I have recently heard several schools of thought on an issue and I thought I would see what some of you think and what your opinions are.
I recently received an offer on one of my listings from a First Time Buyer who was at the very least, minimally qualified to buy a property. The Buyer had no money to speak of, according to their agent, not even enough money to pay for an Inspection ($350 to $450) an Appraisal ($400) and minimum downpayment requirement to receive downpayment assistance from a governing agency ($1000) of their own money.
The offer basically asked to the seller to take a ton less for the property than he was asking for it, pay all the costs associated with the loan ($4000+) and agree to complete any and all repairs at his expense in order for the home to be financed with an FHA Loan and a 5% contribution from a State Agency down payment assistance program. In other words, take a bunch less for your property, pay for everything including the appraisal, guarantee that the home will be financable, and wait almost 60 days to close because the buyer wouldn't have any cash to close for 45 of those days.
I had to present the offer because the law requires that I do so even though my first instinct when I saw it was to laugh and file 13 it! I couldn't do that so I went over to my seller's place and presented this "wonderful" offer. Believe it or not the seller met almost every term in it except for the price and the price of the appraisal. In the end, we agreed to do almost everything but the seller wanted the buyer to at least pay 1/2 the cost of the appraisal so they were both risking some funds in the event it didn't appraise. I think it would have but that is beside the point.
In the end, these buyers walked away for the cost of 1/2 of an appraisal.
Now I ask you, should you try and work these things out or if you have doubts that it will ever make it to closing because you know in your heart that the buyer isn't qualified, or should you just kill it on the table? Some agents feel you should try and make it work no matter what because buyers aren't that plentiful right now. Others feel that you are better off killing the deal up front because you are taking the property out of the active market during prime season only to have the sale fall apart at the end because the buyer was barely qualified to begin with.
What are your thoughts? In my case this deal died on the table and the seller was fine with it because he didn't feel the buyers would close anyway. I am not sure of my feelings on it, right now I am just angry that I wasted four days of everyone's time to have the sale fall apart over $200.
