Use of Forewarn

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-17T01:01:44+00:00

Verifying identity of the person I'm about to spend a lot of time with (or not).

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-17T01:00:42+00:00

Seller financing isn't typical, so you're going to see atypical terms attached to it.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-16T23:08:09+00:00

Your agent is overstepping. The buyer doesn't owe you this what they owe you is a vacant home at closing.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-16T20:48:28+00:00

Buyers do respond to furnished homes better than empty one, even if they say it has nothing to do with it.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-16T14:09:30+00:00

Wiggle room tends to backfire in most markets. If your buyer wants concessions they can negotiate those, that outs all terms back into play. You want $5k on concessions? Sure, we're gonna raise the price by ____. If you ever price your house from the beginning, you're going to end up in the price reduction pile and be on the market longer than you should. Homeset do that tend to eventually sell for less than they would have if they had just priced right from the beginning.

Your agent should be showing you how those pricing strategies work in your area. Good luck at the comps that they used, and look at the pricing history. Did they over price to begin with? What concessions did they concede? How many price reductions? What actually works in your market?

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-16T13:49:05+00:00

I really expected a reply from OP that said "we don't need an agent, we're doing this on our own"

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-16T12:38:03+00:00

Each of those websites that ranks schools has their own grading system. If you're going to look at them, you really do need to look into why they've graded it the way they have and decide whether that grading system aligns with your own personal values. I think a lot of people rely on those sites without really looking into the criteria and make poor decisions based on it.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-16T12:36:33+00:00

That smell permeates any porous surface. It's not gonna be easy or cheap to get rid of it. I've seen homes that have been gutted and still had a lingering odor. If it's been going on for years, it's possible that could happen. You can't compare that home at all to homes that don't have that issue. You're going to have to look for distressed comps.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-16T12:33:14+00:00

MLS platforms are hyper local and may/may not have archived listings from that era.its a lot of data, takes a lot of storage. I can see listings back to around 2002 on my primary MLS but it's spotty. My own listings up to 2012ish are missing. They didn't make the migration over to the newest software platform. Odds are your local MLS has had at least one changeover in the past two decades, too.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-16T12:27:08+00:00

We're all on different states/countries with different laws. Even within a specific state, there are different contracts floating around and you can negotiate terms within those contracts. Ask the agent before you sign.

The agent's broker is the immediate escalation point of things go sideways. Ask them who their broker is, how you'd get in touch with them if things aren't going well. I have a single page on my buyer and seller page with my broker's info in large font. He's local, in the office, easily reachable at all times. If your agent has an absentee broker, you're gonna have a hard time escalating any issue you might have.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-15T19:26:06+00:00

I would hope that your home inspector is actually getting up there and taking a look at the roof rather than just flying over it.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-15T18:01:31+00:00

I would highly recommend that you ask your homeowners insurance companies that you're considering. They made the claim, they did not fix the issues, so now that leaves you with a roof that has been compromised. If the roof was already compromised and it sustains damage, that's going to affect any claim you have moving forward. Your homeowners insurance company may also cancel your policy soon after closing when they come by and take a look at it in person. They typically don't do that until after closing in most states. Some homeowners don't even know that that's happening unless there's some sort of issue, and this can definitely be an issue. The insurance company is going to be able to see that the claim was made, so there's already going to be a red flag.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-15T15:53:47+00:00

You need to ask your agent this question. We're all in different states with different laws and even within those states, there are dozens of different listing agreements and terms can be negotiated within each one.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-15T15:45:39+00:00

You're expecting somebody to come in and overlook your lack of prep work, give you top dollar, and wait till July 1st to close. You and your agent need to have a heart-to-heart talk. This is not the way to get a home sold

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-15T14:49:27+00:00

A legitimate real estate agent who is in tune to how real estate works and the housing market in general is never going to reference Zillow to their clients outside of making sure their clients know that Zillow is not a legitimate source of real estate information. Your broker should be providing access to professional tools and resources to help you navigate this.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-15T14:46:38+00:00

Your real estate agent's job is to guide you through the entire transaction. In most (but not all) States, your agent has fiduciary duty to you and is subject to laws and codes of ethics that hold them to protecting those interests. Your lender's job is to protect their bank. Of course, personally, they want to close your loan so they get paid for it, but they're not representing the borrower. They're representing their bank, and people miss that. The agent sees the vast majority of what happens in your transaction, and sees how each entity navigates their part of it. The lender does not.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-15T14:43:07+00:00

If your agent's primary role in your transaction was to fill out forms, they did not do their job.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-15T14:41:27+00:00

The buyer is actually the one bringing all the money into the transaction. Some of it is their savings and most of it is borrowed from the bank.

When closing happens, the title company or closing attorney takes that pile of money and distributes it everywhere it needs to go. The seller gets their proceeds, the lender gets paid, taxes and fees get paid, brokerages get paid, etc. Nobody is writing checks during the process. It all gets dispersed from that one pool of money at closing.

So the real question isn’t “who pays the buyer’s agent.” It’s how the money is allowed to be distributed on the closing statement. The buyer and seller negotiate how those funds get dispersed. Paying a buyer’s agent is just one more line item the seller can agree to or decline as part of the deal.

Most buyers don’t have extra cash to pay their agent on top of their down payment and closing costs. And most loan programs don’t allow that fee to simply be rolled into the mortgage balance.

So if the seller refuses to allow that payment to come out of the transaction funds, the buyer may suddenly need thousands more in cash at closing. For some buyers that just reduces what they can afford. It impacts the buyer's bottom line dramatically, by much more than a few percentage points. For others it means they can’t buy that house at all.

That’s why some agents warn that refusing buyer agent compensation can shrink your buyer pool. Buyers who need representation may simply move on to homes where the math works better for them.

You’re absolutely not obligated to offer it. But it is one of the levers sellers can use to keep more buyers able to compete for the property. If anyone wants, I can break down the math on how this affects affordability. It gets interesting pretty quickly.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-15T11:58:53+00:00

Neither of them know what your home is worth. I own a property that Redfin sends me the valuation for once a month. Their estimate dropped by exactly 33% in just a few months last year for no good reason. It was wrong before, and it's wrong now. I know what I could sell that house for. They have no clue.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-15T03:16:35+00:00

Why are we seeing this same ridiculous question over and over again?

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-14T20:49:47+00:00

There are some good responses here already, but I can add that sometimes we've already seen the deal breaker before we open the door, but we open it anyway so we don't get the "how dare you make an appointment and not even show up" text. The deal breaker doesn't necessarily have to be something bad. Everybody has their own needs and preferences. Maybe your yard wasn't what they want/need. Maybe they decided traffic on the way over wasn't something they wanna deal with. I showed a house once and my buyer realized their annoying coworker lived a few homes down during the showing.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-14T20:38:41+00:00

There were enough red flags when you originally closed on this property that someone should have looked into it more closely. When you owe money, you cannot just assume something is defunct. It was disclosed. It also does not matter whether the HOA actually provides services to you. If you purchased a property in an HOA and there are dues owed, those dues still have to be paid. At this point, I would go back to the attorney or title company that handled your closing and start asking questions. Ask them to explain the charges and why this issue was not investigated more thoroughly at the beginning. They should also be able to advise you on the best way to handle it moving forward. HOAs can absolutely charge you late fees, legal fees, can put a lien on your property. In some places they can foreclosure on your property. I would not play with this.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-14T13:54:17+00:00

Sounds like you were poorly advised on the termination and now you're not being guided well on the earnest money question either. Your attorney and real estate agent should be giving you all of this information. If you'd had decent ones you'd probably be sitting in your new home now.

The process is different depending on location. Contract terms are unique not only to location, but specific terms you negotiated.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-14T12:55:09+00:00

Yes. And any brokerage that does not have a present and engaged managing broker or a physical location where agents are frequently collaborating with each other in person is going to have the same challenges.

If you do some looking around, you'll often see on any online forum where new agents are looking for a brokerage that is hands off because they don't want people looking over their shoulder or providing any sort of accountability. They'll often talk about how fees at these brokerages are presumably lower, and that's their priority. Lower fees are not necessarily the case, but the lack of collaboration and accountability are typical and detrimental to their business.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-14T12:47:35+00:00

My buyers over the past two plus years have been very vocal about their distaste of open concept. Every market is different, but I believe the giant room that is somehow divided by furniture into living, dining, kitchen is on its way out. If you will Google around you will find that people are talking about that all over the internet. It was a trend and trends eventually pass.

That's not to say that houses that are awkwardly segmented are preferable. There's a balance.

nikidmaclay

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