the_cora•2d agoTop Commenter

Took me 4 months to close on a house in Plaza Midwood

I found a place back in March that seemed perfect. Small bungalow, decent yard, not too far from the action. The seller kept dragging their feet on repairs from the inspection. Then the appraisal came in 15k low and we had to renegotiate. By the time keys were in my hand it was late July. Has anyone else dealt with sellers that just take forever to respond to inspection requests?

2 comments

2 Comments

mason2092d ago

I had the same issue on a place in NoDa back in 2021. Seller took like 3 weeks just to respond to a simple mold issue in the crawlspace. What finally worked for me was putting a deadline in the actual contract language. We added a clause that said seller had 5 business days to respond to any inspection request or the deal was off with the earnest money coming back to me. Once they knew there was a real consequence for dragging their feet, they got back to us in like 2 days. Also helped that I had my agent call their agent every single morning to check in, just constant pressure without being rude about it.

nora_barnes2d agoProlific Poster

Wait, did your agent actually write that into the contract or was it more of a verbal agreement? I've learned that getting it in writing is the only thing that actually works with slow sellers. We did something similar on a house in Dilworth last year, put a 48 hour response window in the addendum for any inspection follow ups. It's crazy how fast they moved when their earnest money was on the line, right? And yeah, the daily agent check in is key, it keeps the pressure on without making it feel like you're being a jerk about it.