Our offers on the home

After having walked through the home for approximately 1 hour with our first real estate agent (Donovan), we made an offer of $465 on the home. The asking price was $510,000.00, but area comps put the home in the $460K range. We offered $460, as the house seemed to be in extremely poor condition. It was obviously not maintained, and no significant improvements had been done to the house since it last sold in 2013 (other than the addition of solar and horribly badly installed tile). 

The offer was given to Aaron Taylor, who informed our agent by phone that he was "so insulted, he would "not dignify the offer by accepting, rejecting, nor countering the offer." We were verbally, and in email, told that the Seller would not accept anything less than $490,000.00 for the home. 

We hired an inspector and a former appraiser to walk through the home before we presented our second offer. They walked the house using the inspector's real estate agent, so that our architect could view the 'skeleton' of the home, and prepare a report for us.  We had a strong sense the owner wasn't being entirely clear/candid in his presentation of the home and its quality.

Following their report, we made a second offer of $435K while requesting a loan of an additional 40K from the mortgage company so that we'd have funds to bring the house to what would be a level of livable quality and remove the problems the house had due to no maintenance. 

Again,  Aaron Taylor,  would "not dignify the offer by accepting, rejecting, nor countering the offer." According to the standards and integrity of a real estate agent, all people are to be treated with respect and fairness, and all offers are to be responded to in writing. Taylor, a famous local radio host now working for Kolleen Kelley, was too much of a prima donna to even answer his phone when our agent asked for him. He "has assistants for that kind of thing."

We offered the Seller the $490,000.00 for the home that we'd been told was the bottom-line price the Seller would accept. We *finally* heard from Prima Donna Taylor-Twerp in his response saying "the sellers won't accept less than $500,000"

Our new agent informed him we had been given a price of $490,000.00 by his assistant. He insisted our agent was not being truthful.  She shared an email from his office, with that number in the email.  He admitted "maybe he was wrong, but the seller now wouldn't accept an offer of less than $500K.  And...the house had to be sold "as-is." No inspection, no changes, no requirements.

We offered $500K for the home, contingent upon inspection, health and safety concerns, and appraisal. The seller tried to push back on the inspection, but ultimately realized after our agent continued to push, that there was no way anyone would purchase this home without an inspection.  We also asked that the skylight in the kitchen be repaired; it had been broken for at least a decade, with dirt and water entering the kitchen directly over the stove. 

The seller accepted our offer. 

 The "little things" were truly easy to manage, even though there were over 163 "little"  things found in the inspection report.  It was the major issues that caused all the problems. 

We knew there were problems with the property. 

We knew there had been deceptions about the property, but the home was so ideal for our particular needs, we decided we'd risk the "little things" and move forward anyway. The Seller attempted to get us to agree to not make any further claim against them, even though I believe they intended to defraud us through the SRPD, verbal representations, and attempts to prevent us from inspecting the property.

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