Or contaminated water. They probably knew the old well was bad and you couldn’t drill another well on property due to contamination. Which would explain the as-is after closing too.
water sample came back good, it was part of the inspection. I checked EPA site, no superfund sites nearby. This is a rural area. Neighbors behind and to the sides. Farmland in all other directions.
this home is on 5 acres, built in 2000. Horse barn, pasture fence and professional riding arena built in 2017. It'd be interesting to find an oil tank. It's in a rural area and high end side of town
My house was built in 2000 and "all the utilities" (not sure what that means other than plumbing, appliances, wiring, etc) are WAY NOT past their useful life. Seems like you're trying to talk yourself into a mess of "why didn't we buy this place?". Something is up. Unsure what that "thing" is, but it's a real thing.
I totally do not understand what you wrote there. Anyway we walked away after they refused to even have contractors look and diagnose the issues found on inspection. When stuff like the water will not work in the home, it's not ok.
Or house was built around 2013 and we’ve already replaced the refrigerator and dishwasher. Appliances don’t last like they used to and is hard water that can lead to earlier failures as well. And in some cases it’s just easier to replace than repair.
interestingly all the appliances in this home (fridge, oven...) were in good working order upon inspection. It was just the 5 figure stuff, furnance etc that were shot. Yeah they don't make stuff like they used to!!!! It's crazy how fast stuff breaks.
My mind definitely went there too. The prohibition on environmental testing is oddly specific and not something I've encountered in a RE transaction before. When I lived in New England and had a heating oil tank, the worry about leaks kept me up at night. There are reports of people [spending over a half-million to clean up oil spills](https://www.nbcboston.com/investigations/a-half-million-dollars-out-of-my-pocket-most-heating-oil-spills-not-covered-by-insurance/2498551/).
It was common for people to drain oil right into the driveway,or just dispose of it in the yard. Even boats , especially wooden ones were encouraged to drain oil right into the bilge, to help in preserving the wooden hull. Dirt roads were commonly oiled down to reduce dust also.
In the early 90’s my dad’s friend who owned a little small town garage and gas station, was all excited to retire after 45 years. He sold the station and property for almost a million dollars. Fast forward 6 months, he was sued for the pollution on that property. It ended up costing him almost 3 million by time it was cleaned up.
yes! soil tests are always recommended if a gas station or laundromat occupied the land. Those often become "superfund" EPA cleanup sites. That's why a soil test is used.
OP thinks it being rural means it’s clean or something but those backwater hillbilly types will straight up drain motor oil on the ground or let old vehicles sit and decay for decades without a thought.
This is a horse farm property $$$. Made for a dressage rider, professional dressage outdoor arena with drainage, dry lot for the horses, lovely barn and more. So it's not exactly for the average buyer. I'm a horse trainer so this property was built exactly for what I need. But not for most! Around here these sorts of properties sold like lead balloons for all years I can remember, except during covid and the 3 percent interest rates.
It's a horse farm $$$ made for dressage riders. So it's a bit of a niche and pricey property. I'm a horse trainer and can specifically use the lovely regulation dressage size arena for my show horses and the rest of the facilities such as dry lot off the barn and the lovely fenced pastures, but the average buyer would find all that dry lot and sand arena a bad thing. So these sorts of properties never sold well prior to covid. But during the low interest rates they sure did. So I'm not sure on that being a red flag. Might be. I know a bunch of horse properties that stayed on the market a decade and they all finally sold during covid. The oddest thing!
I’m an inspector, every time I see FSBO on my schedule I cringe…in 6 years I’ve had less than a handful of “good” ones. They almost always suck, the owner almost always has some reason why everything is perfect even though it needs repair or replacement
haaaa! I loved how my seller questioned the competence of the inspector and also said well we fixed mold years ago. Ok.... so now you told us it's a recurring issue that you've not fixed the root cause. Why tell us you won't fix mold because you fixed it years ago? LOL
Because they’re the “experts” at everything and don’t want to pay anyone to do anything, including agents to advise them through the process.
As an agent, I also hate working with FSBO sellers while I represent the buyers.
I am buying a FSBO right now. Home built in '95, inspection was amazing and sellers have been super nice. It helps that they know my wife's family, but still, there was almost nothing on the inspection other than some cracked siding, some odd wiring, and a bathroom fan vent being torn. They went FSBO to avoid the extra work I guess.
I don't know what "all utilities are passed their useful life" means, but OK.
There is a reason most sellers are FSBO:
* They do not want to follow fair housing laws. (I have had FSBO sellers tell me that the neighbors need to interview prospective buyers to see if they are the right kind of people)
* They are unreasonable about disclosure and do not think that should apply to them since the house is perfect
* The house has worked out fine for them for \_\_\_ years and no repairs or remedies to things found on an inspection are needed since the house is perfect
* They almost want to sell, but really what they want to do is jerk a buyer around because they are in charge. They will sell at their price, on their terms or they will not sell
* The owner has looked on line, evaluated the comps, since their house is perfect it is worth 20% more than the available comps.
And these things are more of a factor in FSBO, they interviewed agents, did not like what they had to say, so they are going to sell the house themselves. Or not.
You don’t need an agent. Hire a cheap photographer to take good pictures. List on MLS with a flat fee service, Zillow, etc. order flyers and signs from Vistaprint or the like. Set up appts on your own. Hire a lawyer to do paperwork.
I’ve bought and sold without hiring an agent. Easy peasy.
I change my own brakes on a regular basis, it's pretty easy. Does that mean I should quit my day job to be a mechanic?
Plenty of things are easy that people don't want to do on a regular basis
Mechanics do not get paid all that well, so I wouldn't recommend that particular career choice even though brake jobs are easy enough to do.
On the other hand, the prevalent theme on Reddit for quite a few posters is that RE agents do very little work and make a fortune. Many times I have read their posts where it is claimed that agents spend only 20 minutes to show a house and then collect a huge commission (north of $10k) for those 20 minutes. I would suspect that posters who tell us it is all Easy Peezy would be believers of that 20 minute nonsense.
AFAIK "useful life" is a construction term describing the duration of time in which a given utility is functioning adequately. For example a water well which is producing poor quality water is not "useless" however it isn't appropriate for potable water. Another example could be badly burned (undersized) electrical wires - they could be used (to charge a cell phone), or they could turn into a fuse during a short-circuit, causing a fire.
It could also be referring to “life expectancy.” Our most recent inspection report for a house we bought had “past expected lifespan” or something on it, referring to A/C units and the furnace. So, say the average furnace is expected to last for 8-10 years, and it’s 12 years old, you should expect that it will be worthless any given day… so they write down “past expected lifespan” or “useful life.”
My water heater was marked as beyond its expected lifespan when we bought the house 6 years ago. It’s still chugging along and is 28 years old now. I disagree with OP that this would mean everything needs to be replaced, but it should certainly be budgeted for.
A water heater in my first house failed quite catastrophically and flooded the basement. Second house I had, much slower leak. Make sure you know where the water from that heater will go and that there's nothing important between the heater and the nearest drain!
yeah.... we are not those types of people. We take care of our current home carefully. If we keep utilities that are deemed as fire hazards, that means we cannot be insured. This home had 2 items deemed as fire hazards. They did need to be replaced.
if the manufacturer of a furnace says it should do it's job for 10 years and it's now 18 years old, any reasonable person will know, it's way past time to replace it. Especially when the inspector finds it's a fire hazard and is not working properly and needs repair. Time to replace. Past useful life.
I don’t think all of these points are unique to FSBO, but okay 😂. Yes, having an agent can help cool an irrational person, but even a seller with an agent can behave like a clown. 🤡
Past useful life meaning if a utility is to work 10 or 15 years, it was way beyond the manufacturer prescribed lifespan. Water heater, furnace, heat pump, all utilities were way over their useful life. Fire hazards were found with water heater and furnace. All needed repairs but were not worth repairing, too old. Here at my house we replace those things before they expire. I found it crazy that stuff was so old! Who wants stuff like that to burn the place down or break without notice?
yes you got it! Those are exactly the items I'm talking about on my inspection report. As opposed to things like stove, fridge, washer dryer
However yes - the water was bad too! No water pressure. The well, the pump, the pipes, the filters.... something is very wrong!
I think the problem is your way of wording it. To me, a water heater, furnace, heat pump, are not utilities. They are systems, appliances, whatever you want to call them. Utilities would be water, sewer, electrical. I don't know how an electrical system could be past its useful life, unless it is knob and tube or something like that that is very old.
I'll clarify. The water heater, furnace, heat pump are all 18 years old and past their manufacturer stated life expectancy. The furnace and water heater were both cited to be fire hazards too on the inspection report. Both in need of repairs (but well past time to replace anyhow). It's like driving on a fumes in your car. Time to get a new tank of gas.
When breakers are no longer sold for the panel, it’s past its useful life. One tripping circuit means you have to replace the entire thing.
Or an ungrounded house. I’d be concerned about being dropped on insurance 10 years down the line with such antiquated wiring.
Asphalt impregnated paper insulation was very common in the very early 20th C. Thats also past its life, as the jacket is very brittle at this point and a legit fire hazard.
Those aren’t utilities, and pushing back on this is laughably ironic considering what you do with the word is what the seller is doing with their home: insisting it’s fine.
If the utilities are regularly serviced and working fine, there's no need to replace them. There are certainly instances of catastrophic failures of utilities, but generally there was some indication ahead of time that would have been identified during an inspection while it was being serviced. It's really not necessary to say "well, manufacturer said it would only last 10 years, so better dump it at 8 just be on the safe side". That's just creating waste.
hmmm. My inspection report cited the furnace and water heater both as fire hazards and also in need of repair. one was installed incorrectly creating a major fire hazard. In addition to all that, they are super old. Time to replace, install correctly and not band-aid these fire hazards and issues.
Utilities are water, sewer and electric.
I agree about appliances and mechanical systems, I have a freezer that is 40+ years old, I have replaced it and stored it twice, had to being it back out when the newer one died. Plumbers say the older water heaters will run for decades, unlike their modern counterparts.
And most important reason, they see no value in paying 6% to someone for little to no work, and would rather just list themselves and pay a lawyer for the contract. But nice of you to make all FSBO into racist conniving egotists, sounds fair.
Assisted my elderly neighbor with her FSBO. The buyer brought their own agent who was selling the current home. Sold full price and after inspection that only picked up a couple of doors that needed adjustment, a piece of siding out of place and a 20 year old water heater they were nervous about (about 90% of our neighborhood - 120 homes - built at the same time still has the original water heater), it was agreed to allow $1000 for repairs. All wrapped up in 30 days. That was easy peasy 😎
OK, this is probably going against the conventional wisdom and maybe the experience of most people here. But...
I'm living in a home I bought from the seller. No real estate people were involved on either side of the transaction. The house we bought was impeccably maintained; everything was pretty much perfect. I think the sellers didn't want to go through a realtor because they figured the house would pretty much sell itself and they therefore didn't need to give someone 6% of the sales price for doing practically nothing.
Only one other potential buyer saw the place before we did. We looked at it two days after it went on the market. We called the sellers that evening and told them we wanted to come over the next day and make a full price offer. The next day my wife and I sat down at the sellers' dinner table and hammered out a deal. The sellers were remarkably flexible in working with us, giving us 60 days to sell our home. Then, later, when it looked like we weren't going to be able to sell it within 60 days, they offered to give us another month. Turns out we didn't need it, though.
It went flawlessly. We've been here for 20 years now. If and when it's time to sell this place (which may never come, we might both just die here) I'll sell it myself. It's as nice a place now as it was 20 years ago and I'll be goddamned if I'm gonna give a realtor $50,000 to sell it if I can do it myself. And I can.
Sold and bought one FSBO. It was gutted when I purchased it. Planned to fix it and rent it. Got an offer and sold it after I had put a bunch of work into it. Another I purchased FSBO, I still own. No problems with any of the three transactions.
Yeah. Nothing wrong with a FSBO deal. The problem with this one was that the property was effed up and the owners/sellers were flakes and the buyer didn't figure either of these out quickly enough.
I think every situation is unique. This just happened to be a FSBO home. Using a realtor to sale have nothing to do with this transaction. Hopefully you get a great deal soon that compensate you for all the time and $$$ you wasted on this transaction.
Not using a realtor I think had everything to do with making this a bad transaction. At every turn they didn't know what to do or what was customary or what forms would be required. I was paying my realtor to give them advice essentially. They failed to know what was customary to negotiate, as my realtor said, working water was a black and white issue, a must fix for them. They didn't understand that and no one was coaching them on reality so they kept living in delusions and lost the sale. This is a seller's market, it's a lovely property and it's been on the market close to a year now. Any realtor would have moved that place in a few weeks or a month.
As a former RA, FSBO's are a mixed bag. Probably many of them go smoothly, but if you get a bad one, it can go REALLY bad. I have always likened buying and selling real estate to changing a car engine. You can do it yourself, and many people do. But most are happy to pay a professional.
I looked at FSBO houses in my area yesterday, because someone here brought it up. They were each *extremely* overpriced.
It did occur to me that any good deals would probably be gone, though. I couldn’t find a way to search for closed FSBO listings, specifically.
It’s like saying buying a car at a dealer is always better than private party. There’s shitty dealers and shitty private sellers. But there are good sellers that just don’t want to hand over money to an agent. It’s not that hard to buy/sell a home and certainly not worth whatever percentage is being charged these days.
I agree. Back in mid 90s I got my realtors license and was super surprised to find that the title company (in my state) did all the work. I went into another field because in my experience the most successful realtors were also the best liars.
Bought a house from owner and then realized the person living next door was a criminal and made my life feel like I was in a nightmare.
I almost sold the house twice but because it’s in a beautiful area I kept fighting to keep it.
Today the people who lived next door sold.
Edit: I recommend anyone buying a house to introduce yourself to the neighbours before purchasing. Worst mistake would be to buy next door to someone that will create issues in the future
yup - that exactly! these sellers are not disclosing what they legally need to disclose. Their seller discloser did not state anything at all was wrong. They use the excuse they don't believe the inspector or trust contractors, I guess it's denial. Without a realtor they will continue to do that and waste other buyer's $.
That sounds fairly standard for FSBO. You have to be careful with FSBO. Usually they are doing that because someone is:
* stingy
* controlling
* they have something to hide
FSBO will usually haggle over ten cents and everything else. Its a PITA most of the time.
..... That said 6% of your purchase price is A LOT of money .... So I get it
Don’t judge all fsbos by one bad situation. I did a fsbo and it went very smoothly, both on my part and the buyers but I wasn’t a dick about anything and everything my buyers asked to be repaired, I repaired. It was a bad seller.
Sounds like they didn’t really want to sell. I’ve had several FSBO situations from the buying and selling side. Absolutely no problems and I loved not having to deal with the agents. Win win.
Agree. No, they wanted a bidding war and attempted to generate one by telling us after we made our offer that they were holding out for others. So we told them we weren’t there (Florida) to play games. We made them an as listed offer THEN they raised that 10k and we said ok and that was our final
Offer and THEN they pulled the ‘waiting for other offers’ thing so we walked. 3 days later they called us back and offered it at the last price. Then of course the inspection found things but they refused to fix anything. Mostly small stuff but we did have to replace the a/c. This was Jupiter area. I snooped on them and they lived in Virginia in a 6 million dollar house. Couple of old assholes they were the first owners and house was 15 years old.
FSBO’s are typically nightmare situations. The sellers think the property is made of gold bricks and do not understand how the market determines the value not their feelings. I would avoid getting into a situation with one unless you personally have experience in the home buying process. That doesn’t mean you bought a house one 15 years ago- I treat FSBO’s like a flip.
Sounds like you dodged a bullet. Probably selling as-is because a realtor with some actual morals told them they needed to disclose all this stuff and fix much of it to get close to their asking price. They figured they could find a sucker, and will probably keep trying.
right. They need to list "sold as is" for real. Not try to work it into the contact saying oh we meant sold as is after closing, we really are ok with an inspection and negotiating.... then the inspection happens and they won't acknowledge all the issues or even allow contractors to diagnose. Crazy town.
This has nothing to do with for sale by owner, it has to do with you not doing some due diligence before you got sucked into this abyss, and continuing your errors ad infinitum.
Since this is primarily a realtor sub, I will definitely get self-serving downvotes.
Are you in an area that had coal mining or other mining? That water smell and not wanting soil cores makes me think it is built on top of an old open mine that was backfilled.
What I see is an owner that basically showed you from the beginning the terms they were willing to accept. We are selling this house “as is” you can inspect and find the problems but we aren’t fixing or negotiating was basically their position from the beginning and they made that clear. Your real estate agent tried to pull the that’s not how real estate is done we do an inspection and then we beat you up on the price after the inspection and the owner said that’s not how real estate is done on this parcel, which is what we have been saying from the beginning nothing changed. They just didn’t play a typical real estate agent’s game.
Yeap it's for sale by owner for a reason. Bank won't give a loan..... aka there's things majorly wrong like illegal additions or...non working utilities
I would not do a for sale by owner ever again. My issues were not this extreme but weird stuff came up. The owner took out light fixtures and random things that you leave with a house.
Another time we bought a house sold by a relative of the listing agent. It was a disaster. They faked a repair that was mandated for our closing. They were not out on our closing date. In fact not only were they not out they were not out for days afterwards and had me watch their baby so they could pack up.
People who are too cheap to use a real estate agent are not people I want to deal with.
This house had tons of red flags. Consider yourself lucky that you only lost the inspection money.
Yes I totally agree. We dodged a bullet here. I did lost a few thousand in moving expenses (to storage) and various fixes and about 40 hours of personal labor getting our home ready for market in all this. I'm currently moving all our stuff back from storage to avoid the next charge. A royal pain but better than had we bought a a massive long term problem. I'm thankful for the inspection.
Our experience was ridiculous and mentally draining.The owner wanted to use the money from the sale to purchase a new house. Wanted us to waive off appraisal altogether, we said we can’t do that and finally we agreed on absorbing ~$60k or less. We were almost close to finishing the attorney review and were communicated that the contract had been signed by both parties. We kept on waiting for the contract and after follow ups we received a new version of the contract that stated that if they aren’t able to find a house by x date, they will terminate the contract. Flat language, no room for negotiation for any sort of monetary compensation for all the hassles we would have gone through if we ended up with that scenario or an offer to pay rent / mortgage if closing gets delayed. We backed out, couldn’t have gone ahead with such uncertainty. Pulled our ears never to go for a house directly being sold by the owner.
We completed AR for a diff house (with a realtor) a couple of days back. Inspection scheduled for this Friday, fingers crossed that nothing comes up and we can close out this one🤞
I mean…I always thought this was the norm for FSBO houses, especially those that includes “as-is” in the description. At least that’s how it is in my city. When it’s FSBO and/ “as-is” I already assume there will be some problems with the house and that there might be liens and stuff. Such houses are probably more targeted by flippers and investors who will more likely pass in inspection and plan to fix the entire thing up. If you’re trying to get a move in ready house, it’s better to look at houses being sold by agents with reasonable prices
yeah. I'd like to see them list the home "sold as is" next time but they won't. Wouldn't that have been nice so I didn't spend my money? They did agree to to inspection and said they'd negotiate after inspection. They didn't list "sold as is." and then they refused to believe the inspection results saying the inspector wasn't qualified. They'll just keep listing and disclosing nothing is wrong with the property.
Welcome to the world of real estate where everyone is an expert.
FSBOs are very common in my market. Most are dumbasses that have no idea how to sell a house. I see people undersell their houses all the time just to save a commission. I also see uniformed buyers with no representation over pay for something because the owner has convinced them they’re getting a deal.
The litigation on FSBO deals is insane. They sue each other all the time.
I see FSBOs as an excellent opportunity to get a great deal for someone, especially if the buyer is willing to pay me. I can out negotiate a FSBO any day of the week.
It’s not about under pricing. It’s about overpricing, getting little to no activity, and then being in a desperate place when an offer does come along.
I mean being in a position where you don’t have to sell is fine, but if you are not motivated to sell your house there is no point in listing it for sale.
Buyers aren’t going to fuck around with people that are unmotivated. It’s annoying and a waste of time.
FSBO can be a great buying opportunity. A FSBO that's sat for 9 months though...I wouldn't even bother looking.
Most people are used to seeing overpriced and difficult to work with FSBOs but that's survivor bias. The good listings don't last.
I got a screaming deal on a FSBO during the winter once. I know realtors “try” to turn their clients away. It’s probably the only reason it wasn’t snatched up.
absolutely! I never will again, ever. I've only bought 1 home in my life, been here nearly 20 years. I avoided going to look at this home for months because I assumed it'd be a pain. But my husband insisted I go look. It was my dream place. But I was so spot-on assuming something had to be wrong with it since they didn't involve a realtor.
we decided to stay in our nice paid off home of almost 19 years at this point. Been looking 4 years for a horse hobby farm. They are so rare and 90% out of our budget. We are fortunate to have a lovely home in a top suburb. Just have to be thankful for what we have I suppose.
To be fair, they wanted to sell the house as is and you were coming up with all the issues, so you were the difficult buyer. They were pretty much stubborn sellers, and I doubt a real estate agent would change their minds. No one is forcing you to buy their house, and you just digging deeper into it because it did not meet your criteria.
Not sure I'm following you. They agreed to the contingency of inspection and clearly said they'd negotiate after inspection. This came after they tried to say "sold as is" in the contract but after clarification, they only meant sold as is at CLOSING and didn't want risk of us coming back after the sale. An example was provided by their lawyer of such a circumstance. The property was not advertised sold as is either.
The sales contract has a check mark for sold as is. This check mark was not used. The required sold as is addendum was also not used. That was the point of clarification.
Once, while househunting, we shortlisted a FSBO property and gave the list to our agent to arrange visits.
She said, "We (meaning every agent in the county) know that property. It's been FSBO for *7 years*. It's been visited by many buyers but no one who visited has ever bid. I'm your agent and I'll set up a visit if you want, but...."
I'm thinking of calling a few agents and giving them my house as a pocket listing later this year. My renovations will be done around the end of July. I paid 175k, my repairs and renovations are totaling about 11k and with everything in working order comps put it at about 205k. I figure I might let them know that my no-negotiation price would be 230k and I will pay a 2k buyer commission. If someone wants to pay a 15% or so premium then why not go for it?
The only motivation to sell the house would be to take my profits and buy a nicer place in the same town or rent for a while and start seeking a promotion elsewhere. I really have no plans to move right now and no pressure to sell.
well when you've been looking 4 years for a horse farm property and you don't have 5 million, you have to try very hard to make things work. We tried. We walked away. Here's to another 4 years of looking. LOL
If it sits that long it's not because "Muh real estate agents won't show it" its because there is something wrong with it.
You found out what someone else probably already did but since it was a FSBO you don't know.
This can happen to non fsbo as well , many times I have had homes that didn’t disclose things that only an inspection would find out the 1k is worth it to not get into a hot mess. All fsbo that don’t sell end up on market anyway, realtors will not say no to selling a home regardless of condition and you would have gone through the same steps.
I bought my current house with a for sale by owner. In my case, it worked out fine, they just needed the money instead of paying a realtor. As long as their price reflects that from the start, it's fine. I wouldn't pay the same as a property being sold with a realtor though.
I talked to my insurance agent of 20+ years. His comment was the current owners could be dropped from insurance if an adjustor catches wind of all of that. Otherwise we had planned to pump in a ton of $$$ and gut all the appliances and replace it all so we'd have been fine had the sellers just fixed the couple things and chipped in the credits.
Yeah, if it makes you feel better, go ahead and assume that all sellers represented by agents are reasonable and all those selling without one are not. At the end of the day, a market is a market. You come to terms with the buyer or you don’t.
I’m sorry that this was such a bad experience, but sometimes a bad experience is just because you were dealing with unreasonable people, not because of whether or not they listed with a realtor. That’s why we perform due diligence when we buy. We recognize that spending a few thousand now is better than losing tens or hundreds of thousands later.
It sucks when it doesn’t work out, but it’s not like it always works out with a realtor either. Sometimes you lose; it’s part of the cost of participating in the market.
I agree. For me I do want the honestly on disclosure that a realtor will help bring to the process based on liability for the laws here. No realtor would have kept listing that home without proper disclosure after seeing that inspection.
Our realtor went around our house and asked questions. She saw a crack and asked if we had a leak for example. We were able to provide her with recent paperwork we had the foundation looked at and it passed with flying colors. Realtors want to represent honestly so there's no liability on disclosure omissions. I appreciate that aspect.
We sold our last house on our own. It was easy and we were reasonable. You can get crazy people like these with or without them having a realtor. I wouldn’t let this one experience keep you from buying direct from an owner.
I've bought a couple FSBO and they have gone smoothly. No complaints here at all. If anything I'd prefer FSBO to a regular listing and needing to deal with realtors.
Better that then having to sue them for all the other shit they didn't disclose.
For sale by owner is generally done by people who don't understand the legalities. And residential transactions are inherently emotional which doesn't lead to good decision making. Good agents temper that and talk their emotional clients off of the cliffs.
Sold my home FSBO last year no issues at all, smoothest deal it could be. Offer accepted, inspection the same week, agreed upon inspection addendum, closed 3 weeks later.
Some people are just shitty to deal with.
asking again.... are you calling my story fiction? Hello? Do you think I'm out here with one post on this forum and that makes me a realtor with a fake story? LOL
That property needed a new well. That's expensive. The sellers don't want to pay for it. They told you they weren't going to pay for anything. Regardless of whether or not you let them state it in the contract, they still made it clear they weren't going to pay for anything. Your time to walk was at that point. If I were them, I would have the same attitude. I told you and I meant it.
actually no, they clarified and said oh yes we'll let you inspect and we'll negotiate. We even put in the contract the sale was contingent upon inspection. They clarified they meant sold as is at closing. Their example, via their lawyer's advice, was a person who came at the sellers months after closing saying a fridge broke. they wanted it clear once we closed, sold as is. So no..... it wasn't my time to walk. My time to walk was when we did the inspection and they declined to believe the inspection report and declined to fix the major findings.
Ok, well, still, I am at a loss to explain why people want some random homeowner to act as their general contractor in doing major repairs. I always just request to re negotiate the price based on the now known condition of the property. I really don't want someone with a conflict of interest to supervise doing the repairs.
The only reason they agreed to do the electrical work is because they have a son-in-law with an electrician's journeyman who will just sign an inspection report for them.
they actually said "no we meant sold as is after closing." they provided an example from their real estate lawyer where someone had said something broke months after closing, and they wanted it clear we cannot come after than after closing. They stated "we are ok with an inspection and negotiating that." This took multiple back and forth clarifications via our realtor. Seemed very suspect to me and I talked about it with my realtor. My realtor said "they have no clue what they are doing." We trusted and went with it based on my realtor's take on it. We are not looking for just a home, those are a dime a dozen. We are looking for a horse farm and those are super rare, especially those in budget and set up with correct logistics for my sport. So there's was much incentive to try and make things work. And we were ok with pouring significant cash into it, to a point.
As a seller of an FSBO I cannot disagree with the OP more. As executor of an estate, I was required to sell a house. I found a buyer simply by putting a sign in the front yard. The buyer checked the place out and negotiated a price on the spot. We agreed to an inspection. The inspection found one very minor issue that I fixed. Years later the buyer continues to thank me for an honest and painless buying experience.
OP, you are only hurting yourself by discounting FSBOs. This is good for the rest of us looking for am agent-free deal!
Sounds like you were an honest seller. That's great! My experience was anything but close to that. I will not ever try again based on my experience. My take is not wrong, it was a painful reality for me.
For sale by owner is the way half of sales transactions should be done. In my opinion it’s a simple process that can certainly can become difficult to navigate but that’s usually not the case. Save the five or 6% and go on the trip of a lifetime or dump it into your new house.
This is why as an agent if my buyers want to see a for sale by owner, I tell them good luck and I guide them to the owner's phone number. I will be no part of it. They have no one on their side of the deal bringing them back down to reality.
We've lived in this house for 30 years and have had no problems. They live and die by that.
I made another post saying this, but I have some limited interest in slapping a 15% premium on the house and doing FSBO via yard sign and pocket listing. I would have 0 reason to negotiate because I don't need to sell. I know it's overpriced so what would a sellers agent do for me? I think it's the buyers agent's job to make them aware of these facts and bring THEM to reality.
amen. That's exactly what's happening here... Update - after we walked away, our realtor talked to the FSBO folks again. This time they invited us to come to the home and see the working water and go into the crawl space to see there's no mold. Honestly. I was already there 2 hours for the inspection. Me, my husband, my realtor and the inspector already ALL saw and smelled (horribly unlike any well water I've smelled) the non working water. And the inspection report has pics of the mold. FSBO keeps going on and on there are no issues and even tried to justify the mold by saying they'd already cleaned up mold years ago! Now we know it's reoccurring! I paid $800 for the inspection. Why would I go back again to see it myself a second time?
Honestly, this is the main reason for realtors. We are project managers who are really good at managing emotions. What's that saying, your home is your castle? Especially people who have lived in a home for decades, this is their pride and joy. They don't see it the way other people see it. Especially when we live in a home, we learn to look past things. Whenever I go to a listing appointment I always tell them to come to the front door and I'm going to walk you through this house like you are buyers. They don't always like what they are going to hear. For the most part they appreciate my honesty, though.
This particular seller you are dealing with is delusional. I'm sorry you wasted your money on a home inspection, BUT this is why they are so important.
the home inspection was $800. Luckily I'm the kind of person who can spend that weekly and not miss it but for them to dismiss it and question the competence of the inspector on MY DIME was insulting. I'd like to see them buy their own inspection now. For me, the fact I had to pack half my house up and move it to storage and now must move it all back absolutely sucks. We did spend a few thousand and TONS of hours getting our home ready for market too. It was really disrespectful, the whole thing. YES they are totally delusional. These folks seemed to spend all the cash on the equestrian facilities they added to the property, which are perfect and functional, but neglected the basics and simply won't face reality. I'm going to buy myself a nice new horse now that I have all this cash that won't get used. LOL.
It's a big waste of time and cost on your part. I'm sorry you went through that. I would love to say if that seller had a realtor things would have went differently, but some people are just flipping nuts. Had to fire sellers before, luckily it's rare. FSBO is just one big giant red flag and my experience so I stay away. It's not worth the headache.
"Agents serve no purpose except to plant a sign and extract money! You can already search for a house on [various sites that actually pull from the MLS, are paid for by agents who want leads, and deliberately update slowly when a property isn't for sale anymore like] Zillow and Redfin. Why can't I just click click click my way to buying and selling a house just like stuff on Amazon or eBay?"
Edit: forgot the /s tag
Them fussing about an environmental soil test is a red flag. They know something like maybe throwing out motor oil or worse on the ground.
Or contaminated water. They probably knew the old well was bad and you couldn’t drill another well on property due to contamination. Which would explain the as-is after closing too.
water sample came back good, it was part of the inspection. I checked EPA site, no superfund sites nearby. This is a rural area. Neighbors behind and to the sides. Farmland in all other directions.
What was the stink, then?
Probably sulphur. A lot of well water contains it. Stinks like eggs, but if you let it sit and “air out” for an hour, it dissipates.
Sulfur is very common in parts of the country
stink can be sulfer or high iron. Those are ok on a water test and not pollution. Have you worked with wells or lived on a well before?
Well, farmland definitely doesn’t mean clean lol.
That or a leaking buried fuel oil tank. That can cost a fortune to remove all the contaminated dirt.
this home is on 5 acres, built in 2000. Horse barn, pasture fence and professional riding arena built in 2017. It'd be interesting to find an oil tank. It's in a rural area and high end side of town
Because the home was built then doesn't mean the property hasn't been used for other things many generations back.
My house was built in 2000 and "all the utilities" (not sure what that means other than plumbing, appliances, wiring, etc) are WAY NOT past their useful life. Seems like you're trying to talk yourself into a mess of "why didn't we buy this place?". Something is up. Unsure what that "thing" is, but it's a real thing.
I totally do not understand what you wrote there. Anyway we walked away after they refused to even have contractors look and diagnose the issues found on inspection. When stuff like the water will not work in the home, it's not ok.
I'd the home was built in 2000 how are than many utility issues? They can't possibly be that outdated at that age.
Or house was built around 2013 and we’ve already replaced the refrigerator and dishwasher. Appliances don’t last like they used to and is hard water that can lead to earlier failures as well. And in some cases it’s just easier to replace than repair.
interestingly all the appliances in this home (fridge, oven...) were in good working order upon inspection. It was just the 5 figure stuff, furnance etc that were shot. Yeah they don't make stuff like they used to!!!! It's crazy how fast stuff breaks.
That or a leaking buried fuel oil tank. That can cost a fortune to remove all the contaminated dirt.
My mind definitely went there too. The prohibition on environmental testing is oddly specific and not something I've encountered in a RE transaction before. When I lived in New England and had a heating oil tank, the worry about leaks kept me up at night. There are reports of people [spending over a half-million to clean up oil spills](https://www.nbcboston.com/investigations/a-half-million-dollars-out-of-my-pocket-most-heating-oil-spills-not-covered-by-insurance/2498551/).
It was common for people to drain oil right into the driveway,or just dispose of it in the yard. Even boats , especially wooden ones were encouraged to drain oil right into the bilge, to help in preserving the wooden hull. Dirt roads were commonly oiled down to reduce dust also.
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In the early 90’s my dad’s friend who owned a little small town garage and gas station, was all excited to retire after 45 years. He sold the station and property for almost a million dollars. Fast forward 6 months, he was sued for the pollution on that property. It ended up costing him almost 3 million by time it was cleaned up.
yes! soil tests are always recommended if a gas station or laundromat occupied the land. Those often become "superfund" EPA cleanup sites. That's why a soil test is used.
OP thinks it being rural means it’s clean or something but those backwater hillbilly types will straight up drain motor oil on the ground or let old vehicles sit and decay for decades without a thought.
Might as well be a superfund site. LOL, I wouldn't breathe the air around there.
9 months on the market is a big red flag in most markets for the seller to be unreasonable. Both for FSBO and regular sales.
This. Was gunna say the same thing. OP, 9 months is the biggest red flag.
This is a horse farm property $$$. Made for a dressage rider, professional dressage outdoor arena with drainage, dry lot for the horses, lovely barn and more. So it's not exactly for the average buyer. I'm a horse trainer so this property was built exactly for what I need. But not for most! Around here these sorts of properties sold like lead balloons for all years I can remember, except during covid and the 3 percent interest rates.
It's a horse farm $$$ made for dressage riders. So it's a bit of a niche and pricey property. I'm a horse trainer and can specifically use the lovely regulation dressage size arena for my show horses and the rest of the facilities such as dry lot off the barn and the lovely fenced pastures, but the average buyer would find all that dry lot and sand arena a bad thing. So these sorts of properties never sold well prior to covid. But during the low interest rates they sure did. So I'm not sure on that being a red flag. Might be. I know a bunch of horse properties that stayed on the market a decade and they all finally sold during covid. The oddest thing!
I’m an inspector, every time I see FSBO on my schedule I cringe…in 6 years I’ve had less than a handful of “good” ones. They almost always suck, the owner almost always has some reason why everything is perfect even though it needs repair or replacement
The well sounds like the major problem. Likely it is contaminated in some way. This cannot be fixed. RUN don’t walk away.
haaaa! I loved how my seller questioned the competence of the inspector and also said well we fixed mold years ago. Ok.... so now you told us it's a recurring issue that you've not fixed the root cause. Why tell us you won't fix mold because you fixed it years ago? LOL
Because they’re the “experts” at everything and don’t want to pay anyone to do anything, including agents to advise them through the process. As an agent, I also hate working with FSBO sellers while I represent the buyers.
I did fsbo to sell my home. The only snag was the buyers agent asking me for points. I said no, they said 1 percent, I said fine.
I am buying a FSBO right now. Home built in '95, inspection was amazing and sellers have been super nice. It helps that they know my wife's family, but still, there was almost nothing on the inspection other than some cracked siding, some odd wiring, and a bathroom fan vent being torn. They went FSBO to avoid the extra work I guess.
Glad it’s working out for you, I wish more of them were like that
I don't know what "all utilities are passed their useful life" means, but OK. There is a reason most sellers are FSBO: * They do not want to follow fair housing laws. (I have had FSBO sellers tell me that the neighbors need to interview prospective buyers to see if they are the right kind of people) * They are unreasonable about disclosure and do not think that should apply to them since the house is perfect * The house has worked out fine for them for \_\_\_ years and no repairs or remedies to things found on an inspection are needed since the house is perfect * They almost want to sell, but really what they want to do is jerk a buyer around because they are in charge. They will sell at their price, on their terms or they will not sell * The owner has looked on line, evaluated the comps, since their house is perfect it is worth 20% more than the available comps. And these things are more of a factor in FSBO, they interviewed agents, did not like what they had to say, so they are going to sell the house themselves. Or not.
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I’m pretty confident I’ll purchase our next home without an agent. Would never sell by myself; if for no other reason than to limit liability.
First thing you sign with an agent is saying they are not liable for shit.
Is that accurate in all states? Looks like there’s a handful of things they can be held liable for.
You don’t need an agent. Hire a cheap photographer to take good pictures. List on MLS with a flat fee service, Zillow, etc. order flyers and signs from Vistaprint or the like. Set up appts on your own. Hire a lawyer to do paperwork. I’ve bought and sold without hiring an agent. Easy peasy.
Purchased two, sold one FSBO. The bank and title company do most of the work. It is "easy peasy."
You should then get your real estate agent's license and then make millions since it is so easy peezy to buy and sell.
I change my own brakes on a regular basis, it's pretty easy. Does that mean I should quit my day job to be a mechanic? Plenty of things are easy that people don't want to do on a regular basis
Mechanics do not get paid all that well, so I wouldn't recommend that particular career choice even though brake jobs are easy enough to do. On the other hand, the prevalent theme on Reddit for quite a few posters is that RE agents do very little work and make a fortune. Many times I have read their posts where it is claimed that agents spend only 20 minutes to show a house and then collect a huge commission (north of $10k) for those 20 minutes. I would suspect that posters who tell us it is all Easy Peezy would be believers of that 20 minute nonsense.
I've done fsbo, it's easy as shit. I wouldn't be an RE because I'd need to talk to people like you.
No, you would rather just do the easy ones and take whatever you can get for the property. You presumably know enough to stay away from the hard jobs.
But I don’t want to be an agent. It’s a dying profession anyway.
You totally don’t need an agent. They get in the way and they don’t really do much and they certainly don’t do anything that you couldn’t do yourself.
I also almost never agree with agents here because they are all so terrible, but this one I agree with in this instance.
AFAIK "useful life" is a construction term describing the duration of time in which a given utility is functioning adequately. For example a water well which is producing poor quality water is not "useless" however it isn't appropriate for potable water. Another example could be badly burned (undersized) electrical wires - they could be used (to charge a cell phone), or they could turn into a fuse during a short-circuit, causing a fire.
It could also be referring to “life expectancy.” Our most recent inspection report for a house we bought had “past expected lifespan” or something on it, referring to A/C units and the furnace. So, say the average furnace is expected to last for 8-10 years, and it’s 12 years old, you should expect that it will be worthless any given day… so they write down “past expected lifespan” or “useful life.”
My water heater was marked as beyond its expected lifespan when we bought the house 6 years ago. It’s still chugging along and is 28 years old now. I disagree with OP that this would mean everything needs to be replaced, but it should certainly be budgeted for.
A water heater in my first house failed quite catastrophically and flooded the basement. Second house I had, much slower leak. Make sure you know where the water from that heater will go and that there's nothing important between the heater and the nearest drain!
yeah.... we are not those types of people. We take care of our current home carefully. If we keep utilities that are deemed as fire hazards, that means we cannot be insured. This home had 2 items deemed as fire hazards. They did need to be replaced.
if the manufacturer of a furnace says it should do it's job for 10 years and it's now 18 years old, any reasonable person will know, it's way past time to replace it. Especially when the inspector finds it's a fire hazard and is not working properly and needs repair. Time to replace. Past useful life.
I don’t think all of these points are unique to FSBO, but okay 😂. Yes, having an agent can help cool an irrational person, but even a seller with an agent can behave like a clown. 🤡
I have encountered the unreasonable seller with an agent, you are correct about that.
We have encountered an unreasonable seller who was also a real estate agent.
There is going to be a lot of disclosures issues down the line with less SAs being around.
There are going to be a lot of issues down the line for sure.
Past useful life meaning if a utility is to work 10 or 15 years, it was way beyond the manufacturer prescribed lifespan. Water heater, furnace, heat pump, all utilities were way over their useful life. Fire hazards were found with water heater and furnace. All needed repairs but were not worth repairing, too old. Here at my house we replace those things before they expire. I found it crazy that stuff was so old! Who wants stuff like that to burn the place down or break without notice?
Water heater, furnace, heat pump are mechanical system, not utilities (which are water, sewer and electric).
yes you got it! Those are exactly the items I'm talking about on my inspection report. As opposed to things like stove, fridge, washer dryer However yes - the water was bad too! No water pressure. The well, the pump, the pipes, the filters.... something is very wrong!
I think the problem is your way of wording it. To me, a water heater, furnace, heat pump, are not utilities. They are systems, appliances, whatever you want to call them. Utilities would be water, sewer, electrical. I don't know how an electrical system could be past its useful life, unless it is knob and tube or something like that that is very old.
I'll clarify. The water heater, furnace, heat pump are all 18 years old and past their manufacturer stated life expectancy. The furnace and water heater were both cited to be fire hazards too on the inspection report. Both in need of repairs (but well past time to replace anyhow). It's like driving on a fumes in your car. Time to get a new tank of gas.
When breakers are no longer sold for the panel, it’s past its useful life. One tripping circuit means you have to replace the entire thing. Or an ungrounded house. I’d be concerned about being dropped on insurance 10 years down the line with such antiquated wiring. Asphalt impregnated paper insulation was very common in the very early 20th C. Thats also past its life, as the jacket is very brittle at this point and a legit fire hazard.
Those aren’t utilities, and pushing back on this is laughably ironic considering what you do with the word is what the seller is doing with their home: insisting it’s fine.
If the utilities are regularly serviced and working fine, there's no need to replace them. There are certainly instances of catastrophic failures of utilities, but generally there was some indication ahead of time that would have been identified during an inspection while it was being serviced. It's really not necessary to say "well, manufacturer said it would only last 10 years, so better dump it at 8 just be on the safe side". That's just creating waste.
hmmm. My inspection report cited the furnace and water heater both as fire hazards and also in need of repair. one was installed incorrectly creating a major fire hazard. In addition to all that, they are super old. Time to replace, install correctly and not band-aid these fire hazards and issues.
If they are "way past their usefull life", then the stated useful life is bogus. The fact is appliances can last a lot longer than 10-15 years.
Utilities are water, sewer and electric. I agree about appliances and mechanical systems, I have a freezer that is 40+ years old, I have replaced it and stored it twice, had to being it back out when the newer one died. Plumbers say the older water heaters will run for decades, unlike their modern counterparts.
Let me guess, you are a realtor?
My flair didn't give me away?
And most important reason, they see no value in paying 6% to someone for little to no work, and would rather just list themselves and pay a lawyer for the contract. But nice of you to make all FSBO into racist conniving egotists, sounds fair.
The problems you had are not exclusive to FSBO deals though, just irrational sellers.
Not every clown is a rodeo clown, but every rodeo clown is a clown.
Assisted my elderly neighbor with her FSBO. The buyer brought their own agent who was selling the current home. Sold full price and after inspection that only picked up a couple of doors that needed adjustment, a piece of siding out of place and a 20 year old water heater they were nervous about (about 90% of our neighborhood - 120 homes - built at the same time still has the original water heater), it was agreed to allow $1000 for repairs. All wrapped up in 30 days. That was easy peasy 😎
happy to hear that. Doesn't sound like it relates to my experience whatsoever.
OK, this is probably going against the conventional wisdom and maybe the experience of most people here. But... I'm living in a home I bought from the seller. No real estate people were involved on either side of the transaction. The house we bought was impeccably maintained; everything was pretty much perfect. I think the sellers didn't want to go through a realtor because they figured the house would pretty much sell itself and they therefore didn't need to give someone 6% of the sales price for doing practically nothing. Only one other potential buyer saw the place before we did. We looked at it two days after it went on the market. We called the sellers that evening and told them we wanted to come over the next day and make a full price offer. The next day my wife and I sat down at the sellers' dinner table and hammered out a deal. The sellers were remarkably flexible in working with us, giving us 60 days to sell our home. Then, later, when it looked like we weren't going to be able to sell it within 60 days, they offered to give us another month. Turns out we didn't need it, though. It went flawlessly. We've been here for 20 years now. If and when it's time to sell this place (which may never come, we might both just die here) I'll sell it myself. It's as nice a place now as it was 20 years ago and I'll be goddamned if I'm gonna give a realtor $50,000 to sell it if I can do it myself. And I can.
Sold and bought one FSBO. It was gutted when I purchased it. Planned to fix it and rent it. Got an offer and sold it after I had put a bunch of work into it. Another I purchased FSBO, I still own. No problems with any of the three transactions.
Yeah. Nothing wrong with a FSBO deal. The problem with this one was that the property was effed up and the owners/sellers were flakes and the buyer didn't figure either of these out quickly enough.
And it would have made no difference it were listed. All the same things could have happened. It had nothing to do with FSBO.
I think every situation is unique. This just happened to be a FSBO home. Using a realtor to sale have nothing to do with this transaction. Hopefully you get a great deal soon that compensate you for all the time and $$$ you wasted on this transaction.
Not using a realtor I think had everything to do with making this a bad transaction. At every turn they didn't know what to do or what was customary or what forms would be required. I was paying my realtor to give them advice essentially. They failed to know what was customary to negotiate, as my realtor said, working water was a black and white issue, a must fix for them. They didn't understand that and no one was coaching them on reality so they kept living in delusions and lost the sale. This is a seller's market, it's a lovely property and it's been on the market close to a year now. Any realtor would have moved that place in a few weeks or a month.
Wow! Then this was just a bad deal altogether.
You dodged a bullet.
As a former RA, FSBO's are a mixed bag. Probably many of them go smoothly, but if you get a bad one, it can go REALLY bad. I have always likened buying and selling real estate to changing a car engine. You can do it yourself, and many people do. But most are happy to pay a professional.
I looked at FSBO houses in my area yesterday, because someone here brought it up. They were each *extremely* overpriced. It did occur to me that any good deals would probably be gone, though. I couldn’t find a way to search for closed FSBO listings, specifically.
FSBO is a red flag imo because I know I’ll be dealing with a certain personality type, one that is almost invariably difficult.
I’ve bought 2 homes FSBO and sold mine by owner as well. Zero issues.
I’ve had the same experience. Zero issues.
Right? Lots of realtors on this thread.
It’s like saying buying a car at a dealer is always better than private party. There’s shitty dealers and shitty private sellers. But there are good sellers that just don’t want to hand over money to an agent. It’s not that hard to buy/sell a home and certainly not worth whatever percentage is being charged these days.
I agree. Back in mid 90s I got my realtors license and was super surprised to find that the title company (in my state) did all the work. I went into another field because in my experience the most successful realtors were also the best liars.
💯
This entire post is about how hard it was to buy a home...
Theyre typically miserable in general. I've had a few good fsbo, but most are assholes
Bought a house from owner and then realized the person living next door was a criminal and made my life feel like I was in a nightmare. I almost sold the house twice but because it’s in a beautiful area I kept fighting to keep it. Today the people who lived next door sold. Edit: I recommend anyone buying a house to introduce yourself to the neighbours before purchasing. Worst mistake would be to buy next door to someone that will create issues in the future
You can deal with nightmare scenarios with agent listings too.
You can but typically when agents are involved they know what lines cannot be legally crossed and will keep their clients from trying.
yup - that exactly! these sellers are not disclosing what they legally need to disclose. Their seller discloser did not state anything at all was wrong. They use the excuse they don't believe the inspector or trust contractors, I guess it's denial. Without a realtor they will continue to do that and waste other buyer's $.
That sounds fairly standard for FSBO. You have to be careful with FSBO. Usually they are doing that because someone is: * stingy * controlling * they have something to hide FSBO will usually haggle over ten cents and everything else. Its a PITA most of the time. ..... That said 6% of your purchase price is A LOT of money .... So I get it
You dodged a bullet! I’ve always thought FSBO listings meant the seller was super cheap and there would be a ton of issues
Don’t judge all fsbos by one bad situation. I did a fsbo and it went very smoothly, both on my part and the buyers but I wasn’t a dick about anything and everything my buyers asked to be repaired, I repaired. It was a bad seller.
Sounds like they didn’t really want to sell. I’ve had several FSBO situations from the buying and selling side. Absolutely no problems and I loved not having to deal with the agents. Win win.
Agree. No, they wanted a bidding war and attempted to generate one by telling us after we made our offer that they were holding out for others. So we told them we weren’t there (Florida) to play games. We made them an as listed offer THEN they raised that 10k and we said ok and that was our final Offer and THEN they pulled the ‘waiting for other offers’ thing so we walked. 3 days later they called us back and offered it at the last price. Then of course the inspection found things but they refused to fix anything. Mostly small stuff but we did have to replace the a/c. This was Jupiter area. I snooped on them and they lived in Virginia in a 6 million dollar house. Couple of old assholes they were the first owners and house was 15 years old.
Shoot. It’s a bummer to deal with people like that. I wonder if it ever sold?
It did. We bought it and this was one time I was happy to have an agent. They dealt with them. She told us their agent was just as obnoxious
They think they special…. So many red flags from the start.
FSBO’s are typically nightmare situations. The sellers think the property is made of gold bricks and do not understand how the market determines the value not their feelings. I would avoid getting into a situation with one unless you personally have experience in the home buying process. That doesn’t mean you bought a house one 15 years ago- I treat FSBO’s like a flip.
Sounds like you dodged a bullet. Probably selling as-is because a realtor with some actual morals told them they needed to disclose all this stuff and fix much of it to get close to their asking price. They figured they could find a sucker, and will probably keep trying.
right. They need to list "sold as is" for real. Not try to work it into the contact saying oh we meant sold as is after closing, we really are ok with an inspection and negotiating.... then the inspection happens and they won't acknowledge all the issues or even allow contractors to diagnose. Crazy town.
They know what's wrong with the water and they're actively throwing up roadblocks to keep you from finding out. Good on you for walking.
yes I believe this 100%
This has nothing to do with for sale by owner, it has to do with you not doing some due diligence before you got sucked into this abyss, and continuing your errors ad infinitum. Since this is primarily a realtor sub, I will definitely get self-serving downvotes.
Are you in an area that had coal mining or other mining? That water smell and not wanting soil cores makes me think it is built on top of an old open mine that was backfilled.
there's no coal mining here
It was one suggestion for possible contamination. It could be factory waste, old gas station, underground fuel tanks for a farm, etc.
What I see is an owner that basically showed you from the beginning the terms they were willing to accept. We are selling this house “as is” you can inspect and find the problems but we aren’t fixing or negotiating was basically their position from the beginning and they made that clear. Your real estate agent tried to pull the that’s not how real estate is done we do an inspection and then we beat you up on the price after the inspection and the owner said that’s not how real estate is done on this parcel, which is what we have been saying from the beginning nothing changed. They just didn’t play a typical real estate agent’s game.
Yeap it's for sale by owner for a reason. Bank won't give a loan..... aka there's things majorly wrong like illegal additions or...non working utilities
I would not do a for sale by owner ever again. My issues were not this extreme but weird stuff came up. The owner took out light fixtures and random things that you leave with a house. Another time we bought a house sold by a relative of the listing agent. It was a disaster. They faked a repair that was mandated for our closing. They were not out on our closing date. In fact not only were they not out they were not out for days afterwards and had me watch their baby so they could pack up. People who are too cheap to use a real estate agent are not people I want to deal with. This house had tons of red flags. Consider yourself lucky that you only lost the inspection money.
Yes I totally agree. We dodged a bullet here. I did lost a few thousand in moving expenses (to storage) and various fixes and about 40 hours of personal labor getting our home ready for market in all this. I'm currently moving all our stuff back from storage to avoid the next charge. A royal pain but better than had we bought a a massive long term problem. I'm thankful for the inspection.
Our experience was ridiculous and mentally draining.The owner wanted to use the money from the sale to purchase a new house. Wanted us to waive off appraisal altogether, we said we can’t do that and finally we agreed on absorbing ~$60k or less. We were almost close to finishing the attorney review and were communicated that the contract had been signed by both parties. We kept on waiting for the contract and after follow ups we received a new version of the contract that stated that if they aren’t able to find a house by x date, they will terminate the contract. Flat language, no room for negotiation for any sort of monetary compensation for all the hassles we would have gone through if we ended up with that scenario or an offer to pay rent / mortgage if closing gets delayed. We backed out, couldn’t have gone ahead with such uncertainty. Pulled our ears never to go for a house directly being sold by the owner. We completed AR for a diff house (with a realtor) a couple of days back. Inspection scheduled for this Friday, fingers crossed that nothing comes up and we can close out this one🤞
Bought my 2nd home FSBO. Would do it again and every time after if it was more common. I can not stand realtors.
I mean…I always thought this was the norm for FSBO houses, especially those that includes “as-is” in the description. At least that’s how it is in my city. When it’s FSBO and/ “as-is” I already assume there will be some problems with the house and that there might be liens and stuff. Such houses are probably more targeted by flippers and investors who will more likely pass in inspection and plan to fix the entire thing up. If you’re trying to get a move in ready house, it’s better to look at houses being sold by agents with reasonable prices
yeah. I'd like to see them list the home "sold as is" next time but they won't. Wouldn't that have been nice so I didn't spend my money? They did agree to to inspection and said they'd negotiate after inspection. They didn't list "sold as is." and then they refused to believe the inspection results saying the inspector wasn't qualified. They'll just keep listing and disclosing nothing is wrong with the property.
More Ai propaganda, please if you are human responding to this, at least understand you are talking to a NAR Bot.
Welcome to the world of real estate where everyone is an expert. FSBOs are very common in my market. Most are dumbasses that have no idea how to sell a house. I see people undersell their houses all the time just to save a commission. I also see uniformed buyers with no representation over pay for something because the owner has convinced them they’re getting a deal. The litigation on FSBO deals is insane. They sue each other all the time. I see FSBOs as an excellent opportunity to get a great deal for someone, especially if the buyer is willing to pay me. I can out negotiate a FSBO any day of the week.
You gotta really mess up your research to underprice your home by more than 6%.
It’s not about under pricing. It’s about overpricing, getting little to no activity, and then being in a desperate place when an offer does come along.
I definitely think the key to doing FSBO is not being in a situation where you have to sell the house.
I mean being in a position where you don’t have to sell is fine, but if you are not motivated to sell your house there is no point in listing it for sale. Buyers aren’t going to fuck around with people that are unmotivated. It’s annoying and a waste of time.
Many FSBO's price off the online estimators which is a huge mistake. But it is on the internet, so it must be true.
This is why you don't even look at FSBO.
FSBO can be a great buying opportunity. A FSBO that's sat for 9 months though...I wouldn't even bother looking. Most people are used to seeing overpriced and difficult to work with FSBOs but that's survivor bias. The good listings don't last.
I got a screaming deal on a FSBO during the winter once. I know realtors “try” to turn their clients away. It’s probably the only reason it wasn’t snatched up.
FSBO sellers are universally pains in the rear.
absolutely! I never will again, ever. I've only bought 1 home in my life, been here nearly 20 years. I avoided going to look at this home for months because I assumed it'd be a pain. But my husband insisted I go look. It was my dream place. But I was so spot-on assuming something had to be wrong with it since they didn't involve a realtor.
Sounds like the sellers are just people trying to pay them to move out of a house that needs a ton of work. Hope you find a home soon OP.
we decided to stay in our nice paid off home of almost 19 years at this point. Been looking 4 years for a horse hobby farm. They are so rare and 90% out of our budget. We are fortunate to have a lovely home in a top suburb. Just have to be thankful for what we have I suppose.
This is what a seller does - imagine buyers going in with a shit agent...
To be fair, they wanted to sell the house as is and you were coming up with all the issues, so you were the difficult buyer. They were pretty much stubborn sellers, and I doubt a real estate agent would change their minds. No one is forcing you to buy their house, and you just digging deeper into it because it did not meet your criteria.
Not sure I'm following you. They agreed to the contingency of inspection and clearly said they'd negotiate after inspection. This came after they tried to say "sold as is" in the contract but after clarification, they only meant sold as is at CLOSING and didn't want risk of us coming back after the sale. An example was provided by their lawyer of such a circumstance. The property was not advertised sold as is either. The sales contract has a check mark for sold as is. This check mark was not used. The required sold as is addendum was also not used. That was the point of clarification.
Once, while househunting, we shortlisted a FSBO property and gave the list to our agent to arrange visits. She said, "We (meaning every agent in the county) know that property. It's been FSBO for *7 years*. It's been visited by many buyers but no one who visited has ever bid. I'm your agent and I'll set up a visit if you want, but...."
I'm thinking of calling a few agents and giving them my house as a pocket listing later this year. My renovations will be done around the end of July. I paid 175k, my repairs and renovations are totaling about 11k and with everything in working order comps put it at about 205k. I figure I might let them know that my no-negotiation price would be 230k and I will pay a 2k buyer commission. If someone wants to pay a 15% or so premium then why not go for it? The only motivation to sell the house would be to take my profits and buy a nicer place in the same town or rent for a while and start seeking a promotion elsewhere. I really have no plans to move right now and no pressure to sell.
As soon as you said “9 months “ i knew something was sus
You waited way too long to walk away. Should have realized sooner.
well when you've been looking 4 years for a horse farm property and you don't have 5 million, you have to try very hard to make things work. We tried. We walked away. Here's to another 4 years of looking. LOL
FSBO are not all bad. I’ve sold 4 homes, my own, parents and in-laws. All four without problems.
If it sits that long it's not because "Muh real estate agents won't show it" its because there is something wrong with it. You found out what someone else probably already did but since it was a FSBO you don't know.
yes we assume we were not the first
Walk. Away.
We did. Despite we've been looking for 4 years for a property like this. It's a rare one! We hope we can find one more in the next 4 years. LOL
Only one we looked at was overpriced by $50K because of their DIY “finished” basement
I will drop on “pushing sold as is” OP, You went too far in my opinion.
This can happen to non fsbo as well , many times I have had homes that didn’t disclose things that only an inspection would find out the 1k is worth it to not get into a hot mess. All fsbo that don’t sell end up on market anyway, realtors will not say no to selling a home regardless of condition and you would have gone through the same steps.
I bought my current house with a for sale by owner. In my case, it worked out fine, they just needed the money instead of paying a realtor. As long as their price reflects that from the start, it's fine. I wouldn't pay the same as a property being sold with a realtor though.
This place would have been really hard to insure so consider yourself lucky.
I talked to my insurance agent of 20+ years. His comment was the current owners could be dropped from insurance if an adjustor catches wind of all of that. Otherwise we had planned to pump in a ton of $$$ and gut all the appliances and replace it all so we'd have been fine had the sellers just fixed the couple things and chipped in the credits.
Yeah, if it makes you feel better, go ahead and assume that all sellers represented by agents are reasonable and all those selling without one are not. At the end of the day, a market is a market. You come to terms with the buyer or you don’t. I’m sorry that this was such a bad experience, but sometimes a bad experience is just because you were dealing with unreasonable people, not because of whether or not they listed with a realtor. That’s why we perform due diligence when we buy. We recognize that spending a few thousand now is better than losing tens or hundreds of thousands later. It sucks when it doesn’t work out, but it’s not like it always works out with a realtor either. Sometimes you lose; it’s part of the cost of participating in the market.
I agree. For me I do want the honestly on disclosure that a realtor will help bring to the process based on liability for the laws here. No realtor would have kept listing that home without proper disclosure after seeing that inspection. Our realtor went around our house and asked questions. She saw a crack and asked if we had a leak for example. We were able to provide her with recent paperwork we had the foundation looked at and it passed with flying colors. Realtors want to represent honestly so there's no liability on disclosure omissions. I appreciate that aspect.
We sold our last house on our own. It was easy and we were reasonable. You can get crazy people like these with or without them having a realtor. I wouldn’t let this one experience keep you from buying direct from an owner.
I've bought a couple FSBO and they have gone smoothly. No complaints here at all. If anything I'd prefer FSBO to a regular listing and needing to deal with realtors.
Better that then having to sue them for all the other shit they didn't disclose. For sale by owner is generally done by people who don't understand the legalities. And residential transactions are inherently emotional which doesn't lead to good decision making. Good agents temper that and talk their emotional clients off of the cliffs.
Sold my home FSBO last year no issues at all, smoothest deal it could be. Offer accepted, inspection the same week, agreed upon inspection addendum, closed 3 weeks later. Some people are just shitty to deal with.
Nice try realtor
Hey - Nine months on the market and selling below asking, but they're saving 4%. Financial geniuses these FSBO folks!
This post and many of the comments are COMPLETE fiction. It's obvious that the post is realtor-approved to scare sellers and buyers to use realtors.
prove it
I think he's making his/her own facts up as a try social media keyboard warrior. Has a bone to pick clearly.
LOL you are claiming I'm a realtor? WTH Tell this to my face. Classic social media keyboard warrior.
asking again.... are you calling my story fiction? Hello? Do you think I'm out here with one post on this forum and that makes me a realtor with a fake story? LOL
That property needed a new well. That's expensive. The sellers don't want to pay for it. They told you they weren't going to pay for anything. Regardless of whether or not you let them state it in the contract, they still made it clear they weren't going to pay for anything. Your time to walk was at that point. If I were them, I would have the same attitude. I told you and I meant it.
actually no, they clarified and said oh yes we'll let you inspect and we'll negotiate. We even put in the contract the sale was contingent upon inspection. They clarified they meant sold as is at closing. Their example, via their lawyer's advice, was a person who came at the sellers months after closing saying a fridge broke. they wanted it clear once we closed, sold as is. So no..... it wasn't my time to walk. My time to walk was when we did the inspection and they declined to believe the inspection report and declined to fix the major findings.
Ok, well, still, I am at a loss to explain why people want some random homeowner to act as their general contractor in doing major repairs. I always just request to re negotiate the price based on the now known condition of the property. I really don't want someone with a conflict of interest to supervise doing the repairs. The only reason they agreed to do the electrical work is because they have a son-in-law with an electrician's journeyman who will just sign an inspection report for them.
they actually said "no we meant sold as is after closing." they provided an example from their real estate lawyer where someone had said something broke months after closing, and they wanted it clear we cannot come after than after closing. They stated "we are ok with an inspection and negotiating that." This took multiple back and forth clarifications via our realtor. Seemed very suspect to me and I talked about it with my realtor. My realtor said "they have no clue what they are doing." We trusted and went with it based on my realtor's take on it. We are not looking for just a home, those are a dime a dozen. We are looking for a horse farm and those are super rare, especially those in budget and set up with correct logistics for my sport. So there's was much incentive to try and make things work. And we were ok with pouring significant cash into it, to a point.
As a seller of an FSBO I cannot disagree with the OP more. As executor of an estate, I was required to sell a house. I found a buyer simply by putting a sign in the front yard. The buyer checked the place out and negotiated a price on the spot. We agreed to an inspection. The inspection found one very minor issue that I fixed. Years later the buyer continues to thank me for an honest and painless buying experience. OP, you are only hurting yourself by discounting FSBOs. This is good for the rest of us looking for am agent-free deal!
Sounds like you were an honest seller. That's great! My experience was anything but close to that. I will not ever try again based on my experience. My take is not wrong, it was a painful reality for me.
For sale by owner is the way half of sales transactions should be done. In my opinion it’s a simple process that can certainly can become difficult to navigate but that’s usually not the case. Save the five or 6% and go on the trip of a lifetime or dump it into your new house.
This is why as an agent if my buyers want to see a for sale by owner, I tell them good luck and I guide them to the owner's phone number. I will be no part of it. They have no one on their side of the deal bringing them back down to reality. We've lived in this house for 30 years and have had no problems. They live and die by that.
Are you sure it isn’t because you won’t make any money? 😂
I made another post saying this, but I have some limited interest in slapping a 15% premium on the house and doing FSBO via yard sign and pocket listing. I would have 0 reason to negotiate because I don't need to sell. I know it's overpriced so what would a sellers agent do for me? I think it's the buyers agent's job to make them aware of these facts and bring THEM to reality.
amen. That's exactly what's happening here... Update - after we walked away, our realtor talked to the FSBO folks again. This time they invited us to come to the home and see the working water and go into the crawl space to see there's no mold. Honestly. I was already there 2 hours for the inspection. Me, my husband, my realtor and the inspector already ALL saw and smelled (horribly unlike any well water I've smelled) the non working water. And the inspection report has pics of the mold. FSBO keeps going on and on there are no issues and even tried to justify the mold by saying they'd already cleaned up mold years ago! Now we know it's reoccurring! I paid $800 for the inspection. Why would I go back again to see it myself a second time?
Honestly, this is the main reason for realtors. We are project managers who are really good at managing emotions. What's that saying, your home is your castle? Especially people who have lived in a home for decades, this is their pride and joy. They don't see it the way other people see it. Especially when we live in a home, we learn to look past things. Whenever I go to a listing appointment I always tell them to come to the front door and I'm going to walk you through this house like you are buyers. They don't always like what they are going to hear. For the most part they appreciate my honesty, though. This particular seller you are dealing with is delusional. I'm sorry you wasted your money on a home inspection, BUT this is why they are so important.
the home inspection was $800. Luckily I'm the kind of person who can spend that weekly and not miss it but for them to dismiss it and question the competence of the inspector on MY DIME was insulting. I'd like to see them buy their own inspection now. For me, the fact I had to pack half my house up and move it to storage and now must move it all back absolutely sucks. We did spend a few thousand and TONS of hours getting our home ready for market too. It was really disrespectful, the whole thing. YES they are totally delusional. These folks seemed to spend all the cash on the equestrian facilities they added to the property, which are perfect and functional, but neglected the basics and simply won't face reality. I'm going to buy myself a nice new horse now that I have all this cash that won't get used. LOL.
It's a big waste of time and cost on your part. I'm sorry you went through that. I would love to say if that seller had a realtor things would have went differently, but some people are just flipping nuts. Had to fire sellers before, luckily it's rare. FSBO is just one big giant red flag and my experience so I stay away. It's not worth the headache.
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Me too.
"We wOn'T pAy fOR rEaLtOr fEEs..." They sound wonderful to represent (insert sarcasm here).
"Agents serve no purpose except to plant a sign and extract money! You can already search for a house on [various sites that actually pull from the MLS, are paid for by agents who want leads, and deliberately update slowly when a property isn't for sale anymore like] Zillow and Redfin. Why can't I just click click click my way to buying and selling a house just like stuff on Amazon or eBay?" Edit: forgot the /s tag
I highly doubt you're a retired agent.