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My husband and I are looking into the purchase of a short sale in Schenectady. We had given the RE agent a verbal offer for the seller to mull over while we hire an attorney (this was two days ago). Twice the seller's agent had given us an indication that our offer price would be too low for the lender to consider. Plus, the seller also has a 2nd lien at the same bank. Our bid is actually just below the 1st lien amount and we offered to pay up to $5K or 20% on the 2nd lien (however, this is something the bank will work out, we are therefore offering up to $75K). While the house may be worth more than that (we are not sure), the RE agent appears unmotivated by our offer price. Three times she has mentioned that our price was too low. We are firm on our offer and tomorrow we will be requesting for a draft of the offer to purchase.
I am hoping that she will carry through on her obligation to the seller and provide to necessary paperwork to get the ball rolling. But it has been a week since we saw the house and she has not pursued us to sign the purchase to offer and we have been trying to reach her.
My question is... how can I insure that the RE agent is actually doing what she was hired to do? The seller does not care about the offer price; I may be projecting but I'm afraid the RE agent is not motivated to push this through because the offer price may not be high enough to pass the bank's acceptance.
What are your thoughts? If she does not come back with an offer to purchase contract, what would my next course of action be?
Last edited by liv42dae1; 06-01-2012 at 07:40 PM..
Reason: added missing word
I heard the banks can be super strict with short sales....It can often take a really long time for them to go through too and sometimes the bank insists on repossessing the house anyway. It might work out but it doesn't always for short sales so you might want a few back ups. My favorites were really the short sales but it wasn't going to work out for me.
thanks cshells. We called the RE agent again and she is finally drafting the offer to purchase contract. she is supposed to send it to us today so our lawyer can review and append additional details. We wanted to make sure that if a certain time passes and we have not gotten an approval from the bank, that we can pull out of the short sale (after the good faith deposit). What would you say is a good time frame to wait? We are only interested in certain area of schenectady and we've only seen a few so far that were to our liking. We really like this one and it just so happened to be a short sale.
Just wish there was a way that we, the buyers, can push this along.
If you already have a place to live in the area and aren't desperate to move then it could work out. I'd give it at least 6 months...I heard it can take over a year easily. If you have to move in a certain time frame it is different then. I heard sometimes the bank won't take your offer because the person simply owes so much they would prefer the house to foreclose. Each situation is very different though. Your realtor should know a lot more about the specific situation from their realtor. Hope all goes well!
cshells - we finally got a hold of the seller's agent; she was giving us a story of how the 2nd lien is going to refused ANY offer, unless the 2nd lien is fully paid. It definitely sounds like the bank will is not budge. It seems odd to me, though, why the RE agent would even speak with the 2nd lien without having a offer to purchase; without any additional paperwork. I cannot trust that she will take our offer seriously. At this point, I feel upset that we can't push our offer and get rejected the legitimate way.
I put down my foot and told her to send us the contract -- she needs to do her due diligence as the seller's agent and let the bank decline our bid if need be. Or she needs to tell us that the seller refused our bid. Maybe I'm just being stubborn, but I don't want this short sale to fail just because this RE agent thinks the offer is too low, etc. etc. Her job is to relay information from bank to seller and buyer; and vice versa. She should not negotiate at this point. I just don't understand what she is trying to do....Maybe she's just trying to save us all time. Or maybe she wants me to up our bid (she said, if we increase our bid, the bank will probably warm up to it). I have read that the 1st and 2nd lien holder (same bank), will talk to each other to try to resolve and close. But I don't know who much of that applies.
We have the contract now -- we are going to our lawyer to review and add on as needed. After that, the seller needs to sign it; who knows how long that will take *eye roll*. Her take is that the bank is willing to let the house go to foreclosure.
Oh, we are living in a rental right now, no rush to move. BTW, we didn't hire a realtor. We just called the seller's RE agent; I dont think we need a realtor, do we?
BTW, we didn't hire a realtor. We just called the seller's RE agent; I dont think we need a realtor, do we?
This here is a huge part of your problem. She works for the seller. Not you. You should have your own realtor. They can find out info you can't and will respond to your calls in a timely manner. They will provide you with all the necessary paperwork. A lot of seller realtors don't want to deal with purchasers. They would talk to your realtor though. It's a strange system!
And it sounds like the bank wants a great deal more money. Sometimes it's not worth the hassle. The bank can take months getting back to you with an answer as well. Are you prepared to wait for months without any answers? Are you looking at a timeline for purchasing a house? There's a reason it's taking forever for all of the short sales and foreclosures to get off the market. The banks would be picking up speed if they started dragging their feet. They aren't in any rush to get this properties off their books.
So there was some dragging of the feet I found out. agent openly admitted that she was stalling because the seller had a deed in lieu in progress - and was waiting for seller to get confirmation that she cancelled the deed in lieu. I wish people would be more honest about things. Anyhow.....
After much time passing and they finally got everything in order, we were told that we had tentative approvals from both liens (we have seen both conditional approvals). these were dated early sept and mid sept. it's now Oct 1st. We had tentative closing date of 10/05 and 10/14 based on these docs.
Title search came up with a small 3rd lien which we all decided we would foot a little bit of it. So it's agreed, there is nothing else holding us back.... I would think.
We have been watching paint dry from the day that we confirmed we will pay a small chunk of the lien. We were hoping the bank will give us a closing date -- 4 days from the 1st closing date... we haven't heard anything!
We have the funds ready in the bank to wire to the bank -- just waiting for a date it sounds like (this is assuming the seller's lawyer and the agent has submitted all the necessary paper work (final HUD, etc). We were told by our lawyer that a 'closer' would need to be assigned by the bank and that's all we are waiting for.
my question is.... is this normal? To wait until the wee hours to assign a closer? I mean, how will we know if the bank will give us a definitive date? Our lawyer doesn't know much more than that they are waiting on the closer too. Is this normal??
My husband liquidated part of his 401K and borrowed the funds just to finance a portion of this thing -- I'm just hoping that this was not done in vain.
Sorry, it's just nerve racking that we will miss the 1st bank's deadline, even though we are waiting on them!
I've purchased 3 homes (1 we built) and closing was a PITA with all of them! The one we built we had to get a new bank 3 days before closing because we refused to close all of our credit card accounts. Sorry, but we worked very hard to have excellent credit and have huge limits. Keeping them in case we ever need them. Hopefully, we never do, but you never know!
The other 2 houses we found out about the closing the day before it happened. That is pretty normal unfortunately and neither house closed on the date in our contract to purchase either. Neither one was our fault. The first one was the bank dragging their feet and the second one was the seller and their attorney not getting their ducks in a row.
hi ss, thanks for your update, I'm definitely more relieved after your post. We didn't have official closing dates... we only have two conditional approvals from the 2 liens -- both at the same banks. Each lien gave us a different anticipated closing date. So we aren't sure what to do at the moment but wait... neither the lawyer nor the agent seem to know anything. We are just waiting for a 'closer' to resume the banks' progress. This is the first house my husband has together and we're trying to pay it all in cash. We have two other properties in nyc and never really had a problem with procedure. This is just taking far too long for a cash offer but I guess it all boils down to this transaction being a short sale.
But thanks, your update has put some relief in my state of mind. We're just going to have to see how this unfolds!
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