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I've been watching a home for a client that has been under contract....and after a month it came back on last night. We got out there today to look, because it was only on the market a few days in the listing before it went under contract the first time. The previous buyer's loan fell apart because he had not yet filed his taxes for this year and needed to show that for two years of self employment income.....and he would probably come back to the property once he had that all settled. Its usually against my nature to put a buyer and seller together.
The owner has owned this property for almost 20 years and custom built the house himself. Its beautiful. He's just not able to maintain the property anymore.
My clients loved it so much, after we left they decided they wanted to make an offer....but we needed to walk the property lines since its almost 9 acres. Called the seller and he said come on back, and he would be happy to walk the property lines with us and the survey to show us where the markers were. I told them we needed to go back so the seller could meet them and interact some with them.
When we got there he came out and walked the property with us, the nicest man. So here are my clients, and their two ADORABLE little boys just running thru the wooded acreage....I could not have planned it better. This man just absolutely loved those two little boys and kept talking about his own two little grandboys.
This house is theirs! Offer in the morning...WOOT!
Hope the offer gets accepted and they get their house!!
I've heard that after a buyer closes on a home purchase, the selling price becomes public record, but how do I find that information? I'm interested in a few homes in Arkansas, which I made offers on, but was 'outbid' on in each occasion. The final straw was the most recent home which my husband and I REALLY REALLY wanted to purchase and had offered over the 'asking/listed price' on. Ten days after we made our offer, the listing agent contacted our agent to tell us there were other offers on the home and 'would we like to re-bid or refine our offer?'. Of course, we were not told if the other offers were above us, below us or the same as ours. We maintained our offer thinking we were ok as we met and exceeded the asking price (AND the home had been on the market for a couple of years!), and we were then told we were outbid and lost the home. The listing has been pulled now, signaling the home was closed on, so we would like to know just how much we were outbid by. We suspect the listing agent who was privy to the offers informed her own buyer what to offer in order to outbid us. In this way, she wouldn't have to split commission. So, I would like to know how to find 1. What was the selling price? 2. What was the name of the buyers agent? and 3. What was the amounts of ALL offers, as well as dates and times of the offers. With this information, I can piece together just exactly how we lost our dream home. If the winning bid was submitted before ours, then we just didn't offer enough. If it came in AFTER ours, or was 'refined' after ours was in, AND if the buyers agent was also the listing agent, then we know there was an ethical problem. Any answers?
What does " pulled" mean? Was it cancelled or closed? Maybe the seller withdrew it from the market. If it was closed, your agent can tell you the closed sale price and the selling agent. If the selling agent was the listing agent does not automatically mean there was an ethical problem. Dual agency is legal in most states.
The details of other offers is not public information. That's between the listing agent and owner. Date/time makes no difference.
Price is not the only consideration in determining the best offer. Terms matter.
Thank you, everyone, for your prompt replies. Yes, I am a tad bitter that I lost this home, as I had been watching its listings for about a year and a half, until it got down to my price-range, and more importantly, I saved up enough for a nice down-payment and was able to get pre-qualified. The home was listed, then off-listing, then on again just when we thought it was gonezville, and being new to the 'home-buying game', we had no clue just how high and over 'list' we should go (or even IF we should!). Well, now we know. I guess what I really am upset about is the 'closed-auction' environment that seems to be popular with real-estate sales. You see, had I known what price was wanted or expected, beyond the actual listed price, I could and would have offered it gladly. This particular home was listed for an awful long time at $15,000 above the final listed price, with no takers. Who would guess that by dropping the price $15,000, they would get MORE than what no one would previously buy it for?! Long story short, I would have gone $50,000 more had I known that's what it would have taken, but who would offer that if it only took $10,000 more? Basically, from a home-buyers standpoint, sellers could get much more for their homes if the bids are open and known, as evidenced by my last sentence. Rakin, you mention the first or last offer, when they receive the offers... doesn't matter, but if the listing agent, who is privy to all the offers, also has a buyer ready to make an offer, then what is to stop her, aside from her own conscience, from telling her buyer what I had offered, and what it would take to get their offer accepted? What if their offer was made 10 days after mine, and only one-thousand more than mine? And, let's go one scenario further: What if I had raised my best and final offer another $5,000 and afterwards, so did they, at her urging? In this case, she would have a happy buyer and 100% commission in the sale. Gotta tell you, it's because of this line of thinking, warped as it may be, that I'm only dealing with the listing agents of any home I'm interested in from now on.
So it was listed at $15k more that the list price when you made the offer for a long time, and you never made an offer....yet you were willing to go $35k over that (as you said you would go $50k more on the house)?
So if you had made the offer before the price reduction, you probably would have been the only offer and would probably have your dream home, and would have been able to get it for $35k LESS than what you were willing to pay.
Last edited by LCTMadison; 02-21-2014 at 08:38 PM..
So it was listed at $15k more that the list price when you made the offer for a long time, and you never made an offer....yet you were willing to go $35k over that (as you said you would go $50k more on the house)?
So if you had made the offer before the price reduction, you probably would have been the only offer and would probably have your dream home, and would have been able to get it for $35k LESS than what you were willing to pay.
To expound a bit on LCT's thoughts above, this is what drives up sales prices above market value -- people getting caught up emotionally in the buying process.
If a buyer is willing to bid up a home price, they had better be prepared to bring a ton of cash to the closing table if that selling price exceeds the appraised value of the property.
How do you measure love (of a house)? Well, in this case, the measure of love is $35,000 to $50,000 as this buyer appears willing to pay that much more to get this house.
Buyers, please remember to not over-burden yourself when buying your next home. Don't make yourself house poor. You still have a life to live.
LCT, I guess I could have given more details to clarify: I didn't have enough down-payment and closing money available at the time it was $15000 more than when I offered. I had a lot of working to do, shuffling monies and paying off installment debt to get pre-qualified. When I buckled down, I found it easy to save up and also found it was something I SHOULD have been doing for a long time prior! After that 'buckling down' period of time, the home was taken off the market, so I continued to save up. Then, when put back on market at $15000 less, I thought, 'Bonus!'. Ah well.
Keep in mind when you only deal with the Listing agent, they are also the agent for the seller.
They become more of a Mediator and cannot reveal to you anything that might hurt the seller.
I'm not in real estate, and don't remember what its called, but couldn't OP have made an offer that would automatically go, say $1,000 above the highest offer with a cap they chose? If so, that would have been ideal in this situation.
OP, keep watching the house, you never know if the sale will fall through. Good luck and sorry you didn't get it.
When I recently purchased, there were 5 families making offers. Not only did I do the letter why I wanted the home (and why I was certain my loan was in place), I wrote an escalation clause $500 over the highest bid AND I agreed to remove the appraisal contingency if value was within 5K of my offer. (I wound up paying 2K over list and 5K under final value). We were talking about $10 a month, lol. Because the escalation clause was exercised, I knew the name of the other agent and the buyers name for verification. Yes OP, I imagine it's easy for the listing agent to manipulate the competition, but then why would they have come back to you for your highest and best offer? As easy as it may seem to happen, it's even easier to get caught and lose a license. There's not one agent that will tell you a sale is worth their license (okay, maybe one or two, but it's not typical).
OP, where your agent failed you was not to advise you to bid like you meant it and to leave nothing to chance. That call for highest and best was your wake up call to do better. 10 days went by, ample time to collect offers (mistake 2, a deadline should have been in your offer) it was a hard lesson learned, but one not likely to repeat.
If you could have and were willing to pay more for the home, you should have revised your offer to reflect the max you were willing to pay when they asked for "best and final". I can understand disappointment that your offer wasn't accepted but you bear responsibility in this as well. You had the opportunity to revise your offer and gambled.
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Offer in the morning...WOOT!
