For Sale By Owner...

[Cookie97128]

Oregon.
We have found a house we love. It's being sold fsbo. And they are people we know. (My daughter and their daughter are best friends.) They know what our loan amount was approved for and are selling it to us at that price, which is really a great deal I think. Anyways, I don't know a thing about fsbo, Seller (Deb) doesn't want to have realtors fees and I kinda agree. I am scared though. I love the house and want to proceed, where do I go from here. She says that the morgage company will handle alot of the paper work and so will our loan company.
I would like all the advice I could get.
Thanks so much.


PS, I don't want any whining and name calling between posters though. This is a real situation we are in and are turning to this board of people that have either been in these situations or are realtors and know the truth... Please help.


~Life is Short, Pray Hard~

 

[Ashley L]

what to do

my disclaimer I am not an attorney ,I am a broker owner any advice i give is not nor is it intended to be legal advice. and is custom to the state of wisconsin.

since you allready have agreed to the sale price and purchase of the house a realtor/broker can no longer assist you in this transaction.

first is did the seller fill out a condition report?
if they haven't they need to , then you need to retain a copy signed buy all partys that you accept it as such.

you also need to fill out an offer to purchase the home and have everyone agree to the terms and sign it.

now that you are lost I will tell you go to an attorney ,
the seller is wrong about the fact that the mortgage company will handle everything ( they won't and can't )
for your protection and also for the best interest of all involved hire an attorney , if need be split the costs
p.s go or find a realestate attorney there more practiced at doing thease and it will cost you less. good luck

 

[HomeGuru]

Heck save your money.
You don't need an attorney or a Realtor.
Closing real estate transactions are easy and can be completed very smoothly with absolutely no complications.
Well, that is if you understand perfectly, every word, term and condition in the sales contract and have real estate experience.
And know how to conduct a Buyer's due diligence correctly and order and correctly review a survey, title report, lien check home inspection, pest/structural inspection, enviromental hazard survey, property condition disclosure, title insurance, homeowner's insurance, contract contingencies etc.
Many posts on this website forum are full of problems simply because the parties failed to use real estate professionals.
Your close relationship with the Seller and their FSBO deal should have absolutely no bearing on whether or not you should seek legal counsel.

 

[vrzirn]

If you have an extremely good relationship with a bank who will hold your hand, a very good escrow company and extensive real estate experience, then you will find this transaction can move smoothly. But, if not every one of the above is true, there are so many potential problems you could encounter that you should have an attorney or agent help you.

 

[Cookie97128]

Well, I did it!

I did the paper work. We asked for a closing date of May 28th and we should close even sooner than that. Everything went really great. Saved thousands, for both parties.

I would recommend talking to the lender, well, the loan people, they helped. I found an appraiser by chance while I was at the stationary store buying the sales contract. AND he turned out to be someone that I knew. He also owns a small shoe store in our town. I got his card, took it to the loan processor and she hired him. He's even cut his rate because he likes helping locals. We are thrilled!!!
This is how word of mouth spreads for small businesses'. He explained alot of stuff to me also. MAINLY, don't get a realtor if you don't need to. And since we've already agreed on everything, what's the point of one? The loan company won't allow the paperwork to go through if they find errors in it. It's their money.

Also, we got an interest rate of 5%... Just had to throw that in there.
Good Luck to all!!!
Cookie

 

[HomeGuru]

Re: Well, I did it!

I did the paper work. We asked for a closing date of May 28th and we should close even sooner than that. Everything went really great. Saved thousands, for both parties.

I would recommend talking to the lender, well, the loan people, they helped. I found an appraiser by chance while I was at the stationary store buying the sales contract. AND he turned out to be someone that I knew. He also owns a small shoe store in our town. I got his card, took it to the loan processor and she hired him. He's even cut his rate because he likes helping locals. We are thrilled!!!
This is how word of mouth spreads for small businesses'. He explained alot of stuff to me also. MAINLY, don't get a realtor if you don't need to. And since we've already agreed on everything, what's the point of one? The loan company won't allow the paperwork to go through if they find errors in it. It's their money.

**A: don't get a false sense of security here. The mortgage company has a duty to protect itself, not you.
And I am willing to bet that you have not done everything that a Realtor would have done. Go ahead and ask the lender if they had a real esate professional or their in-house legal counsel review your purchase contract in its entirety to make sure that YOU are protected.
***************
Also, we got an interest rate of 5%... Just had to throw that in there.
Good Luck to all!!!
Cookie

**A: yeah right, you got a 5% interest rate for a 30 year fixed mortgage. What is the exact loan program and term and how many points are you paying? Don't feel like the lender is doing you a favor if you are just getting a 2 year adjustable rate loan.

 

[Cookie97128]

5.0%

It's an ARM. We were approved at 5.75% and it went up then down. We signed our sales agreement when the market was at 5.0%. It can go up by ONLY up to 1 point each year for the first 5 years. After that it's locked. The MOST we will ever pay is 10%~Worst case senario~ I am VERY optimistic that it won't go up 1 point each year. Depends on the market. I think that's a hell of a deal.

Check out this site.

Http://www.gmacmortgage.com

 

[Cookie97128]

An Update!!!

Read the first post to see what's up...

We closed on Wednesday, May 22nd. Only 7 days after we were hoping too. We weren't scheduled to close till the 28th. We start moving in on May 28th...
WE did it without realtors. For Sale By Owner. A few bumps, but we did it... No major problems.

Yeppie for us...

Cookie

 

[JonT]

yippee for you is right! congrats. I've been in a real estate situation myself for nearly two years and found that needing those so called 'professionals' is a bunch of crap. You end up doing most of the work yourself anyway... and paying someone else for doing it yourself. We are now looking to sell/buy and I was hoping for some light at the end of the tunnel. thanks for giving it to me. I will say that what I do have, that makes me feel a little better about doing it myself, is a law firm that will review all the paperwork and look for glitches. But I am going to 'do it myself'. Thanks again. JonT

 

[Cookie97128]

some wording...

Some wording that almost messed up the whole deal... We didn't put.

"Seller agrees to pay up to (so and so amount) for closing and prepaid fees."

Our seller agreed to pay up to 5100, then at closing decided that they didn't want to pay the prepaids which included the reserve for preperty tax and hazard insurance. ALmost messed up the whole deal. With the threat of a breach of contract, they finially signed the papers. They still only had to pay 4860 for closing. Something of which they agreed to ... I didn't understand how the seller paying closing works... Well, it's to pay for all the fees. And I found out that it shouldn't matter where those funds (credits) are put to, they still have to be paid and our sellers were trying to fight how the funds were used. And basically get out of paying so much money, THEY signed the sells contract, it was in the contract.
Another note, Put everything that is to stay in the house, in the contract. They tried to switch stoves on us. THANK GOD I had listed the stove along with the brand...IE: Jenn-Aire Stove. They said right before that they were taking the brand new stove and re-installing the old one that worked just fine. BULLSH*T. I fought that and the seller's jaw dropped - as I guess they didn't realize that I had stated the name brand.
Verbal agreements aren't worth the paper they AREN"T written on.
Good Luck, this has been a total learning experiance for us. We don't plan on doing it again for at least 10 years!. LOL
Cookie

 

[Cookie97128]

Just for those that Arent interested...

In Lovingwife's little comment... She's the "second wife". Of course, I am ignoring anything she may post here.

She can't ruin our happy days...
We got the keys last night!!! 5-25-02

 

[CMSC]

Hey cookie, I know what you mean about getting everything that is suppose to stay in the house written down. When we went to do our final walk through on the house we were suppose to buy the sellers decided to remove curtains, some windows, a sink faucet, the mail box, a planter that had a cement base and was buried in the ground! The only thing they left us with was a basement that had cat urine in it because they left the cat there for a week while they moved to their other house a state away! And dog poop in the yard!!! oH and a few holes in the hardwood floor that were hidden up until final walk through (2 days before closing) that would cost $4500 to fix! We needless to say did not close on the house because of all the damage they did. but that turned out to be a blessing as we may be moving in january and it would be hard to sell the house!

Hmm come to think of it we never got our $500 earnest money back! Maybe I should look into that.

Anyway, just a little horror story and a warning to people. Oh and we were going through a realator whose boss was the sellers agent! That was a big no no too!!!