It amazes me how many people buying homes know "someone in the business" or family members who know a little about everything, who they drag along to see a house with them. These are people who think they know everything about buying selling and or conditions of homes. in most cases it only makes things worse.
For instance we took a friend of a friend out to look for a home for a very long time. When they found a home they like they brought in their "pit bull" to look over and criticize the homes ( a ploy to overshadow the fact that they grossly underbid on every house). While this man had some knowledge he was no home inspector and talked them out of homes that sold within days of their seeing it, and of course for a much higher price than they were offering. After awhile of this they stopped bringing him, but by that time, I no longer wanted to waste my time with them as clients.
Next case, a friend of my partner was looking for a home and wanted something near and similar to their parents' home. All seemed innocent in the beginning, but when the parents came along, all we heard was how much better THEIR HOME WAS. After some time they find a house around the corner form the parents, same style, just needed a little updating, but the price was good for the condition. They made an offer, it was accepted and then came the inspection ( by the most stringent inspector we know). Inspector finds NOTHING wrong, but he father then chimes in with it will take XXX dollars to bring it up to the quality of his home, and said they could not afford it. So the deal was nixed, and then again at that point we stopped showing them homes.
Last case was this week, new buyer finds a house they love (well at least the woman does). Fiance drags uncles along to inspection. Uncles pour over the house even before inspector gets going. 1/2 hour later they announce house is falling apart from water damage, information not corroborated by inspector and leave. I talk to inspector, who by the way did not get paid for his time, and did not agree with the information they used to back out of the deal. Did the home need work, yes, it was old and needed a real face-lift. But it was not falling down either. They did not want to hear what inspector had to say. Needless to say we will not show them any additional homes.
When I owned my bridal shop I saw the mother of the bride do similar things to the brides who would not stand up to them.So if I bride asked for my advice, I would tell her to keep the family out of it until she had reached a decision. I say the same for buying a house, wait until the ink is dry then bring in the family. When you buy a home, the only people who need to love it is the people who are going to live in it.
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