During a hot real estate market, homeowners feel confident about their home’s appreciation and keep an eye out for a potential new place to buy. While it is true, a majority of homes sell routinely without problems, some sales do have problems that arise.
With that being said, the following are things that can go wrong during a home purchase transaction:
- Making bad decisions based on advice from friends and family members who have no experience in the real estate industry.
- Seller or buyer are not willing to negotiate.
- The home inspection uncovered major issues that neither the buyer or seller are willing to pay to repair.
- The appraisal report comes back substantially below the contract price.
- The appraiser is unable to find comparable properties for the lender so the financing falls apart.
- The buyer does not want to remove loan contingency because they have not satisfied the underwriting conditions.
- The buyer’s letter was a pre-qualification, not a full pre-approval which verifies credit, income, assets and job.
- The buyers are unable exit their current lease without paying a large lease cancellation fee.
- The buyer didn’t lock the interest rate and does not qualify at the higher interest rate.
- The closing date is pushed back due to buyer or lender errors or incomplete documents.
- The title search shows liens, leased land, oil rights, etc that cause a delayed closing.
- The pest and termite inspection finds the home is significantly infested.
- Buyer or Seller has to abruptly go out of town and did not remember to obtain a Power of Attorney.
- During escrow, the Buyer or Seller encounters a life changing event.
- Someone fails to disclose pertinent information relevant to the transaction.
- Buyer or Seller gets cold feet and wants to back out of the deal.
- The home is not insurable due to a variety of reasons, newly designated fire zone, recent land movement, etc.
- The buyer makes a major purchase on credit just before closing that exceeds the loan program’s maximum debt to income ratios.
- Seller decides to not sell because the job transfer is cancelled, marriage reconciliation, and so on.
- Seller is unable to locate an acceptable home they want to buy.
- Seller does not let the appraiser or inspector see the home’s interior.
- Seller does not have sole authority to sell property due to other owners.
- Seller gives knowingly false pertinent information about the home and neighborhood to the buyer.
- Seller does not sign final closing documents.
- Picking the wrong real estate agent! Using an experienced, well-informed licensed agent can get you to the finish line. They understand the challenges and how to solve them. It’s important to get to good real estate agent.