The Woes of Selling a House
I have never sold a house before. After living through buying two houses, I thought that selling one would be less stress than buying because as a seller you aren’t applying for a loan and all that it entails. However I was wrong.
After having the house on the market for about six weeks I have someone interested in buying. They tell me they want to make an offer but can’t sign the paperwork until their next shared day off. While I am waiting another individual tells me they are interested in the house and would be able to pay cash. I keep their name but since I have given my word I wait for an actual written contract.
At the signing, I ask for earnest money and the individuals are shocked. The loan that they are applying for is 100% financing and they never heard of putting any money down. The in-laws with the couple state that they just bought a house and didn’t have to put money down with the contract. Uneasily I agreed.
A week later I am informed that their financial institution can’t get everything ready to close on the second of April as agreed. It will probably be the 15th. I am upset, assuming that this will cost me additional money. However, I do discover that I pay interest for the whole month so my payoff amount won’t change, easing my pain. However revision of the contracts are needed.
Part of the agreement is new carpet. As I am pulling up the old I discover wood rot at an exterior door. After going to my local hardware stores I discover that repairs will be $500 -$900 dollars.
Then the home inspector tells the buyers that some of the shingles are cracked. They want a new roof. At this point I am ready to say forget it. However I agree to contact my insurance company. Luckily the problem is diagnosed as hail damage and not an aging roof so my insurance company pays. However before I can put on a new roof a major storm comes through and even though no shingles look to be missing I have water coming into the garage through the ceiling. The sheet rock is bowing under the weight. Oh and again revisions of the contract are needed to include new roof.
The house hasn’t been assessed yet, so I hurriedly get all the repairs done within a four day period. Roof installed, sheet rock replaced, garage painted, door installed and carpet installed.
Appraiser comes out and does her thing, using an Apple iPad. While I feel that I have priced the house to sell, I am worried about the rumors of property values decreasing in my community. I am a little anxious about her report.
Buyers report that the lender doesn’t have the appraisal yet but there are no red flags. Closing is on schedule.
Five days before closing I discover that my lender didn’t give me surviver benefits so I own 50% of the house and then I am heir to the other 50% along with my brothers. They need to sign off on the contract. Power of attorney letters are sent and that crisis is averted.
Two days before closing I receive a call from the buyer. Their lender hasn’t received the appraisal. The appraiser experienced a power surge during our recent storms and her iPad crashed. They are hopeful that they will get it in the next couple of days but there is no way we will close on the 12th. Because of the closing date, I hadn’t made a house payment for April and now I am going to probably be billed a late charge.
Title company calls me and there are still some questions over needed paperwork on my right to sell the house . And so the saga continues. Hopefully we will close this next week.
Do you have your own horror story of either buying or selling a house?
– Leigh AAR
I have heard that some contractors that knock on your door will put hail damage on your house if you don’t have any and that there is a website that teaches them how to do it at hailfraud dot
Lynda X – wow you story has got my beat.
Liz – Thanks. Still no word as of today. I called about 4:30 and nothing.
LeeB, maggie b. and Shanna – thanks for the sympathy. I hope it works out this week.
You have my TOTAL sympathy. When I put my first house on the market, my furnace decided to konk out. My b-i-l could fix anything, and he took it apart, leaving the parts on the basement floor after he discovered I needed a part. In the meantime, people are coming in to look at the house. We ordered the part from the factory, but then, they went on a SIX WEEK vacation, so I wasted all those opportunities of people. Then, after I pulled the weeds by the back yard against the foundation to make it look better, the basement flooded. I was so naive that it never occurred to me that it might do that. So, now my realtor was telling people, “Of course, we will guarantee a working furnace and that the basement will not flood again.” It didn’t do any good. No buyers in a market that was red hot. In the meantime, I had a signed commitment to buy the house I wanted at a great price because I signed the sales agreement before the market heated up enormously, about a week after the commitment, but now it meant I would carry two mortgages at a time when I had very, very little money. I feared that I would have to let the second house go, sell my first house and not have enough money to buy its replacement. The market was v. hot at 11 1/2% interest because the state was offering 8 1/2% interest, if you qualified. Finally, I got a buyer whom I asked to apply ASAP for the lesser mortgage, but after two months, nothing happened. I called the bank, desperate, one night about 6:00 and got the president to whom I begged to help in processing the mortgage of the buyers, and later was told that the couple (former students) hadn’t applied until a couple of weeks before! I don’t think I have EVER been as angry, so I called up their realtor and told her off. She very, very coldly told me that she knew they had applied two months before. I later found out the bank had lied to me, so when I apologized, she refused to accept my apology. The people of my new house did not want to sell to me because they could have gotten about $10,000 more if they had sold it just a couple of weeks later, and they were so nasty at the closing that my realtor, lawyer, and theirs all said that they had NEVER experienced such a nasty closing. I was surprised, frankly, at one point that the owner did not bite the leg of her realtor, she was so mad. However, I lived happily in that house for 30 years. Oh, yeah, another thing: the day I moved in, I kept saying, “At the end, I’ll take a nice hot shower.” When I got all ready to do so, filthy and totally exhausted, I discovered that there was no hot water in my new house. The furnace was broken.
Leigh, you have my total sympathy. We’re in the middle of buying and selling and moving a big enough distance not to be able to do the move in and out in one day. The internet has become part of the scene since the last time I moved and I’m not sure it’s an improvement on the phone and post.
Hope everything finally falls into place for you.
No horror stories from me but gosh, what a hassle for you. I’m so sorry you are having to do all that extra work.
But I am surprised that they don’t have to put any money down. I’ve never heard of that either.
That’s terrible. Hopefully things will all work out this month. And that appraiser sounds like an idiot. Shouldn’t the report have been in the cloud?
That sucks! Never sold a house before but I have bought. I signed more paperwork than when I signed up for military.