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What's up with home buyers these days?!?!

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Well for the third time, the buyers for our townhome want to back out. Argh!

The previous two times, the buyers used the inspection as a way to back out mainly claiming issues with the wear and cat smell on certain areas of the carpet. So this was addressed and we had brand new carpet put in. We also addressed a few other minor things that kept comming up on the inspections although they were fairly minor issues. So the third time is a charm, right? Well I guess not.

What is interesting this time, is that the buyers accepted the inspection (with a few "must-fix" contigencies), they have financing in place (the paperwork is at the escrow company), and we are only 4 days away from the closing date. So what's their excuse this time?

Well, since it's a 4 unit complex, the home owners association is self-managed. This is apparently something the buyers are not so eager about anymore. Their excuse is that they claim the HOA appears to be poorly managed and they don't like the idea of it being self-managed by the homeowners.

There is however a catch here... Technically, they had access to the HOA information for a few weeks and the standard timeline for which they had a right to back out for this reason has expired. So in a way, they are essentially defaulting on their buyers obligation. Of course, they are trying to weasle their way out of the deal, which is understandable considering they put a significant earnest deposit.

So for now, we're offering then to back out "legally" if they are willing to relenquish half of the earnest to at least cover my costs during this closing period. If they do get greedy, then the deal will likely have to go to arbitration which may take a few months but likely means I would end up with all of their earnest deposit.

As my agent said... "I've never seen this happen before"... I do realize the buyers are first-time home buyers. But holding up a house until the very last minute and getting "buyer's remorse" is just not cool when you're talking about a 350K property for which I have to pay a mortgage!

We'll see how things develop over the next few days....

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