Selling a house- some help?

My wife and I are selling our house and currently only have it for sale by owner. We are/were waiting for spring to list it with a realtor but a couple saw the sign and really like the house. They ordered us a fair price, a little lower than we wanted but still acceptable.

The odd part of the deal is the buyers are doing 100% financing so they offered $10,000 more than the asking price and asked us to use $12000 for closing costs and their realtor fees. Like I said, we would still be getting close to or original asking price, about $2000 less than we ideally wanted.

They had the inspector come Monday and now just tonight their realtor got back to us. The inspector said the roof is old and the attic showed signs of moisture, although he was only in the attic for less than a minute. He just popped the attic hatch and looked in, didn't actually walk around up there. The buyers are asking us to replace the entire roof before signing a P&S.

Since this is the first time we've ever done this, does all this seem pretty reasonable and following normal procedures or are the buyers à bit off base? Id just like to hear opinions from people who have done this before since we don't have a realtor helping us right now.

 

You could higher your own home inspector to look at your home ad he will tel! You what he he thinks is wrong with your house. It would probably cost you about 300.00 depending on where you live. Moisture in the attic could be from poor air circulation but and inspection would better help you. As for the roof the inspector or a roofing contractor would be able to tell you if you need a new roof. How about trying a roofing contractor first cause they give free estimates to see what they say about the roof and the moisture in the attic. I would take that route first then if the buyers come back with other stuff then the home inspector might be a good idea. Good luck!

 

The last house I had inspected took 3-4 hours total. He went through the entire attic inspecting the wood, wiring and insulation. Just that part was close to 20 minutes for my 2000 sqft ranch.

Get a roofing company to come by and check on it. Ask your neighbors or co-workers who they used for a roof.

 

I was home for the entire inspection, it was about an hour and 15 mins. He didn't go into the attic and never went on the roof. Not sure if that's standard or not.
Either way we are most likely not going to be replacing anything, we told the buyers from the first it was "as is".

 

Last home inspection I witnessed the inspector crawled into the attic space for over an hour, took pictures of said moisture damage and issues and showed us. Whole inspection took over 3 three hours. You are not required to fix the roof but you are required to disclose that information now if you don't. You will have to come down in price though. The moisture damage you could fix yourself if it's not too bad. With a fixed roof you most likely will have a bid between multiple buyers and could get over asking price.

 

Well, this was all for nothing, heard back from the buyer's agent this morning, they don't want the house if they don't get a new roof. I didn't like their agent from the start and think they are getting really bad advice, but that's their issue. House is back up for sale, if anybody is looking and you live in south east MA and want a house near 495 and 95.

 

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to look into that definitely.

 

It sounds like what they were doing was all part of the negotiation process but I agree, they are getting bad information and sounds like they got a crappy home inspector. A coworker of mine referred me to a home inspector when I bought my house and he was awesome. It's a small house but he spent a good 3 hours in the house and I ended up with 2 pages of notes. I went back at the seller for a couple small items which I did not pick up on prior to making an offer. A good home inspector is well worth it. If you'd like, I can dig out his contact info. If you decide to go with a realtor, I have one of those I can recommend also. She helped us find our house, offered great advice and pointed things out when walking through the houses we looked at and was very responsive to us. She works out of Attleboro so pretty close to you also. I think the home inspector was out of Canton or Stoughton.

 

Just a thought. It is possible to escrow enough money to replace the roof into the proceeds from the sale. Let's say you need to net $50,000 from the sale of your house. Your house is worth $200,000 and you owe $130,000. Realtor's commission on a $200,000 sale is going to be $5000 (based on 2.5% and in your scenario only one realtor involved - keep in mind, since you did not list the house you are not required to pay realtor commissions unless you agree to do so in the contract). Let's say you have $5000 closing costs (this is just for illustration, your costs may be higher or lower based on any number of factors). At this point you are looking at a sale price of $200,000, less $130,000 to pay off the mortgage and another $10,000 in commissions and closing costs. You are at this point left with $60,000. Out of those proceeds you could set aside $7000 to the buyer that is earmarked for a new roof. You walk away with $53,000, they buyer is happy because they get the new roof and you don't have to front the money for it or worry about picking a contractor. Everyone walks away happy. Always remember that just about anything in a real estate contract is negotiable.

Some advice to you would be that to protect yourself, make sure that if the sale is not an as-is sale, make sure to specifically place a limit on the $ amount of any repairs you are willing to perform. This way if the buyer gets too demanding, you have an out. What some buyers will try to do is to state that they will want you to do repairs up to a certain % of the purchase price. Sometimes buyers will use this as a way to get repairs done that are not necessary and that would normally come out of your pocket and not theirs, effectively reducing the cost of the house. (I am not talking about legitimate damage discovered during the inspection process, but nit picky things.) Also remember that if you agreed to it in the contract, you are obligated to follow through.

 

Agreed.

 

As first time home buyers we had a relatively smooth and painless experience. As first time home SELLERS I'm finding the process to be way more a PITA. The original buyers really liked the house but after their inspection they wanted us to replace the roof, when we said that's not possible they had their realtor tell us the deal was completely off.

Two days later the buyer himself, not their realtor, called me and talked to me personally. He offered my a price $2000 less than what the original offer was, so a total of about 5,000 less than what we originally asked. I verbally agreed to that price and now we are waiting for our attorney to write the purchase and sale.

I can't imagine this is standard practice but whatever gets things done I guess. IMO their realtor is somewhat lazy and a bit non-smart but it is what it is. SO...the final steps from what I've read up on are signing the purchase and sale and then the actual closing.

Anything I should know about that hasn't already been said or isn't obvious?

 

If you have your attorney writing it up I seriously doubt there is anything we're going to come up with. If it is their attorney writing it up, I'd say get an attorney yourself to review the transaction just to be sure no "legal-sleaze" is slipped by you in the contract.

 

We just purchased our home in January, and although I am no sure of how long the inspection took, I received a 7 page document with butt loads of info.

Since you are selling by owner and that is how I bought my home here's what sold me.

The guy was for sale by owner but had paid to do the MLS registration, he already had a housing inspection done by the company we were going to use and he had receipts for everything identified (minor things) that were fixed.

We made an offer after only 1 pass through the house.

 

You don't have to do jack shit to your house. If they don't like the roof the way it is, they can replace it.... and I wouldn't knock money off of the sale to compensate for the roof, they'll ask you to do that.

People who are desperate to sell will bow down to these requests or lower the price... that's why they hire an inspector.

 

Seems par for the course. My wife and I listed as a FSBO and had a good offer come in right away. Their inspector/brother of course decided it was just a matter of days before the house simultaneously flooded and burned down due to our tankless hot water heater. The numbers are a bit fuzzy now, but they changed their offer to us paying their closing and a few thousand in repair money. In that scenario we would owe money at closing, so we didn't go through with it.

After dealing with that stress and a number of other uncomfortable FSBO situations we listed with a realtor...whom we later discovered was completely and totally incompetent when the same scenario unfolded again.

We now rent it out, which has worked nicely for us. The renter pays our mortgage plus a chunk of profit each month. We fixed the issue with the water heater for about $400. In the end I'm glad it turned out the way it did. We continue to build equity in the house on someone else's dime, and our tenants are great. Over the past two years the value has increased about $10,000 while our loan payoff continues to shrink.

 

I know there's an incredible urge to sell a house without a realtor, but...at the same time, there's some very good reasons to have a realtor. Especially, if you can find a good one. The biggest bonus, is they know all the legalities of the process and can steer you in the right direction so you don't get screwed.

We just sold our first house a year ago in April. Our Realtor was recommended by some personal friends and I can honestly say....the experience went soooo well, that I would recommend them to anyone.

Without a Realtor...you truly are flying by the seat of your pants.

Start asking around...your neighbors, friends, relatives....for suggestions on Realtors. If things aren't going well...get rid of them and find another.

 

I don't think they are off base, but at the end of the day you can tell them to go shove it too. When we purchased our house, the roof was saggy in the middle and part of our offer was we paid asking price, but had $10,000 held in escrow for a few plumbing issues as well as a new roof.

Im happy that is seems like things are going to work out for you (I remember the neighborly issues so I am glad that should be a thing of the past), but if it ends up going sour, let me know. As a surveyor, I work with a couple realtors who are good people and I can recommend someone who will make sure they are watching out for you.

But hope everything goes smoothly going forward!