Be Prepared for the Long Haul

By Joel Persinger
YourRealEstateDude.com

One of my grandfather’s favorite sayings was, “The more bends you put in the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.” Well, my dear reader let me tell you… the mind boggling number of changes to the real estate and lending market this past few years have put a lot of bends in the plumbing. When you throw in the oddball things that can sometimes happen with real estate purchases, the drain can be stopped up more often than not.

One of my sellers moved out of the area and left her house to be sold while vacant. So, I sold it for her. The buyers were happy and everything was moving along just fine until the buyer’s lender wanted to know if the room addition was completed with the proper permits. When asked about this, the seller said, “Of course there are permits” and directed me to one of the kitchen drawers where she had left the permits and the plans for the room addition. Naturally, I went to the property at once to secure the permits. The problem is the permits weren’t there.

It seems that a potential buyer who had visited the home had absconded with the permits. We found this out surreptitiously when that buyer contacted escrow and asked, “So, when do we get the house?” The escrow officer was naturally confused by this turn of events and said, “Ah… you don’t have an escrow on that house.” As it turned out, this buyer had been under the impression that she was buying the house even though she didn’t have an accepted offer and had never opened escrow. It took me three weeks to get her give us back the permits. In the meantime, I checked with the city and county only to find that they had lost the originals. So, the only copies were those that the confused buyer had taken. By the time I got them back the real buyer had given up and cancelled escrow.

In another instance, an Army veteran and his wife worked with me to find them a home. We found a great house for them at a wonderful price. The escrow appeared to be moving along smoothly and all appeared to be right with the world. It was then that we discovered that his certificate of eligibility for his V.A loan was being held up. It seems that the V.A. records did not show his entire length of service. In fact, the records only indicated that he was in the military for the short time he was stationed in California. Since his discharge papers and other related paperwork did in fact show his entire service record, the V.A. indicated that all he had to do was to send the paperwork to the appropriate V.A. office and they would make the change. The problem was that we were supposed to close escrow in 15 days and nobody on the planet believed that the V.A. would move that fast. Not even the V.A.

In yet another strange situation, a client of mine was in line to buy a home only to find out that his lender would not accept the appraised value of the house. This was in spite of the fact that it was the lender’s appraiser who came up with the value. No matter how clear we were about the fact that the house in question was a custom home on over an acre of land with a 300 degree mountain view, the lender insisted on deriving their opinion of value by comparing the home to the many tract houses that surround the area at the bottom of the hill. It should be mentioned that the tract houses were on small lots and did not have a view. The decision to reject the appraisal was made by a junior underwriter located somewhere in Pennsylvania.

These are just three of the many screwball situations my clients have faced over the past several months. In most cases, the problems were able to be resolved and the escrows went through just fine. But, in every case an extraordinary measure of patience and perseverance was required on the parts of the clients (as well as everyone else). It should also be noted that every one of the escrows we have closed over the past three years has been a challenge, to one degree or another. The days of the easy home purchase, if they ever existed, are gone!

The bright side to this otherwise dismal tale is the opportunity it presents for you as the home buyer. Since we know that the overwhelming majority of home purchases in this current environment are difficult, it is the buyer who is willing to hang in there for the long haul who will succeed. While other buyers are giving up, you will persevere and thereby accomplish your goal of buying a home. So, here’s my advice: hang in there and be prepared for the long haul. Buying a home in this marketplace is challenging. But, those who are up to the challenge can swing some terrific deals.