Out of curiosity, what prevents deals from being funded immediately (assuming all parties have brought their necessary funding with them and the closing goes without a hitch)?
+1 can't be stressed enough. PAY FOR A REPUTABLE INSPECTOR!!! My g/f was in the same boat as Lady Di. Bought her first house and trusted the inspector who she knew nothing about. of course, at the time she knew nothing about buying houses either. A couple of days after moving in, she starting smelling gas. apparently, the gas pipeline to the water heater was corroded. then a few weeks later, she started smelling sewer gas. this was an old house and it turned out one of the bathroom sinks didn't have a p trap.
Look how much other houses are valued in the neighborhood. You can do that on mls.com. You can negotiate your price this way. Do not say yes to first negotiated price. You shouldn't pay for closing costs either. The seller usually will pay for it. Just do your research. We thought we did but I guess we didn't do enough research and if we had a good inspector, we would have bought the house at a lesser price. I love the house though but it just sucks that we will lose some money when we sell it.
It would be down to the lender. They might not have sent an important document in time, lender might not be happy with a document signed at closing (as in the way it is signed), lender late on sending necessary funds to close (this has happened to me on 4 different occasions), etc.
If that happened, I'd simply walk out of the closing. We actually did that once when the closing documents did not match the truth-in-lending statement we had received.
If you work with a Realtor, they should help you out with the research, after all, that is their job. But as always, you gotta look out for yourself and research it on your own. Just remember, basically everything can be negotiated. Remember to ask for the seller's disclosure if they have one or if it applies to your state.
Yup. If anything, any slightest thing, makes you think the deal is queer, delay closing. And DEFINITELY get a good inspector. I debated spending the $300 to have our home inspected, but the peace of mind in my final purchase was well worth it. Remember: this is the largest single purchase you'll make in your entire life, so it's worth a little extra to make sure you aren't buying a lemon. Our inspector was VERY throrough. He noticed the smallest details, even going so far as to report that the clips holding in the kitchen shelfs were put in upside down. If you're in the Austin area, I could make a good recommendation.
Doesn't the title company charge a fee for rescheduling the closing date? I think our agent mentioned that to us to scare us, but I was quite adamant that should not have been our responsibility.
I have never heard of that. My son recently closed on a house and their closing had to be rescheduled with no apparent fee charged. It is very important to investigate all of the fees charged and get an explanation for any you have questions about.
I had a girlfriend that was a realtor. She did not like thorough inspectors because they could scare off the buyers. Having said that, I have never bought a house so I'm not sure how to find a good inspector.
I didn't get mind immediately, but I do think I got them later on in the day. My situation was different because it was a foreclosure and I purchased the home from Wells Fargo.
A buyer should appreciate a thorough inspector, because they will get some negotiating leverage. For example, there was a problem with the bathtub in my son's house he just bought. The sellers opted to cover some other costs and throw in some furniture and the like if they didn't have to fix the bathtub. It was a much better deal for my son to get the bathtub fixed himself and get the stuff the seller agreed to provide then it would have been for the seller to do the repair.
