Sea Speed said:

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ElephantRider said:

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Sea Speed said:

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Sure seems like they had an out to me and took it.

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And you're salty about it. I'm saying in your opinion, they shouldn't have had an out even though you did all along.

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What it boils down to 100% is that I took these people at their word and thought that was good enough. Guess I won't make that mistake again.

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If you want to dictate terms to another party and want them to honor the deal, put skin in the game next time. Stop trying to make this a morality thing. You tried to have your cake and eat it too and want to put all the blame on the sellers when you lost all of your leverage.

As someone who has done quite a few real estate deals and learned my own lessons along the way, I offer this advice. Make the offer your are comfortable with, say it is your best, and then just wait on their reply. It is all you can do. It is really easy to get attached to a place and go out of your comfort zone, especially with a place you really love. But, there is always another home out there. It never feels like it, until you find one. I used to be the worst at that point, and I have learned a lot. Always make a written offer and opt for the option period. Then if the sellers agree, you have a period of time that you are safe from the competition flying in and going through this again. Then make sure your agent goes nuts on getting the inspections done and as soon as possible. My realtor is a beast and I always know she is on it.

You do not know what the other offer is, so just do what you can do, even if that means saying your current offer stands. For all you know, yours is still the best offer. I wish you the best of luck with it. Just try and focus and stay in your comfort zone. If it falls through, keep looking. I have had many blessings in disguise with real estate. Lost one deal and a week later a better one came. Hope it works out for you!

Sorry this is happening to you OP, but it seems squarely on you. My parents are both in real estate now, and I can tell you, you can't just take people at their word. The sellers may be good and honest people, but they don't know you and aren't going to wait on you to get a contract executed. Sure, they may work with you in an attempt to get something done, but if a firm offer comes in in the meantime they would be crazy not to take it.

As others have said, you should have probably worked this out in a different way - especially if this was a "dream" property that you planned to be on for 20+ years. The sellers don't know how genuine your offer is. I've seen it time and again where someone will ask for one detail, and then once that's addressed it moves to another item, and then turns in to a never ending list of requests that ends up burning the seller.

Sea Speed said:

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We submitted several offers. Here is what the sellers said in response to one of them.


They verbally agreed to sell us the house and then said oh wait, nevermind.

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You said in your OP that you wouldn't execute a contract unless the pool was cleaned.

Real estate isn't done via verbal agreements and rightfully so. Too many things can go sideways as it is. So… as I said originally, you might not THINK this is the case, but from an outsiders perspective, you didn't put an offer in. All you did was provide very active and actionable feedback to the seller.

TxAG#2011 said:

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Why would you ask the mods to delete the thread? We here are entitled to hear the outcome of this fiasco.

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Embarrassment. I think he came here thinking we would agree that he was a victim

Sea Speed said:

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We submitted i think 4 separate executable contracts and they rejected for various reasons, with the last one being that the buyers agent fee was too high, but everything else was agreeable. They responded with their counter via text and not an updated contract, which is when we agreed to their terms and understood there to be an agreement per the screenshot I posted earlier. Guess we should have submitted a 5th. It is what it is.

I appreciate the responses and opinions and have learned a valueable lesson, at least it was not an expensive one. We will see what happens from here. I do understand where they are coming from on their end after trying to look at it from their side, although I disagree.

Only time will tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing. That said, this deal isn't necessarily over so I asked mods to delete the thread just in case something still comes of this.

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Actually, their counter should have been in writing. You didn't actually have a binding counter from them. Your realtor knows that.

Live and learn.

If i was embarrassed why would I respond and say what I was aiming to do? I'd think someone who was embarrassed would try and covertly get that done instead of announcing it. Why would I publicly admit it was a learning experience if I was embarrassed or ashamed?

I also specifically stated why I asked the moderator, because there is still the opportunity for a deal and i probably shouldn't have mentioned anything on a public forum while that is the case.

Sea Speed said:

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So it was an email, not a text. Either way it wasn't on a standard contract so I understand.

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For what it's worth, we looked for over a year and fell in love with 3 houses along the way until we found the one we actually got, which we loved as well. It was twice as big, had 20 acres with it with room to grow. Hang in there, i think you're going to look back at this and realize that you not only
Learned a valuable lesson, you probably avoided a land mine. Things have a way of working out sometimes.

"Time kills deals." If you're the seller, keep selling until you have a written contract. After that, keep selling in search of a back up contract. Just too many flaky buyers and sellers out there.

And if you are a buyer….."time kills deals"…..get it under written contract. And then, keep looking in case it falls through.

ETA: They let the pool get in this condition while they were attempting to sell the property. That tells you a whole lot about the likely condition of the rest of the home. And if you really have your heart set on this home, in the WRITTEN contract….have the expiration of your option period start to run once the pool has been serviced/cleaned. You need a better agent. I'm not an agent.

I had the same thought on the care and maintenance of that pool. That's a sign of how they maintain and care for the property as a whole. They knew you'd be looking at it and still they didn't repair it. What is wrong with this place that you can't see and they won't repair?

Maybe look for a house without a pool, but room to build one to your own specs?

I trust me. That's it.

If it's not written, it doesn't exist.

Saved you overpaying 25k, sounds like.

True story. We were in negotiations on a small acreage tract not long ago. The contract went back and forth and we settled on a verbal agreement and waited for the seller to sign the contract. Before they actually signed, they let us know they had another showing happening and would wait to sign the final deal after that showing. We immediately told the selling realtor that if that was the case, we withdrew our offer. While the seller's ethics were questionable, we had no deal until they signed and yes it ticked us off. We were willing to walk and they had us a signed contract within the hour.

You should have gone under option contract. An amendment to extend the option period could have been executed if the pool situation wasn't to your liking near the end of the original option period. Happens all the time.

I've had lots of realtors tell me they were expecting another offer to come in when I'm looking at properties. I think about half the time it's just a sales tactic. It just depends on my mood at the time as to what I do. I'm not usually buying on emotion, I'm buying and selling because it's what I do for a living. But I do know it ain't nothing until it's signed, then waiting out the option, then hoping it clears title and closes. That said, I have a couple of realtors that I use regularly that will submit any offer I want, no matter how lowball or crazy conditions/stipulations I have them put in them. Surprisingly quite a few are accepted with sellers just wanting to be done (when not in hot market). At least that way it's already in writing and it shows I'm serious. .

Best of luck on your purchase