So the next morning, I decided to regroup. I scoured Zillow for more listings to go and see, and decided to expand the budget in our search parameters, since I had already looked at all the listings that fit what we were looking for. I found four new ones that I was highly interested in, and forwarded them to the realtor. By that evening, one of them had been pulled from the market, and one more went pending. She made appointments to go see the other two in the morning.
Dave was working that Sunday, so I looked at the videos by myself as soon as they came through around 3. I immediately fell completely, hopelessly in love with the first house. It was PERFECT and absolutely gorgeous. If I had picked out a house myself, it would have been this one. Top to bottom, I loved everything. I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried when I watched the video.
Dave came home, looked at it, and said “Let’s make an offer.”
It said in the listing that they needed to move NOW, and it was a quick move in. Sounded like a match made in heaven to me.
Our realtor said the house was overpriced, so we were coming in $30,000 under asking. Turns out the owner of the home is also the realtor, which immediately became clear was NOT going to be working in our favor. She immediately said that if we needed a house quickly, we should have come in much closer to asking, and countered with $5,000 below asking. She then sent an official counter offer later that evening, dropping another $500, which was unfortunately still way higher than we wanted to go. After three more rounds of numbers back and forth, and numerous bluffing “it’s clear we can’t come to an agreement on this, good luck to you” emails from both sides, we got a call that a price had been reached on Tuesday night. I said fine, but since we have come up so much, she needs to include something. Put the water softener in, and say that we want the carpet cleaned. If she agrees to that, we have a deal.
The realtor wrote up a new contract Wednesday morning, and I sent it off to my dad to have someone look over the language and make sure there were no issues. This took longer than expected, and the seller became agitated when we hadn’t returned it to her by 3 PM- we were under a time crunch in order to make a two-week close date happen. We did send it back to her, signed, at 4. We didn’t hear a peep about it, even after our realtor sent an email and a text to make sure that she had received it. Around 7 PM, she texted again. This time she got a response.
“This is not what we agreed on, I’m done with you, good bye.”
Pardon me???
My realtor immediately reached back out to her to see what she was so upset about. No answer. She called. No answer. She emailed. No answer. This went on for a couple of hours. It was clear that there was going to be no further communication. I texted my realtor, asking if she thought it would be of any benefit if I called her myself. She initially said no, she didn’t think that was wise, but after several more failed contact attempts, even after getting the woman’s broker involved, it was clear that things could not get worse. I called her at 9 PM.
I introduced myself, and she laughed and said “Oh yes, I was wondering if I was going to hear from you.” We had a very nice conversation together, where she expressed her displeasure at my realtor adding things in to the contract, such as a $380 home warranty, and talking to her broker about some ridiculous terms that she was insisting on including. I said, “I understand, but we have come so far, can we just work together and get this worked out? You want to get to your new house, and so do I.”
We walked through the contract starting at 10 PM. By the end of it, I was exhausted and just wanted to be done. She told me that she had eliminated several household items in an earlier version of the contract, including draperies and rods, the garage refrigerator, and the water softener, so she was annoyed that it showed up again. I said fine. I didn’t really care at that point, what I really wanted was the price, the washer dryer, a quick closing date, and the ability to walk away if the house didn’t have a good inspection and/or appraisal (which she had been fighting).
I talked to MY realtor in the morning (Thursday), told her the extent of the conversation, what she was upset about, and what we had come to terms on. She wrote up a new, clean contract and sent it to the other party to sign.
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.
The seller emailed me to tell me that she was meeting with her broker late in the afternoon to go over the contract before signing it. The broker sent an email to my realtor, telling her that she was to have no further contact with the sellers (at their request) and that while she would make sure that my realtor received the full commission for the sale, she (the broker) would be mediating from this point forward. My realtor was very upset and hurt about the whole thing, and expressed to me that she had not been treated this way ever in her 35 years of experience.
That evening, I received an email from the broker, introducing herself to me, telling me that she and the seller had worked up the contract to the terms that we agreed on last night, and that I would be receiving it shortly. She did let me know that there were two changes that had to be made- and increase in the escrow account- up $10,000- and a change to the close date of the contract- from June 27 to July 11, although they were going to try and get it done for July 3.
I was quite upset about this, as it meant 1. my husband would be in Florida for approximately three weeks and living in an extended stay. 2., I would be here with J by myself, 3. There would be significant extra expenses for living, as we would be paying for a hotel for David, and additional rent in our current home for me and J, and 4. I would be handling the move and the rest of the packing solo.
After a Category III meltdown, Dave reassured me and told me that I wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees. Sure, it would be awful to be separated, but it was only for a couple of weeks, and then we would end up with a house that we absolutely loved, and besides, we weren’t going to be able to get into ANY house prior to July 3 at this point anyway. I calmed down, read the first half of the contract (yes, I was only sent the first half), and then waited for the second part.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
The next morning, I still hadn’t received the second half. At 12:30, I received the full contract with instructions not to change anything in order to expedite things and be able to close on July 3. I told her that I had some concerns that I wanted to go over with her prior to signing, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything until my husband was available to sign later that afternoon.
She called me around 4 PM, and we talked for about 20 minutes. I expressed concern to her that she had it written as the larger escrow amount was to be accompanying the offer, it was 4:30 PM on a Friday and she had not given me any wiring instructions. She wrote an email to the title company while we were on the phone, CC-ing me on it, asking for wiring instructions and asking if it was okay to just send a check (side note: I never received this email). She asked who I was using for an appraiser, I told her I wasn’t sure of his name, I just had a first name and phone number. She said that she would send me some as well. I told her I had already called the guy that my realtor had recommended, but Id be happy to look at her list as well.
We initialed the contract and returned it. I got called back into work.
The appraiser called me as I was walking in, I told him we had a signed contract and to call the seller.
She then began calling and texting me, furious that I had called the appraiser without waiting for her list, because the appraiser hadn’t been to the area in about 6 years. I said I didn’t know that, and I would call and cancel and find another one. She unleashed on me via text and told me “not to bother at this point, I’m over it.”
Frankly, at this point I had no idea who, if anyone, was on my side and giving me good advice.
David and I decided that we were not going to use an appraiser from either side, we called the appraiser that did the one for the previous home in the same neighborhood. Everyone seemed happy with this.
At 9:30 PM, I received an email from the seller, telling me that there was some sort of issue with the house she was moving into.
She called at 10:35 PM, telling me that in her contract for her new house, she had to close on the sale of her current home by July 11 as a contingency with a close date of August 8, and that she had a verbal contract (??????????) with her sellers to close on July 11 or before. The sellers had decided that they were no longer going to leave until August 1. She was calling me to begin laying groundwork, saying that she was sure that we didn’t want to wait, we could look at other houses, etc. I told her to talk to her broker in the morning and to just see what the morning brought.
I called my realtor to make sure that my initial reaction of, “Boy, that sounds like a personal problem; we have a signed contract” was correct. It was.
At approximately 9:00 AM on Saturday morning, I received the following email from her:
Jacqueline,
Its kind of ironic because we are in the same boat, you had a contract to buy that first house for a while and now the same thing has happened to me. I am sorry but after much consideration, and the other party cancelling on the other home we can not move. We do not have escrow or deposit from you, so their is nothing at hand at the moment. That does not mean I will not help you if that is what you want. This deal has been wrong from the start and I am not going to ignore the signs. I am truly sorry you have had a raw deal, but from {your realtor’s] comments and insults,about how ugly are house is, not worth it I should sell at around 300 to fighting with sellers to sell on the other hand it gets old. I can only smile for so long and cheer everyone else on. We can not get this deal to come together with out it being at our expense. I can not force people to do the right thing or sell their home. I cannot even get them to respond to letting us do your appraisal. We were the ones being objective to get the job done working with everyone elses timeframes. No real estate deals are this hard. The only ones that are, are the ones that blow up anyway. No one should waste more money trying to make something work that is clearly not working. You have had to waste enough time and have to find a home that will work for you and your family in a timeframe that suits you. I dont want to hold you up and I would rather help you find a new home or you can call [your realtor]. I am just offering suggestions and you can choose to do what you feel most comfortable with.
Attached is a cancellation of contract, I would appreciate you and your husband signing it.
The remainder of the email was her telling me that she would be happy to help me find another home.
You. Can’t. Be. Serious.
I forwarded the email to my realtor, who sent it to a real estate attorney that she was familiar with. She also forwarded this email to the seller’s broker, who apologized profusely for her agents behavior.
My realtor also asked that all future communication go between herself and the broker, and that the seller was not to contact me again as we were in contact with an attorney. The broker replied “Absolutely. With profound embarrassment, I apologize. [She] will not contact buyers again.”
I spoke with the lawyer, who said that the escrow thing was ridiculous, that we were in the right on this. He said that with a $500 retainer, he would call and send a letter to her, and that her reaction would dictate where this would go. If she gave in after the contact with the attorney, we could go ahead with the execution of the contract. If she did not, we would have to take her to court (which we don’t have the time or money to do).
After we discussed our options, we determined that we were hesitant to use a lawyer as a $500 bluff, especially prior to an appraisal, and that while we explored other home options, we would try to reach out and see if she actually wanted to cancel the whole contract, as she had indicated, or whether we could work through the timing issues.
My realtor reached out the broker. Broker repeatedly reached out to the seller. She refused to ever respond.
*end Sunday night, still no house, move-out date in 9 days*
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