Special offer

Is Your Listing Ready to Sell?

By
Real Estate Agent with Lake and Lodge Realty LLC

I have had two separate deals fall through in the last month due to title issues that in my mind probably should have been handled prior to the home being listed. The first one was a manufactured home listed by HUD in our area. With HUD you place your bid online and next day you find out if your offer was accepted. My client was extremely when we were awarded the bid. Lender was off to the races. After we did our inspections, appraisal and structural inspection required by FHA I received a phone call letting me know our deal had been canceled. I asked who would be reimbursing my client the $1,000 he had into inspections and was told they were sorry but there were title issues that couldn't be resolved. I questioned why if there were title issues the home was ever placed on market and was told HUD lists the properties right away but gives the title examiner 45 days to complete title work. I was literally shocked to hear that. They have no idea if the homes they are selling have clear title. I remember thinking "who protects us from our government?

The second one was listed by a local firm. We offered, they countered, we accepted. Easy as that....nope. This was another manufactured home so this time I did my own preliminary title work and found no Affidavit of Affixture recorded. When I called to ask them they had known about it and told their seller but listed it anyways hoping the title affixture fairy would rescue them but the title fairy is on vacation so it never happened.

My question is...with all the listings available today why would you list a property that has title issues? It's not like you can sneak it past anyone and it makes for very unhappy buyers when you tell them there are problems. The buyer has never met the seller or his agent so they of course have only one person to be mad at...their agent (who had nothing to do with the listing). Manufactured homes are always a treat.

For those who don't know... until a manufactured home has been affixed to the property it is titled much like a car, so it can be transported down the road to the site. Once affixed you turn your title in to the Secretary of State and receive an Affidavit of Affixture at which point it becomes a part of the real estate. The bad news is it is considered personal property until affixed so if you buy a property that has one that is not affixed it doesn't necessarily come with the land. Imagine the look on your buyers faces when after they have made the single largest purchase of their life they find out they only bought land and someone with an interest comes to take their home because it was never affixed to the property. Yikes!!!

The point to the story is when you are taking on new listings, should you not try and foresee future problems and correct them prior to listing or is hoping the seller will take care of it enough? Best of luck in all you do and thanks for reading.

Posted by

As always if you think the Big Rapids area is a place you would like to live give us a call (231) 796-5253 or check out either link below and we will help you find a house so the Big Rapids area can be your home too. Thanks for reading. 

Big Rapids Real Estate Big Rapids Homes

 

Randy Ostrander
Lake and Lodge Realty
107 N. Michigan Suite B
Big Rapids, MI 49307
(231) 796-5253
randyooo@yahoo.com

 

Feel free to Like my FaceBook page and I will return the favor.
Click link below.

Comments (0)