NEPA Housing Market...How Bad Is It?

[GirlsMom]

We were supposed to make settlement on our house on 12/27 and move to our home in Masthope. We found out less then 24 hrs. until settlement that the mortgage for our buyers fell through. The mortgage co. went out of business overnight. Our realtor went into hiding and would not return our calls for 3 days after he broke the news to us. When we finally got a hold of him he had nothing to say. The buyers tried to get another mortgage but got turned down - they were high risk. Anyway, our builder is allowed to market the property in Masthope again until we get another Agreement of Sale on our house.

It was a nightmare! I had to cancel movers, appliances, furniture, cancel the mail being forwarded, call all the utility companies up in Lackawaxen and here in Glenolden, had to call schools to get my kids re-enrolled and tell their new school they were not coming, I had to get doctors records sent back down here, etc., etc. We called 2 lawyers who both said the same thing - you got screwed big time and there is nothing you can do about it. They said unfortunately in today's market this is becoming common practice.

We fired our realtor and hired a new one. Our house is back on the market and hopefully we will sell soon. We already told our new realtor that we don't want anybody coming in our house who doesn't have solid income/credit. Anybody can get a "pre-approval" - doesn't mean much. We need to make sure the mortgage co. is solid as well as the buyers. The whole real estate business is a racket. I can't wait to be done with it! This whole thing pretty much soured the excitement of our move to NEPA.

[TERMINOLOGY]

That's a tough one Girlsmom. Sounds like you need some Yoga. I feel for you. We had some similar realator miscomunications that gave us stress when we last purchased. Selling donw in Saylorsburg went smooth.

Hope you can work things out.

[GirlsMom]

Hmmmm....yoga and a few cosmos should do it!

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by GirlsMom

Hmmmm....yoga and a few cosmos should do it!

A couple two tree cuts of red and a brewski never ain't hurt nobody either, heyna?


P.S. I have no idea who these people are; they just happened to be at the top of my image search! LOL!

[BLUEDIAMOND64]

GirlsMom

I really feel for you. What you went through is what we fear. Here is what I plan to do. I am going to get contractually that if anyone backs out of the deal they will lose their entire DEPOSIT. Also, I have been noticing certain real estate agencies bring people that are way out of their price range. Like you said, "pre-approval" does not mean a thing. Also 2 popular things now are: sellers assist: can offer to pay some of the closing costs - (I refuse to do this). I have what is called a agent's incentive. On top of the commission the agent gets extra money for selling the house. Real estate market is cutthroat with some agencies and the more exposure you have the better chance of selling. I hope things work out for you.

The Hat

[memoriesbre]

Ok, if I sold my home in SWFL on my own, you can do it too. We had an agent with CB and she was horrible. We got out of the contract within 2 months. I was pushing our home on the free sites "one of which is very very well known" I put up tons of photos, tons of info too. We then got together with a couple that worked for Remax. We made them a deal that we would give the 2% or $5,000 whichever was more if we sold the house on our own instead of paying them the whole comm. He did a beautiful virtual tour of our home and I also added that to the listing on the "free site". Within two weeks of doing that, I had two serious buyers from NJ. The first came but without his wife because she was still in NJ trying to sell their place. He loved it and took tons of photos and went back and showed his wife. But within the next two days we had another call from a buyer in NJ that came down the next week and saw our home. He came with his realtor friend and within 2 hours contracts were signed. I sold our home on my own. Homes that were for sale when I was pushing my home on the free sites are still for sale in my old neighborhood. So if you have determination, you can do it too.

I have been watching the real estate market closely. I hear that it should start to turn around in '09. They say that by 2011 it will be a hot sellers market.
I sure hope so for all that are selling. We might even sell our home eventually and downsize but we want to wait until it is a sellers market!

Hope this helps ya!