The Buyer's in the Market Place and the Agents that don't know how to deal with them.

I have a lovely home for sale in Hessville.  It was built in 1964.  It has harwood floors and a finished basement.  I have received 3 offers on the property and two that have been accepted.  One had the financing fall through.  The other one should not have fell through.

The buyer had a home inspection done.  Which is a good idea, all buyers should do it.  I also like that the home inspector tells the buyer about maintenance items that come with home ownership.  Which is also a good thing for first time home buyers to know about.

After the inspection I received a response from the buyer stating that they wanted the following items fixed or replaced or $10,425 off the purchase price.  The items were the hot water heater because it had a recall, electrical issues there were 4 outlets with open grounds, the gutters replaced, the roof replaced, the trim on the house and garage replaced, the driveway and walkways replaced and the crack in the garage foundation replaced.

According to the pages of the home inspection that I received.  The "necessary pages" most of these were maintenance items.  I called the agent asking him since when are trim, gutters, and a non leaking 12 year old roof, driveway and walkway MAJOR DEFECTS.  He told me that the contract says anything that would bring the value of the house down is a major defect.  I next called an inspector that some of my clients have used on their transactions and asked him what he thought of the home inspection response.  He stated just as I suspected the only items that were MAJOR DEFECTS were the recall on the hot water heater and the electrical.  The home inspector asked what the summary page stated.  I told him I did not know since that wasn't one of the "necessary pages" that was attached.

Next consulting with my seller, she agreed  to fix the electrical and the hot water heater.  We responded to the home inspection.  Stating that the seller would fix the electrical and the recall on the hot water heater.  The rest were maintenance items and would not be fixed by the seller.

Of course the buyer rejected the response and wanted their earnest money back.  I wanted to fight this since the buyer agent refused to show us the summary page.  He said that we didn't pay for the inspection so we did not need that page.  My seller signed the mutual release to let it go back on the market.  She was upset that the seller wanted her to fix all those items and get house for less than $100,000

For my own curiosity I called IAR.  I explained to them what had happened and asked what was considered major defects.  Not to my surprise the person I talked to said that the driveway, walkway, gutters, trim and non leaking roof are not major defects.  I did let that agent know what I had found out.

If I ever have an issue like this again now I can back it up.  It just goes to show that agents need to not only educate themselves they need to educate their buyers along the way.