Is anyone else seeing buyers (especially in multiple offer situations) flaking out after acceptance of their offer?

We have one that first buyer flaked out due to "we own 2 other homes and decided that we do not want to put ourselves under that much pressure financially" and the second buyer flaked due to "we decided that the fees are to high for the HOA".

We are starting to see this more and more.

I've been seeing that for a while here in AZ. Incredibly frustrating!

Had one back out just recently because the inspector noted "mouse droppings" in a small crawl space attic area, mind you he noted, not nests or infestation, just a few droppings. I would have loved to tell her you had better not have anyone look in your own homes attic......

Buyers Remorse, of course - especially if they watch the news - even worse when they watch the business news.

thats what driving high bank escrow demands and short inspection periods. inspect, buy it or not and move on..

and where's the buyers agent in this? bring a sincere real buyer..wasting both of our time and $

I watch the business news constantly and they all say buy now..

And they all say there is still the possibility of a W recovery.

I agree with the lost earnest money deposit - need to weed the tire kickers out until they get serious.

Pine, how do you feel about the way we are headed in NC to an "alt 2" only contract? I think that could help once everyone gets used to it. Gives buyers time to look over, inspect, but gives a definite amount to the seller for time off the market.

(For most of you outside NC, alt 2 involves a nonrefundable option fee which will be applied to the purchase price, but is completely nonrefundable, instead of traditional EMD which is murky about release)

Burl, I see the need, but I also see sellers abusing this, as well as agents. We need more rules in place protecting both sides and the agents in order to make this work. NC isn't afraid of changing, that's for sure. If it doesn't work - oh well, we'll go back to the way it was and let the law suits play out and see where we stand.

I'm not a lawyer, I don't want to play one either, and the heck with Holiday Inn.

I guess I am a wait and see on this - get ready for some real low amounts being offered with the OPC.

We've had it for a while guys - it is not the end of the world - lol

I had one flake out because the HOA had a $450 application fee. This after getting 6% in closing cost assistance from the seller.
To me, it said "I'm coming into this teetering on the brink and $450 will push me over the edge".

PA

The listing agent should have the HOA information and attach it to the MLS sheet.

Back in the day, when we had a normal market, I had my sellers have a pest and roof inspection completed, prior to putting the house on market. I would then attach the inspections to the MLS sheet.....total cost to seller $150.00. In most cases, buyers would sign off on these as accepted inspections and move on. The information was available, prior to submitting offer. A whole house inspection would range in costs from $300 to $450 and left up to buyers if this was something they needed. Most buyers are concerned with any pest work required and roof condition. My problems never came from local agents.....always out of area agents. The nickle and dimin' would never end on very petty repairs. My closing comment to those agents were, "If your buyers want a brand new home, I'll be more than happy to supply you a list of new home subdivisions. If they don't want to purchase this property, let's cancel the contract, as I have a backlog of buyers that do". I had only one buyer back out in the last 5 years. The agent and the buyer wanted a brand new home....my seller to purchase new appliances (after we had a ratified contract), for starters.....existing ones worked just fine. The sweet end to this story is the buyer canceled, and I double ended the deal 24 hours later.

Actually, I'm the LA on this and provided the entire HOA package to the buyer's agent before any offer was written. I guess they didn't bother to read it prior to submitting their offer. It's kind of hard to attch 120 pages on the MLS. In fact, I had to split it into 4 parts just to email it to the buyer's agent.

Contrary to what every CE instructor has told us over the last few years, the Alt 2 option is probably going away. The lenders don't want the seller receiving option money up front in the deal. Without lenders there are not many sellers.

Stop the madness! Make all of them do their own inspections PRIOR to making an offer. The buyer should put some money out-to turn on the utilities and to pay the man (inspectors) so that they have money on the line. This will immediately weed out the lookey-loos and those who want to "see if they will take my offer." It's a buyers market,and they know it. Make them put forth some nonrefundable expenses. All sellers/asset managers should insist on it.Prevents a lot of headaches all around.

Maybe you've already seen this one, ticked me off when I heard it from an investor friend, who knows the people doing it around here, technique is pure infomercial:

-Buyer makes cash offer with 7 day right to inspect
-Get acceptance
-Buyer then walks his "inspectors" through the property.
-Inspectors are really other investors he got from immediately running classifieds, craigslist ads, and using those "bandit" signs on the side of the road(the ones that intentionally look sloppily written)
-Buyer has basically tied up the property long enough to try to sell it for a profit , if not then "inspections" fail and you are the one looking dumb to the asset manager.
-Buyer moves on to the next one, knowing only closing on 1 out of 10 still makes him a pile of cash with no license or investment.

That's nothing new. However, the buyers who consistently do that get found out very quickly. We have a few buyers who do silly things like that here, but we always advise the asset manager that they do things like this. One buyer has made offers on EVERY one of my investor quality listings for the last 2 years. They've never closed and I tell AMs that. Consequently, they rarely, if ever, get close to getting an offer accepted now.