During the past few years, the market has been so hot - so many buyers were "throwing" money at sellers and sellers were getting 6 and 7 offers - no buyer with a house to sell had a chance to get his offer accepted.
Times have changed. Buyers now have a change to get an offer accepted CONTINGENT upon the sale of their home.
Kris Berg of San Diego Home Blog provides a nice explanation of this contingency and process.
I recently represented a buyer on the purchase of a property in a nearby local community.
This property had been on the market for some time and my buyers' intitial offer was significantly below list price.
When I arrived at the listing agent's office, I was told that another offer had just come in.
I called my clients and we increased our offer slightly.
After I presented the revised offer, I was excused from the conference room and waited for the seller and his agent to discuss the offers. The listing agent came out and said "the other offer is higher but we have concerns about this buyers' ability to perform financially - if your client will match the price, we will sell it to your client".
I called my client and we decided to stick to our guns and not increase the price and to remain at our offer price.
I informed seller and listing agent.
After about an hour, I got another call from the seller agent and he told me seller would take even less from my buyer than the other buyer offered.
I discussed this with my client and my client agreed to raise their offer to the price suggested by seller agent - still below the other offer - and my client's offer was accepted - at the price we decided going into the negotiation was going to be their top offer.
My clients are very happy with the purchase and felt they made a good buy.
By handling the negotiations properly and by knowing the realities of the current market - all gained after 31 years in the local real estate market, my client was able to make a very good buy at the price they wanted to pay BELOW another competing offer.
If you are a first-time home buyer (defined as someone who has not owned a home in three years), here is the tax form you need to file along with instructions as to how to do so.
It is fairly straight forward.
Which party (buyer or seller) in a transaction pays which closing cost is not regulated by law.
Sellers typically pay county transfer taxes. City transfer taxes are typically split 50/50 between buyer and seller.
What about title and escrow fees?
However each county has their own custom.
In San Mateo County buyer pays for owner title policy. In Santa Clara County seller pays.
Buyer generally pays for lender title policy (ALTA).
So if you sell in San Mateo County and move to Santa Clara County, you typically will pay no title and escrow fees.
Please note
Here is a chart that shows who pays what on a county by county basis.
Thanks to Sam Benson of RealEstate680 bringing my attention to the chart.
Obama's plan contains 2 main parts:
1. Refinance options for loans that are up to 105% of the current market value of the home.
2. Loan modifcation programs for people where option #1 does not apply and they are having a hard time making the monthly payments.
Obama has named the plan #1 - Making Homes Affordable.
Katie Curmutte, Zillow on Mortgages Unzipped blog provides lots of details on the plan.
Katie covers option #2.
Further details are available at: http://www.financialstability.gov/ and here and over here too.
If you are a homeowner in trouble or just want to know what your options are, just let me know.
I have written several posts on this issue and these posts contain links to other great information.
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