Expert: Ray Beggs - 8/27/2007

Question
My brother and his wife recently purchased a home and waived the condition of selling of their home in the purchase offer because his wife did not want to lose the house (the sellers wouldn't accept this condition).  I had advised him that this is not a wise move because in the end if your house doesn't sell, it would put you in a financial position whereby you will have to "give away" your home in order to sell.  He also has a very short closing date (only 4 months) which I felt was not very wise under these conditions.  Well, their closing date is now less than six weeks zway and they have had no offers on their home!  He is very worried and his agent is now telling him to drop his price by $40K, which is ridiculous, because his home is currently at fair market price and this would mean taking a huge loss (his agent is now bringing his "own" clients in and telling them the "situation" my brother/wife are in -- in other words, "ripping off my brother" which I think he planned from day one by offering such unethical, uneducated advice.

Can he put the house he purchased back on the market at the same time as selling his house in order to help alleviate the chance he will possess two homes at once (bridge financing)?  That way if the house he purchased gets another offer, he can just let it go.  And wait patiently until his current home sells.  It's a beautiful home with so much invested in it and I personally know they could get above asking price if they had the time to find the right buyers.

Thank you.

He is now asking me how to fix this and I really am trying to find a way to help him.

Answer
Hi Michele,

Thanks for your question. I know that it feels that his agent is the bad guy, but this almost always is not the case. The market has really changed lately and it is very hard to get a home sold. I'm sure this caught his agent off guard and he is trying to come up with ways to get your brothers home sold. You have to remember, the agent makes their money based off of the selling price of the home. It doesn't make sense that they would be happy that a house will sell for less then what it is worth.

Have they considered just letting the deal go away? They may be out some (or all) of their deposit but it would probably be less money then the hit that it sounds like they might have to take on their house to get the deal done.

Hope this helps,

Ray