Once your seller has accepted an offer and escrow has been opened, advise your seller to slow down about spending "his" money from the sale on another property. Here are some conversations I had with an out-of-town seller and his "new" agent there:
1. Seller's agent in another state calling to "congratulate" me on SELLING SELLERS PROPERTY and asking for closing date of the property. My first reaction was, hey, hey, we still have contingencies to satisfy. Although there was a relatively short targeted closing date, I had a feeling it needed to get extended. And I was right.
2. Seller calling asking the same thing. Seems that he was being pushed to go into a contract with a definite closing date or lose the deposit. I advised him, first, that I really believed the escrow would need an extension and reasons why (nothing he was doing, but the loan approval of the buyer was taking longer than anticipated). And, second, how did he feel about losing the deposit. (He didn't like that).
3. I told him that if this particular buyer was not able to complete the purchase, it might take months for another buyer to develop. Would he be willing to go through with the new contract in his state under that circumstance? The answer was "no."
Although we had gone over the contract and its contingencies before, I had another very blunt conversation with my seller about all the things that could still go wrong. Although this was a "sophisticated" (read "investor") seller/buyer, he still thought that because he had accepted an offer and the buyer was "pre-qualified", in his mind it was as good as sold.
Interestingly our talk really helped him deal with the agents who were pressing him to get into a contract. When escrow closed, he thanked me for holding him back.
Hella
Hella Rothwell, Broker/Owner - REALTOR(R)
California DRE #01772851
Crescent City, CA 95531
Tel. 707-460-0604
Fax. 877-822-9332
California Real Estate Broker in Del Norte County, Crescent City, Smith River, Hiouchi, California. Specializing in oceanfront and oceanview properties, development land.
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