Frustrating Day in Phoenix Real Estate
Posted on November 28th, 2007 by Jonathan Dalton
These scenes actually are playing themselves out in multiple real estate markets, but I’m in Phoenix and Google seems to like occasional headlines like this and so there it is.
Three clients yesterday, all unhappy …
1) Client one made an offer on a short sale at the beginning of November. Yesterday we learned the file had been assigned to a new closing specialist who has 90 other files on his desk. We’ll get an answer but no one knows when.
The Canadian dollar has slipped over the past four weeks and the buyer is spending more as the days go by.
Unfortunately this is an all-too-common scenario when it comes to short sales – sales where the home is worth less than what the owner owes the mortgage company. Lenders are facing far too many such scenarios so answers come not based on when the paperwork’s submitted but on the date of the trustee sale.
Given my choice I would eliminate short sales from the listings searches I send to my clients, but I can’t … not without their express permission to do so. I’m going to encourage them to give me that permission whenever possible.
2) Discussing a price reduction with a seller who has little to no room to move and competing listings now $20K below list price on his 1,000-square-foot townhouse. Voice raises, frustration spews forth about everyone who bought a house they couldn’t afford and every investor who bought multiple houses to jack up the prices and then left town, leaving everyone else holding the bag.
I don’t disagree with the seller’s assessments. We still end up lowering the price out of necessit, bringing the whole thing real close to a break-even proposition.
3) Buyer went to the property they’re buying and found a dead rat (or field mouse, depending on the view) in the pool. Outside of the inspection period they want the pool tested for the hanta virus, treated and possibly drained.
The concern is real but unfortunately the Arizona Residential Resale contract doesn’t have provisions to force the seller to do anything after the inspection period is complete.
The seller does have to maintain a handful of warranted items – the electrical, plumbing, air conditioning and heating, pool systems (the actual systems, not the water), mechanical systems, etc. But environmental testing after a mouse fell in the pool isn’t on the list.
My final recommendation was to seek advice from an attorney in case they can find something that neither I nor two managers and contract instructors in my office could find.
All this frustration and I never stepped foot in the mall …
[tags]Phoenix real estate, real estate negotiations[/tags]
Sounds a little like my Every Day. On the subject of the much-maligned rodent population, couldn’t this fall under a new disclosure event? Rats. If something is discovered during escrow which was not previously disclosed or known, a new contingency right kicks in for the buyer in California. I don’t know if you could strecth this to include critters, but it might be worth a try.
By the way, I have encountered just about every species of wildlife, large and small, in my swim-spa over the years (one time, I could swear a water buffalo had bit the big one while doing the free-style), and in all cases chemicals were sufficient to eradicate the germy demons – This according to Mark the Spa Guy, who I would trust with my flat iron.
Can’t help you with the short sale and pricing predicaments. Where those are concerned, I’ll keep you in my prayers.
Thanks, Kris …
Rodents are covered on the SPDS here as well. The only iffy part would be that the seller didn’t find the rodent. The buyer did while walking the property outside of the inspection period.
Jonathan — I’m pretty sure your contract says the seller must deliver the property in the same condition, more or less, as when the contract was executed.
A disease ridden pool wouldn’t seem to hit that mark.
What do you think?
If it’s disease-ridden, then I would think that you’re right.
But I don’t see an out where the seller can be forced to run the tests. I told my buyer they can do so if they so choose.