Where do I start? This sale was interesting from Day 1. This home had been on the market for some time and it was over priced. My clients viewed the home, but at the time, were not interested due to the high price. After some time, the seller did a price reduction and it renewed the buyer’s interest. The buyer made an offer for $690,000 and $10,000 credit. The seller’s agent told me that if we increased the price by $5,000, the home was ours.
I spoke to the buyers, they agreed to do so, we amended the offer, the seller’s agent gave me a verbal ‘I talked to the sellers and they will be signing your offer today…congrats.”
Later that day, I don’t hear a word from the agent. I could not reach him all day, left a few vm’s, and he calls me late evening that the seller received another offer and decided to go with someone else.
As you can imagine, I was completely floored since earlier that day he gave me a verbal…’You got it”. So, making that phone call to my client was a very hard one to make.
Very late that same evening, after being told that we did NOT get the home, the agent called me back and said the other deal was not a done deal. There was some miscommunication and issues with that deal, and wa la, they came back to us and the deal came together.
The transaction was quite a ride through the whole process in that one seller was very ill and the other was overwhelmed. They changed their mind on a daily basis on where they wanted to move and if they wanted to rent or buy. They did not start packing or do anything to show they were planning on even moving out. They had a lot of excuses when they were supposed to be looking for a home to move. They even thought at one time that they would not sell at all and just kill the deal, even though, that would be a breach of contract. We almost got legal help involved, but luckily, they came to their senses. I have many seller stories during this transaction I could tell, but it would be a short novel. They didn’t even start packing until towards the very end of this transaction. We weren’t even sure they would be out when they were supposed to be by contract. Luckily, almost everything was out on closing day, and the buyers were very cool in letting the seller come back for some personal items after the closing day, since they were not moving in immediately.
Not only was the seller acting a bit whacky, but Wells Fargo was the absolute biggest pain in the a** to work with in the ridiculous amount of paperwork and particularly needing to prove one small transaction in which the buyer transferred money from one account to another. They wanted 15 different ways of proving that one transaction and it was just insane. It delayed us over a week to get it straightened out because every time the processor/underwriter would ask for something and then the buyer would provide the information, then another processor/underwriter would want additional information. At one point, I asked if Wells Fargo needed a DNA sample of the bank teller who handed the cashier’s check to the buyer, for proof that the teller actually worked at the bank and handed that specific check to the buyer. Every time that they needed something and the buyer would provide it, Wells Fargo would tell us that there is a 72 hour timeline for the underwriter to review the new information, just one piece of paper, mind you, which is just insane, especially when we have a deadline to close the transaction.
There is a happy ending to the story…the buyer’s closed escrow and are currently moving into their new home.
Oh, and they actually ended up getting an additional $5,000 towards closing costs after some additional negotiation after inspections were performed. So, they got a total of $15,000 towards closing costs!
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