Good for you! I think it may helped that you had your own inspection report too when doing that type of negotiation. I haven't had to deal with that myself, but honestly I wouldn't take it personal as I would try to negotiate too if given the opportunity. Some people just feel it doesn't hurt to ask.

Now the agent telling you that and not being on your side (assuming it was your agent) sounds like they suck at negotiating.

Thanks for doing your part to stop the trend. :-)

I am all for negotiating. It is the concept of renegotiating on things that are open and obvious and/or not safety/structural surprises. By the time of the inspection, time has passed and the seller is ready to move on. The post contract negotiation is nothing but extortion on someone the buyer perceives is now in a weak position. Fries my ham! As for "our" agent. We had to remind her a number of times who she was representing. My opinion -- she was representing herself as soon as she had a live one on the line.

I think a reasonable person has a pretty good feel of what they are buying or selling for the money and accept or offer accordingly. Unforseen big issues are unexpected, and therefore a chance to renegotiate or walk away. When using an inspection as a bargaining tool to get "more" IMHO means the buyer is not committed to buying. I hope your sale goes through but I understand your distrust of the buyer.

Yea! You sound like my kind of seller. No nonsense, this is a business transaction. We also in all our home sales did not negotiate after the inspection. It is not a "ping list" that the buyers can then come back after and start deducting more money off the asking price. Good for you! NancyLouise

When we sold our home we did a lot of work before selling and didn't want to be at the whims of a buyer after the initial negotiation. We negotiated the buyer could inspect but they had no right to renegotiate after the inspection. They could back out or continue with the sale, period. The inspection did turn up an issue with the air conditioner but it was brand new and still under warranty (which the buyer knew) so we just called the company - no money out of our pockets. The sale went through and all parties were happy at the closing table.

Our agent urged us to make an offer and assured us that we would work out details during the due diligence and inspection phase. So, at least in my area, an offer is really not an offer until due diligence is over.

If something costs only $100 to fix, why not just fix it and show the receipt to the buyer?

I agree with deee. It's all about perspective, the buyer's vs. the seller's.

The seller of the house we are buying had a preemptive inspection done, but our own inspection revealed a lot problems -- some the seller already knew but didn't want to address, some the seller didn't know (which we didn't know either, at least not at the time of offer acceptance).

We are trying to get some credit based on the estimates we got from various contractors, but the seller is only willing to give us 15% of the total repair cost, which is unacceptable to us. Now we need to decide between walk away vs. keep negotiating.

This post was edited by ILoveCookie on Tue, Nov 26, 13 at 11:20

If issues are found during inspection then buyers have every right to renegotiate. I don't think you can a call this extortion.

Extortion is when they bring up something that was very obvious during showings and their subsequent visits. One of the houses we sold had a large asphalt driveway that needed work. The buyers parked in the street every time they visited and walked on the cracked and worn asphalt ... it was very obvious. They made an offer and we all agreed. At the last minute they said thy would not close if we didn't give a $5K discount because the driveway was bad.

I was ready to tell them to take a hike, but DH was more rational! We wanted to sell and it wasn't a large percentage of the price. You know it was extortion when you drive by the house 4 years later and the driveway looks exactly the same!!!

We are happy to fix (done already) the two items not already disclosed - a GFI and a window spring. Neither is an immediate safety issue and both to be expected in a 6 year old home. But, the whole $5K demand is nuts and only demanded with the thought we would pay it because the close is near.

Chispa - Exactly. They knew they "had" you.

Cookie - that 15% might be a gift.

Deee -- I figured the coaching was coming from the agent. Thanks for confirming how it is in your area.

I have now learned from reading stories of other sellers on the internet, the "give me more money or I walk" using the inspection out clause is not unusual. Slimey IMHO.

I've been in our home for 12 years now, but had bought and sold 2 other homes before. The inspection was used to determine what was wrong and if we wanted to still buy the house. Our houses were always priced right for the age and condition.

Well, we are selling and buying at the same time.

We finally ironed out everything with the seller of the house we are buying, and both sides happily arranged for the movers, etc.

However, the buyer of our house just succeeded in extorting us. I feel furious but cannot do much because the purchase of our new house is contingent upon the sale of our current house. We don't want to lose the new house and just want it to be all over. Originally I wanted to do all these nice things for the buyer, like leaving contacts for all the good service companies we've used, leaving extra tiles, storage shelves, extra lawn supplies, etc. Now I don't feel like giving them anything, and arranged for a dumpster to get rid of these things.

The buyer asked for a price reduction, the seller said No. The deal is intact and going towards close. What is the big deal?
One way I use the contract to protect my sellers is to ask for a large Due Diligence fee. You want the fee high enough of an amount that the buyer would feel some pain if he walked during the due diligence period.
Losing large amounts of money is a great equalizer at times like this.

ncrealestateguy, is the Due Deligence fee the same thing as the deposit? What percentage of the listing (or offer) price do you usually ask for?

Here in my area the buyer makes two deposits, one when the offer is accepted, and the other about 2 weeks later. However, if the seller and the buyer cannot agree on inspection items, the buyer has the right to walk away and get his/her deposit back.

In our case, we put 5% deposit towards purchasing the new house, and the buyer of our house only made 1.4% deposit. We thought the deposit amount wouldn't matter too much because if the two parties cannot agree on something and thus the contract gets cancelled, the seller wouldn't get any of the deposit money.

Some buyers are really petty, and do whatever they can to get a price reduction. For example, our buyer wanted $4k from us for no good reason (there is nothing to repair), and their strategy was to not respond to our attorney, until the day before the scheduled closings. AND they refused to let us rent from them for two days. So we had to have everything lined up for the two closings (taking down lighting fixtures, patching holes, packing, arranging movers, arranging hotel stays, etc, etc), even though the closings may not even happen in the end. It's a big deal for everyone involved in the process, especially for us and the sellers of the house we are moving into.

Thank you for letting me vent.

This post was edited by ILoveCookie on Thu, Nov 28, 13 at 13:20

This is an interesting thread for me as I anticipate being in the buyer's seat one of these days. Over the years Ive noticed that houses I've had my eye on quite often sell for substantially less than asking price - I mean substantially, where it makes the difference between being out of my price range and being comfortably able to afford.

Once a while back (before I got current house) I put in an offer on a house which needed a lot of work which was quite obvious to me and my agent. My offer was on the low side but still quite generous as the area was desireable. It triggered a bunch of competing bids and she accepted one higher than mine - except then later when I went to look in the assessors website I saw it sold for about what I offered!

All in all... it makes me think maybe I should be playing this game even though it does run counter to my preference for honest and ethical communications.

All in all... it makes me think maybe I should be playing this game even though it does run counter to my preference for honest and ethical communications.

Some things mentioned seem dishonest, others are just negotiating, not dishonest. You should play the honest negotiating game. It can be done without lying or compromising ethics.

Just finished closing. Thanks for all the advice and input.

So, tell us more nightowl! Did you cave or they? Or split the difference?

No caving or splitting on our part. We stuck to the price we agreed on despite the buyer and both agents having temper tantrums.

If it was so important to the agents ... why didn't they both chip in some of their commission to make the buyer happy!!

Good for you and congratulations! Sounds like extortion to me in your case.

kasha_kat - not sure where you live, but in TX they reported numbers on the tax assessors website is not actual sale price unless new owners fill out the card with the info and send back to the tax office when they mail it out (disclosing the sale price is not required here and fully optional). Generally it reports the mortgage amount - ie the original lien amount on the property. If there is something similar where you live it may be why you see numbers so much lower.