What else can I do to sell my house?!?

Felicia

<font color=blue>Proud Policeman's Wife<br><font c
Joined
Aug 18, 1999
Messages
560
Other than giving it away??

In mid July we put our house on the market and found a house we wanted to buy.

House we plan on purchasing:
We put an offer on this house and the sellers accepted. They got the contract drawn up and asked for us to put a 5% down payment.

House we are selling:
Within one week of being on the market, we had two families who had a bidding war and ended up $25K over our asking price. We chose to go with the family that were renting an apartment and would be able to close the fastest. (The other family still had a house to sell themselves) We had the contracts drawn up for them and asked them to put a 5% down payment also.

We were both scheduled to sign our contracts and put the down payments on the same day. DH and I go the lawyer and do our part and assumed the buyers of our house were doing the same.

We get a call that night from the realtor saying they backed out of buying our house:mad: ! The reason was she is a teacher and the school district she works for was having money problems and she would be getting a pink slip. So no job, no way to pay mortgage. They knew it was a possibility for over one month (it was on the news) but never told us that it would effect her position. (she is an art teacher and the district cut art and music)

When we accepted their offer, our real estate agent stopped advertising and showing our house, because they thought it was "a done deal" that the family would purchase it. So... now we go back to square one. The 'back-up' family still have to sell their house which is over priced so who knows when it will go.

According to our attorney, if we don't sell our house by the time our new house is ready to close... we will lose our down payment ($30K). We cannot get a bridge loan, already looked into that.

I don't feel our real estate agent and her broker are doing all they can do to sell our house. They would be getting the commission on the house I am buying and the house I am selling so why not work for it??? All they do is put a little blurb in the paper once a week. DH and I paid for an advertisment in the paper one week before hosting an open house and the broker got mad at us. Too bad... I gotta get my house sold!

What else can I do???
 
Why didn't your attorney or real estate broker have you put a contingency contract on the house you are wanting to purchase?:confused: In that case, you wouldn't put any money down and it would be contingent on you selling your house. I would have never put $30k down payment on a house while my house hadn't sold. (Of course, I understand you thought your buyers were doing the same thing). I would definitely ask your attorney about a contingency contract and try to get your down payment refunded.
 
Doesn't sound to me like your realtors are very good. A good realtor should continue to look for buyers even if there are offers on the table and accepted. They continue to market the house until it closes. You just never know when things will fall through. I also think they did not give you adequate advice in regards to signing the contract on your "new" house. It should have been a contigent sale if you needed the income from your current home to close. They should have known if you couldn't swing two mortgages at the same time.
 

We were told they would put money down when signing the contract and that is the money we would be able to keep if they backed out once contracts were signed. It was never mentioned, either by the lawyer or real estate broker, that money was due once offered was accepted only when contracts were signed.

About adding a contingency clause, the lawyer told us that they were not allowed to put this in the contract. He said it can not be done here :confused: .

We asked about getting our money back and were told if we try, we would not be able to get the entire amount back, maybe half if that, because the sellers had other people wanting to buy the house also and since they lost them, they get to keep our money.

We have never bought a house before from someone, we have only bought twice and both were brand new so we didn't have a time limit.

Thank you for responding. I am getting myself sick over here.
 
Yup, should have a contingency clause. Sounds like your realtors are NOT on the ball. :( And they don't seem to be working as hard for you as they should. I sold a home in March...sold the first day to the first person in! My realtor told me that other people would still be coming through in order to have a back up. I'm not sure what you can do at this point. Perhaps talk with a real estate attorney (?)
 
A deposit at the time a contract is signed sounds right. Not prior to that.

Wow! No contingency clauses in NY? :eek: :eek: I'm surprised you would get any of your deposit back. :(
 
Unless you have bought or sold RE in NY you have no idea how difficult it is here. We have bought and sold in TX and just bought in NY and it's a completely different world. Basically there is no protection until you go to contract and there is no contract while you have things like inspection contingencies out there... therefore, it takes forever to get to contract. There is also no "standard" contract and the seller's attorney needs to write up a contract that then needs to be hammered out with the buyers. For us, this process took well over 6 weeks.

What your realtors SHOULD have done was to continue to show your house for backup offers. Is the market still screaming hot down in westchester? You, unfortunately, may need to price your house a little more competitively to get it to sell now that school has started.

Does the other contract you have on your new house have a financing contingency in it? Those are pretty standard and if you still own your old house you will not get financing, which may give you an "out" on your other contract. It doesn't sound like your attorney is working for you but ask anyway. If you can't get financing you may be able to get your deposit back (worst case scenario).
 
Thank you for responding. I am getting myself sick over here.

oh, I bet you are. I have no real estate experience in New York, but gosh that no Contigency Clause allowed thing just doesn't sound right. Personally all our contracts have always stated "based on ability to obtain financing at an interest rate not over ______ " I personally have never had to put down more than a couple thousand in earnest money, but then again I've never had to buy in such a hard market.

I wouldn't give up on the bridge loan just on one rejection, and especially not in a market where the house is likely to sell in under 4 to 5 months. Definately check with a couple of places, some like Countrywide are easily accessible by internet.

Also, I personally would make myself that Broker's worst nightmare. It is time to be a PITA at the level where they want to get rid of you as much as you want to get rid of them. I got myself stuck in a contract once with a REALLY bad real estate agent and I found that after my husband and I started calling her --- oh say 7 or 8 times a day --- our Customer Service level picked way up.
 
When we purchased our last home, we had a contingency clause...contingent on our home selling because of the very reason that we couldn't afford two mortgages. We needed the profit from the sale of our home for the down payment of our new home. We did have to put up $1000 as earnest money which we would have lost if our house didn't sell and they found another buyer for the house we were looking at to purchase.

I'd ask your attorney again why a contingency clause wasn't added to the contract when he knew you had to sell a current home. Also, why were you made to put up such a large amount of money on the new house? You should have been able to put a small amount of earnest money or good faith deposit on the house to say that you are interested in. If the buyer have another party interested, you may have lost that money but at least it would have been a smaller amount.

Another thought....maybe the attorney could write up an amendment to the contract. Not sure if that would work but maybe it's worth asking.
 
Contingency clauses in the greater NYC area are basically non-existant. They are legal options, but with the usual hot markets (look at how quickly the OP's house first sold) most sellers won't accept them from buyers. They know that another buyer will come along who won't need one, and therefore most sellers don't accept them and they usually are not offered. When we were looking for houses, our realtor advised us of the same thing, it is something you can ask for, but it's usually a point for the sellers to not accept your deal. I'm not suprised the OP didn't get a contingency clause, because if I was selling my house, and buying a new one, I wouldn't accept one. The housing market in NY/NJ/CT moves so fast that contingency clauses are almost never included in sales. I sympathize with the OP, because it could have happened to us, but we decided to stay. The deposit isn't due until the contract is signed, and usually not for a few days. There also is a period called "attorney review" usually 10 days, in which any party can back out EVEN after the contract is signed, with no penalty to the buyer. Since the buyer backed out before the contracts were even signed, they were under no obligation to provide the sellers with any damages. I don't understand why the OP didn't go after the back-up family and insist on a a firm contract with no contingency on their part. You would have been covered, if they accepted that deal, and they would now be the ones worrying about selling their house and looking for bridge loans, not you. I can also understand that it does look like your Realtor isn't doing enough for you, and you're trying to get out of your current home. You're only options, if hte house doesn't sell quickly, is to take out a home equity loan to get the remainder of your down payment on your new home and pay two mortgages until you sell the old home. I know that financially this might not be viable, as your new mortgage might be contingent on having the old one paid off. You're other option might be to restructure the current mortgage on your new house to get a 100% mortgage, so you might be able to pay off the old mortgage, thereby only having one mortgage until the old house is sold. If you're able to do that, as soon as you sell the old home, you can then refinance your new (current) home and be able to place what ever downpayment you planned on. There are many creataive financing options available, and since a bridge loan isn't available, I'd contact a mortage broker and see what creative financing options are out there. It might cost you money in the short term, but not as much as loosing the house you want, and the significant downpayment you've given.
 
Just to clarify, there ARE contingencies allowed in NYS contracts... however, you won't find a single attorney who will write up a contract with the typical contingencies found in many other states such as satisfactory inspection etc. Financing contingency is pretty standard but recently in hot markets like westchester county, people have had to remove them in order to get a house they are bidding on... when houses go for so much over asking sometimes the difference between the winning bid and the losing bid is who is willing to write a contract without a financing contingency, but a financing contingency SHOULD still be standard. Have you actually read your contract thoroughly? If not, you should and see if there is language like Toby's Friend posted... similar language was in our contract as well.

I also agree not to give up on the idea of a bridge loan... even if you need to pay at sub prime rates for whatever reason, it's better than losing your deposit and new house. If you're not working with a mortgage broker, perhaps you should as they have access to programs at many banks, not just one... if you are trying to work with a single bank you may find that they don't have a program that fits your scenario. A broker will know about things that you cannot possibly find out without being in the biz.
 
Originally posted by jel0511
Contingency clauses in the greater NYC area are basically non-existant. They are legal options, but with the usual hot markets (look at how quickly the OP's house first sold) most sellers won't accept them from buyers. They know that another buyer will come along who won't need one, and therefore most sellers don't accept them and they usually are not offered.

Isn't that the entire point of a contingency clause....if the seller has another buyer willing to put a contract on the house without a contingency clause, the seller can accept it?

Originally posted by jel0511
The deposit isn't due until the contract is signed, and usually not for a few days. There also is a period called "attorney review" usually 10 days, in which any party can back out EVEN after the contract is signed, with no penalty to the buyer. Since the buyer backed out before the contracts were even signed, they were under no obligation to provide the sellers with any damages. I don't understand why the OP didn't go after the back-up family and insist on a a firm contract with no contingency on their part.

Great point! Were you not able to back out after you learned of your buyers decision to back out?
 
If you have a financing clause, that could be your out. If your financing was contingent on the sale of your house (I know we had to submit a copy of our contract to get approved), you could then in effect have your financing denied, and thus get out of your contract. I'd definately look into that avenue.
 
I'm sorry you are going thru this.

I do have to add that we have bought property in the syracuse area and the saratoga area (and sold the syracuse property) and each time we had a contingency for inspection, never had any problem having that at all. maybe different where you are?

we didn't need a contingent on sale of home when we sold syracuse because dh's company was moving him and bought the house if we couldn't sell it.

I wish you luck!
 
You haven't said what you did originally to get your house ready, but I'd go with some pretty standard updating... Is the front walkway/porch in good looking shape? Curb appeal is important. Have you de-cluttered your house (including the closets) Have you re-painted anything that needs updating? Why don't you have another open house right away?? Is the house active on the MLS listings? Is there any way you could dump your realtor & find someone else? Or, do it yourself? We just sold our own home & it was minimal work... we just listed it on the MLS through a third party... we paid 2% to the broker that brought us a buyer... what we did was show the home when people called & we left everything else up to our attorney & the buyer's realtor....

Take a critical look around your house to see if there are any detractors you can fix & advertise that house, put up signs around the neighborhood if you have to.... Just some suggestions! Good luck, I know you'll get it sold... Oh, also, can you re-finance your current home to pay for the new house? That might be one way around your financial problem...
 
Did I read you correctly, that your "buyer" put down NO earnest $? Is an amount of earnest $ listed in your contract? If so, I have to wonder if you have grounds for legal action against your realtor or lawyer. Here, we don't generally use lawyers for sales contracts -- everyone uses the same generic fill-in-the-blank form. When we sold our last home, I was not totally convinced the couple could come up with the $ and wouldn't sign the contract until they raised the amount of earnest $, which they did.

Do you have much equity in your old home? We had a nontraditional bridge loan that used equity in the house we had for sale to raise the money for a downpayment on the new home. We were not in a position to make two house payments over the long term but were able to get the loan b/c we had a lot of equity in the old house and some investments that presumably we could use in a worst-case scenario.

If you had two people bid above asking price on your home, I doubt that you need to do anything other than be patient. Seven or eight weeks is not a long time for a home to be on the market.
 




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