Author Topic: Buying from a relocation company  (Read 12385 times)

Axecleaver

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Buying from a relocation company
« on: January 16, 2016, 03:49:26 PM »
Hi guys, need some advice on this one.

Wife and I sold our clown house in August. Had various misadventures with renting and decided that we need to own, can't deal with living in close proximity to others in an apartment building and tired of dealing with whack job landlords. Have bid on four properties since then and have been beaten out twice, had one property withdraw from the market and another the seller was just impossible to deal with, so we walked away. We are not emotional negotiators, we make our mind up with a bid plan and then stick to that plan when the excitement starts.

Saw a house on Friday and loved it, was priced appropriately, we offered list price and expected to be done. After we submitted the bid we learned it was being offered by a relocation company, Cartus. Tons of horror stories on the web about problems dealing with these guys. They require us to sign their contract instead of the standard real estate contract for our area. I have my lawyer review it, he says it's fine except we need to move a few dates out. It restricts my rights pretty aggressively - no dates are honored in my favor, offers last forever, they take all the earnest money if we don't close for whatever reason, and they don't take liability for anything (as-is sale).

We put our offer in Friday, and signed all their required forms. Listing agent tells us she has six showings for Saturday. Our agent says, cancel them you have a full list price offer. She (of course) shows it anyway, and my guess is she told every buyer she had a full list price offer.

Today I get a call that there are two other offers on the table, and I need to give best and final by Sunday, 5pm.

So, I know from negotiating school that this is a classic "bid against yourself" situation, and I should probably let my list price offer stand. We are the first bid in and we're putting 10% down at contract close. However, I have to imagine that every buyer walking in the door today was told there's a strong list price offer on the table, can they do better? So I'm considering offering 5k over list, and if that doesn't work I walk away not feeling bad about it.

I hate the idea that I'm handing them another 5k because they asked me to bid against myself. What would you do in this situation? Backup plan is to bid on a different house we liked, but was overpriced, that we saw three weeks ago. Listing agent has been emailing my agent every day for three weeks, and reduced the price twice. So feel a lot better about our chances on that one. I know there's always another property over the horizon; but we're running on empty trying to find a new home.

Another Reader

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Re: Buying from a relocation company
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2016, 04:52:21 PM »
I'm an investor, and I'm not anxious to move, but my motto has always been: houses are like buses - if you miss one, another will be along in a little while.  The question I would ask myself is how sorry would we be if we did not go up by $5,000 and we missed this house as a result?  If $5,000 is one percent of the value and not a lot of money to you, and you and your wife love the house, make the bid.  If you lose this house and it would just be an annoyance, you would be pissed off for the rest of your life that you "overpaid," or the house is just overpriced, stick with your bid.

snappytom

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Re: Buying from a relocation company
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2016, 12:41:02 PM »
Bought our first house from a relo company and had no problems.  There is the benefit of not having any current owner occupied involvement or emotion.  It is just another stack of papers the company wants to move to the outbox. 

The other topics;
That it continued to be shown ... I would show it too until there was a signed contract.
Multiple offers/bidding war ..... Happens all the time, relo company is not a factor .... how much do you want the house ?
Liability/as-is .... Most are sales are.  If you get under contract it should be contigent on an inspection.  Negotiations for some type of term home warranty policy at the sellers expense are always possible.

Axecleaver

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Re: Buying from a relocation company
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2016, 08:29:19 AM »
Thanks, guys. So, we increased our offer 5k over list on Sunday, which was the deadline for best and final. There were three other bids. The winning bid was "significantly" higher than ours. I'm fine with it; our bid was at or slightly above the FMV of the property, and I didn't want to chase it any further.

Another Reader

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Re: Buying from a relocation company
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2016, 09:07:28 AM »
If the winning bid is financed, the sale may fall out because of the appraisal.  Keep looking, but have your agent ask the other agent to let them know if the sale falls through.

Axecleaver

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Re: Buying from a relocation company
« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2016, 10:08:10 AM »
That's a really good point about the appraisal, thanks for mentioning it. Banks still like to make loans, so their appraisal department is supposed to be flexible and not kill deals. But there is a lot more people looking at this since the subprime crisis. So who knows.

Yesterday we put in a bid with a traditional seller for another property we liked, at half the price. It's overpriced, we bid 12.5% under list (close to FMV). I don't think they'll take it but you never know.

Axecleaver

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Re: Buying from a relocation company
« Reply #6 on: February 11, 2016, 10:59:18 PM »
Reader, you called it! Just got the message today that the bid fell through because the buyer couldn't get financing. Fortunately we have found an even better property, and hope to close in mid-March.

EOS

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Re: Buying from a relocation company
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2016, 10:46:19 AM »
We bought our house from Cartus and had no issues whatsoever, EXCEPT the ungodly amount of extra paperwork to sign.

Besides, they had ALL the tests done already.  Water test, septic, radon, etc

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!