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My best advice is to forget buying and rent for 6 months or a year. Give yourself time to get to know the place as a resident, not a tourist. Vegas is not for everyone.
I disagree with this bit -- the rent first bit. I agree that Vegas is not for everyone. But I quoted it to illustrate the following point:
If I'm going to move ANYWHERE, I'm going to stick it out for at least a couple years. And if I'm committed to that, I'm also committed to not blowing at least $20K on rent. I'd rather buy a place, decide the town isn't for me, and then sell the place.
I'm going to do so much work on it in two years that I will recoup all my money and probably turn a profit (Great Recessions aside, of course.)
I never recommend renting -- even to my tenants! Go get your own house as soon as you're able. It's a piece of real estate. It's really not as big a deal as people make it out to be. If you don't like the area, fix it up a little, sell it and move on. I'd rather turn a profit on a mistake than take a six-month/year/two-year bath on rent and STILL make the same mistake.
Don't fall in love with any house here till it's yours. Even if the listing is dead in the water for months, as soon as you become interested there will be multiple offers. Don't let them game you. Play smart. Offer what you are willing to pay and that's it. And never let the agent know your magic number. Put time limits on your offer. Unless the seller is out of state, 24 hours is fair. All the un-necessary delays are a tactic too.
My best advice is to forget buying and rent for 6 months or a year. Give yourself time to get to know the place as a resident, not a tourist. Vegas is not for everyone. Just my best guess but I think about half of the people who move here end up leaving within a year or so. Then you can learn all the areas and househunt at your own pace and on your schedule. You won't be under the pressure of being forced to buy by X date. And should you get here and hate it, you won't be out all that money!
Use all those online resources to help you learn the market. Before you even LOOK at listings check out everything in the area you like that has been sold in the last 6 months. That price per SF will give you a very good idea what the prices should be. A lot of people are still underwater and they list a price that will let them sell without taking money to closing. And that's not necessarily what the home is worth.
The only buyers who are going to be able to get quickly to the proper price for a property are those who do it for a living. A naive buyer might be able to arrive at a reasonable price for a standard house in an active tract...but even that can be hard. Best house in the tract is a familiar problem. One small tract near us has two completely different levels of home...a very deluxe semi-custom and a mass market middle product down two levels. How does a buyer know that? And what is the impact on a very deluxe semi-custom to be intermixed with much lesser quality homes?
We find that after selling a few hundred homes over 15 years that more than 80% of new residents stick. Lose more people to the grim reaper and nursing homes than leaving over the city or the heat. We do lose them 10 years later when they age and move near children.
Drop dead times on contracts have not worked for years. The industry ignores them...brought to you by all the bank owned that never gave a drop dead date a thought. It does provide the right to go to contract on another but you can do that anyway.
I disagree with this bit -- the rent first bit. I agree that Vegas is not for everyone. But I quoted it to illustrate the following point:
If I'm going to move ANYWHERE, I'm going to stick it out for at least a couple years. And if I'm committed to that, I'm also committed to not blowing at least $20K on rent. I'd rather buy a place, decide the town isn't for me, and then sell the place.
I'm going to do so much work on it in two years that I will recoup all my money and probably turn a profit (Great Recessions aside, of course.)
I never recommend renting -- even to my tenants! Go get your own house as soon as you're able. It's a piece of real estate. It's really not as big a deal as people make it out to be. If you don't like the area, fix it up a little, sell it and move on. I'd rather turn a profit on a mistake than take a six-month/year/two-year bath on rent and STILL make the same mistake.
That's TWO mistakes, the way I look at things.
Here is a place where Scoop and I pretty much agree.
Note though the fixup can be a big portion of this. If you buy a nicer house and fix it up you will probably never get the cost of the fixup back. You need a deficient house which you bring up to the standard or a little better. Any more than that and you end up in the best house in the neighborhood syndrome. RE success on an over blown best in the neighborhood is virtually impossible. The need to get a price well past any appraisal limiting you to those who love the house and can afford to do as they please...that is no more than 5 or 10% of the market. Classically the gal goes for it and the guy says sorry we cannot afford the loss.
I have so many questions about what your agent has said and done.
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She said that the listing had been withdrawn because the people that are selling it are not licensed real estate agents in Nevada anymore. (They bought the house as a foreclosure and are flipping it.)
You don't need to be a licensed agent to sell your own property. Neither are you required to list the property on the local multiple listing service. There is no reason your agent couldn't have written an offer for you.
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she doesn't respond back to us until several days later
You make an offer and the agent doesn't tell you if it was accepted? Or was the offer never presented to the seller? That would be even worse.
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She has us sign an offer that she has "just drawn up". It has an expiration date of January the 27th as the due date for the counter offer. We make an offer of $380,000 (asking price was $399,000), and seller pays "up to 3% of closing cost".
Is that really how the offer was worded? 'Up to 3%' means no more than 3%. The seller would satisfy this requirement by paying 0%. It's like those ads on late night TV that say 'make up to $250,000 per year working part time from home.
I presume that by 'due date for the counter offer' you mean deadline for the seller to accept the offer.
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at which time our realtor says that the seller has given her a "verbal counter"
A contract for the sale of real property must be in writing to be binding. The seller has no obligation to accept the terms he just offered!
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Our realtor says that we have to decide on one before they will write up the offer.
NO. Your agent has a duty to present ANY offer you want to make.
For your own peace of mind, find a different agent with a different realty company. $380k is a lot of money.
I am also a real estate agent in the area. Here is my advice...
1) Do not make any offers that you are uncomfortable with.
2) If you do continue with an offer, make sure it is contingent upon appraised value. During the peak of the market in really desirable areas some agents will try to get you to sign a contract paying the difference between your offer and appraised value if it is lower. Do not do it.
3) Ask your agent for the property listing history, tax record, and for comparable sales to get a full picture of what is happening with the home.
4) If you do not trust your agent and this does not work out, you are better off finding one that you trust. Staying in a bad marriage makes everything more difficult for everyone involved.
Good luck! I hope you get your home!
If a property is withdrawn unconditionally the buyer's agent can try to present an offer but the seller has no agent and the seller has no requirement to respond. If, however, the withdrawal is conditional the buyer's agent has to get permission to talk to the seller from the seller's agent. If the withdrawal is unconditional the buyer's agent has no coop agreement and would need a buyer's broker agreement with the buyer which open a whole new set of concerns.
All this is even more complicated if, as in this case, both agents were with the same brokerage. The broker likely would need a lawyer to determine how to proceed.
Flips often require no appraisal contingency. Simple reason - the property is not going to appraise. A buyer can use an appraisal contingency in his offer but sellers can and will counter it out. Seller's can also insist on cash only and avoid any appraisal.
Standard language in a Las Vegas RPA calls for the payment of closing costs up to a dollar limit.
Verbal offers can be made and can be accepted. They are not enforceable however unless reduced to writing. So you reduce them to writing once agreed upon.
What strikes me about the OP was that the listing agent didn't respond to your offer in a timely manner. Didn't your offer have a deadline? Since the deadline passed, your offer expired.
Ok, so truth be told I am a bit confused still about what is legal and what is not. There seems to be some different opinions on that here.
But yes, our realtor has used shady language, and the sudden "other offer so make yours now and make it high" is being treated by our realtor as if it never happened. I assume she never gave the seller our original offer. It is however close to what their counter offer is, and if she is playing both sides, she would know that we were originally ok with that deal. That is one of our major red flags.
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Originally Posted by Cold Warrior
I have so many questions about what your agent has said and done.
You don't need to be a licensed agent to sell your own property. Neither are you required to list the property on the local multiple listing service. There is no reason your agent couldn't have written an offer for you.
You make an offer and the agent doesn't tell you if it was accepted? Or was the offer never presented to the seller? That would be even worse.
Is that really how the offer was worded? 'Up to 3%' means no more than 3%. The seller would satisfy this requirement by paying 0%. It's like those ads on late night TV that say 'make up to $250,000 per year working part time from home.
I presume that by 'due date for the counter offer' you mean deadline for the seller to accept the offer.
A contract for the sale of real property must be in writing to be binding. The seller has no obligation to accept the terms he just offered!
NO. Your agent has a duty to present ANY offer you want to make.
For your own peace of mind, find a different agent with a different realty company. $380k is a lot of money.
I agree - she could have written the original offer and presented it to them back in mid January when she said that there was going to be another offer that same night. Again, now she pretends that never happened. So I assume she didn't present it to the seller back then.
And yes, the offer was worded "up to 3%". But we were ok wth it if we could get the house for $380,000. However one of the verbal counter offers says "pay $400,000 and the seller wll pay up to 3%". So we would end up paying $1,000 MORE than listing price plus the closing cost with that wording.
Yes, due date meant deadline for the seller to accept the offer. And after it passed it took 9 Days for us to hear anything.
The listing is withdrawn from any MLS listing site. (I spent 2 hours trying to find it as I needed some information for a realtor I have been talking with in Alaska.)
With it being not listed anywhere, there being no other offers since it got listed, and with our realtor acting this way, would it be a stretch to ask her (or her boss) if she is representing both?
I have been researching houses for over a year in the LV area, and I've disliked pretty much them all. The reason we "fell in love" with this house is because it fits our needs perfectly. (We need a special kind of house with a special kind of layout.)
We are still open to the idea of building our own (we know several contractors in the area), but buying would speed up the moving process greatly. I'm accustomed to shady realtors in Alaska, so I was wary from day one with this one. I am still interested in the house, my husband is more inclined to "give it up", but we need to know what we can do to find out the truth of what s going on, and what to do once we know it. If that makes sense?
Sounds like you avoided a train wreck of a deal. Consider yourself lucky and find another house.
What is it about this "quirky" house that made it so desirable? There are SEVERAL people on the Las Vegas forum who make their living buying and selling real estate. And many of them don't even see you as a client to be milked.
I'm probably not your guy. Because I deal with a small area of town, where I know the history of every property in this small area. When something comes up that fits my criteria, I buy it. Case closed.
But... my area of town has some very quirky houses. Describe your dream house in exact detail, and you might get lucky. Just beware of anyone who contacts you looking to pick you up as a client. The number-one rule with any agent is for you to pick them. Don't let them pick you.
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