't advocate for us.[/QUOTE]

In this market its hard to tell what screwing someone is or isnt. You should be out to get the best deal possible, doing that within legal means is hardly screwing, if the seller thinks your being unfair they can say no.
 
This is bullshit! The seller is claiming the mold is paint, that the beams were originally painted white and he painted them brown. Bullshit, they were completely unpainted. He also put in some other bullshit as well. And now they (both buyer and seller agent) are trying to throw it into the lap of a lawyer instead of dealing with it themselves. I am ready to throw in the towel, fire our agents, and start clean again. This is insanity.
 
Yeah, that really sounds like too much hassle.

If the seller and your agent are being that resistant to working with you, I'd throw in the towel and find a new realtor.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']This is bullshit! The seller is claiming the mold is paint, that the beams were originally painted white and he painted them brown. Bullshit, they were completely unpainted. He also put in some other bullshit as well. And now they (both buyer and seller agent) are trying to throw it into the lap of a lawyer instead of dealing with it themselves. I am ready to throw in the towel, fire our agents, and start clean again. This is insanity.[/QUOTE]

I would just present them with a basic list of what are deal breakers and how much you see they are worth. Tell them you expect X to be done or X to be lowered off the price for each thing not done and if its not your walking away from the deal. Again as I said dont be afraid to be "super bitch" and point out that in this housing market its not worth your time negotiating with people wanting to bring lawyers in.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']We're not looking to screw anyone, we're just looking for a fair deal. Which is what we aren't getting right now. And I can't understand why our realtors won't advocate for us.[/QUOTE]

Because the higher it sells for the higher their commission seems like the obvious answer. If you let them know you are willing to walk, they may change their tune.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']
Edit - I will add though. My biggest regret in buying my house is that we did not lowball and demand more. [/QUOTE]

You bought it from your grandparents, right? ;)
 
[quote name='Pookymeister']You bought it from your grandparents, right? ;)[/QUOTE]

Which is why we didnt low ball and fight more. If we could go back and do it again we would chose not to buy their house because it made us feel so uncomfortable to bargain more. If I had it to do again id shop around a lot more and spend a few extra months ultra low-balling on dream houses till someone bit or countered low vs simply saying "eh we know they kept up this house and its a fair price". Part of why we did it too was to help them out, we figured it would be good karma.....meanwhile the old bat hit the lotto for 1.7 million after taxes and we are left with 90% of our bank account missing to fix the basement.
 
[quote name='slowdive21']Because the higher it sells for the higher their commission seems like the obvious answer. If you let them know you are willing to walk, they may change their tune.[/QUOTE]

Don't agents get like 3% of the purchase price? 3% of $5000 lopped off is... $150. I think it would be more in their favor to work with us.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']..meanwhile the old bat hit the lotto for 1.7 million after taxes and we are left with 90% of our bank account missing to fix the basement.[/QUOTE]

OMG, that's a whole 'nuther discussion right there....

Anyway, DoK, remind your agent he/she works for you, and if they won't negotiate in your best interests I'd simply find another agent. To answer your question, no, lawyers don't typically handle that stuff. Get it done and agreed to UPFRONT before the deal is signed.
 
Hubby just got off the phone with our agent (she called us). She's still being unreasonable. Apparently the buyer agent claims that all of the problems were known and were considered in the price. This is bullshit. We told her we wanted an itemized list of all the "problems" they considered in the price. She was very reluctant to even ask for this but eventually she said she would. In return my husband said he would call the lawler's office if it would not be considered billable hours.

I am still extremely pissed and if were she not my mother's friend I would be done with this already.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']Don't agents get like 3% of the purchase price? 3% of $5000 lopped off is... $150. I think it would be more in their favor to work with us.[/QUOTE]

Oh, I thought you were talking about a larger amount. The posts made it sound like there a a lot of things wrong with the house.


I don't know how to put this into words...I normally post like I am having a conversation. Hopefully this is coherent.


It is only worth negotiating if they know you are going to walk, otherwise it is not worth their time or hassle to negotiate with the other side because they can show you a comparable house or a more expensive one and still have your business.

The other aspect is their reputation. (lawyers are the same way) They have to work with the other side on a daily basis and tend to alternate compromises on each side.

Another factor is (unless they are a flat fee agent) both agents split the commission, so it is in both of their interests to sell as high as possible.

Most people (not me or you apparently) are not as demanding, so they may actually spend more time on an easy customer, than someone who requires more work.


I got interrupted 3 times while typing, so hopefully it made sense.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']Hubby just got off the phone with our agent (she called us). She's still being unreasonable. Apparently the buyer agent claims that all of the problems were known and were considered in the price. This is bullshit. We told her we wanted an itemized list of all the "problems" they considered in the price. She was very reluctant to even ask for this but eventually she said she would. In return my husband said he would call the lawler's office if it would not be considered billable hours.

I am still extremely pissed and if were she not my mother's friend I would be done with this already.[/QUOTE]

Read the contract you signed to purchase the house. Here in Washington after the home inspection you can cancel the deal within 5 business days no penalty to yourself simply based on the inspection report even if the house comes out spotless (which never happens). We had a similar situation, canceled the deal, fired our Realtor and found one who actually had an interest in us and getting things taken care of not just the commission.

Agencies split 6-8%, so each agency gets 3-4% and each Realtor gets about a third to half of that depending on if they get a base salary are only on commission and seniority the rest goes to the real estate company for rent, office workers, corporate etc.
 
Oh my god our agent is an idiot. You know how my husband asked her for a list of known problems that they used in pricing the house? Well she brings this to the seller agent and completely gives away our game: that we want this to compare it to the inspector list so we can ask for concessions. It was obvious she was not supposed to tell the buyer agent this, but she did anyway. Ughhhhh

[quote name='zionoverfire']Read the contract you signed to purchase the house. Here in Washington after the home inspection you can cancel the deal within 5 business days no penalty to yourself simply based on the inspection report even if the house comes out spotless (which never happens). We had a similar situation, canceled the deal, fired our Realtor and found one who actually had an interest in us and getting things taken care of not just the commission.[/QUOTE]

I have no idea what the deal is here in MA, but even if there is no such lawl here in MA, it's only $1000 we put down. We'd rather lose that than be pushed around like this if it comes down to it.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']Oh my god our agent is an idiot. You know how my husband asked her for a list of known problems that they used in pricing the house? Well she brings this to the seller agent and completely gives away our game: that we want this to compare it to the inspector list so we can ask for concessions. It was obvious she was not supposed to tell the buyer agent this, but she did anyway. Ughhhhh



I have no idea what the deal is here in MA, but even if there is no such lawl here in MA, it's only $1000 we put down. We'd rather lose that than be pushed around like this if it comes down to it.[/QUOTE]

When you signed the offer on the house they should have given you a copy of the paperwork? It should all be listed in there, why should you loose 1K of your money because they refuse to fix things and your agent is an idiot.
 
[quote name='zionoverfire']When you signed the offer on the house they should have given you a copy of the paperwork? It should all be listed in there, why should you loose 1K of your money because they refuse to fix things and your agent is an idiot.[/QUOTE]

Surprisingly it is somewhat vague and I am not 100% sure we would get the money back. It says if the inspection shows that the house is not satisfactory, then we can give written notice by 5 pm on "the calendar day after the date set forth above" and get our money back. But I am not sure which date this is referring to. It also says we can get out if the buyer defaults in their obligations. So yeah... You would think they would give the money back in good faith anyway but we are apparently dealing with assholes here so who knows. At least $1k won't break our bank like with a lot of people.
 
Who else has UGS? (Underground Sprinkler System) Any tips/pointers?

A few tips: I'd say clean the main filter a few times a year and clean the filters in your pop ups once a month. And don't water around noon everyday like my idiot neighbors
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']Surprisingly it is somewhat vague and I am not 100% sure we would get the money back. It says if the inspection shows that the house is not satisfactory, then we can give written notice by 5 pm on "the calendar day after the date set forth above" and get our money back. But I am not sure which date this is referring to. It also says we can get out if the buyer defaults in their obligations. So yeah... You would think they would give the money back in good faith anyway but we are apparently dealing with assholes here so who knows. At least $1k won't break our bank like with a lot of people.[/QUOTE]

Again this is knowledge from my dealings in Washington State:

Clearly it's not in satisfactory shape if there are 25 things wrong with it, it doesn't matter if they dispute every problem it's up to you to determine if the house is in satisfactory condition since it's YOUR satisfaction that needs to be met.

The day tends to vary based on how long you take for the inspection and request for repairs and how long they take to respond within a set window of days. Since you just did the inspection you should be fine to drop them now. Basically you have a limited time to withdraw the offer, if you wait too long then they get to keep your money.

The money is actually held in an escro account by the sellers Realtor and if they don't give it back they can loose their license.;)
 
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