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My wife and I are prospective home buyers. We recently put an offer in on a house and negotiated to a verbally agreed-upon price and terms. The offer is contingent on a home inspection.
We drafted the contract for this and submitted it to seller's agent on Tuesday night. It is now Thursday morning and we have not received a signed contract.
The seller's agent told us just now that the buyer is waiting for us to schedule an inspection before signing the contract (this was never communicated to us previously). We actually already were lining up an inspector but wanted to get the signed contract first before proceeding with the inspection (which we are prepared to do immediately). We told the seller just now that we will not do the inspection until the house is under contract and are waiting to hear back. The ball is in their court now.
We are not sure why the seller is delaying the contract signature due to waiting for inspection. Is this common? We suspect that the seller is either:
A. Not happy with the low price we negotiated and just buying time to perhaps see how some other prospects pan out
B. Concerned about us doing the inspection for some reason
I was wondering if anyone else ever encountered this or had other insights.
Probably concerned that you will demand all sorts of repairs/replacements AFTER the price is settled. I'd wait and see what the inspection showed before I'd sign a final price. They'd be foolish not to wait. From what I've been reading on CD , buyers today want a like new house no matter how old it is.
OOPs I was typing when you added that you have a realtor so disregard my points about hiring one.
I would also recommend that you have a knowledgable full time agent on your side representing you. There are so many pitfalls in a real estate deal and relying on the sellers agent is a big mistake. Did you sign a dual agency agreement with the agent? if not then that agent is working for the seller and himself not you.
Besides all that in my state, Mass. we have the offer which is a binding contract unless something is changed on it such as after an inspection the buyer wants money off up to a certain amount. All houses even brand new ones have issues but the last thing a seller wants is to be grinded in the negotiation then be grinded even more when a problem arises. I can understand why the seller doesn't want to sign.
Without the sellers signature you could pay the money for the inspection and he could turn around and not sell the house.
Normally your buyers agent would ease this stalemate and perhaps you will need to make concessions. If the inspection report comes back with only minor issues you will not go after the seller to repair them. If there is something major you might not want ot buy the house after all.
It sounds like you still have some negotiating to do to get that seller to sign. I wouldn't proceed without it.
Good luck
Well, no sooner did I post this than we just minutes ago received a signed contract and are going to proceed with the inspection.
My guess is that they might have had a prospect or two in the wings and they wanted to see if those panned out before putting ink to paper. It doesn't matter any more, though. Thanks for everyone's responses.
It appears you are okay as of now but just to put my 2 cents in. I would not recommend anyone do an inspection without a signed contract in place unless they are okay with possibly losing $300-500.
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