How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

And I don't mean in a bidding war.

What were the circumstances?
Do you have any advice on how to prevent it?
Did you find it to be a blessing in disguise?

Message edited 2/28/2010 8:28:01 PM.

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

We lost the first house we bid on. We way underbid on it. I had felt lost, didn't know how much to bid and everyone I asked told me, "it's a buyer's market! The seller will be lucky to get any offers at all! Start really low." So I did. I bid about $35,000 (10%-ish) under what the recent comps sold for. And the seller was so insulted that he called us some bad names to our RE Agent and refused to even counter-offer.

Looking back on it... I'm definitely happier that we got our second house and not this one. And since the guy was apparently pretty nasty (calling us names and all) going into contract with him might have been difficult.

The lesson I learned, though, was that if we wanted a house we should make a serious offer on it, not an "I hope he's desperate and sells the house for much less than it's worth" offer.

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

We lost two houses (although the 2nd wasn't really a loss since we never had an accepted offer).

The first had a LOT of electrical problems but the owners didn't want to pay to fix them. We were about to say forget it, and pay for the repairs ourselves, when they got a better offer. Definitely a blessing in disguise.

The second was OUR HOUSE. It was everything we wanted. Size, style, everything. It was all original and needed a ton of updating, so we offered our max and they never accepted our offer. We ended up going with our second choice. After being here a short time we realized it was a HUGE blessing in disguise. We prefer this style house, we had to do literally no work other than painting and refinishing the floors, and the backyard is much nicer - and backs up to a green belt so we have an insane amount of privacy.

I am incredibly grateful that everything worked out the way it did.

Message edited 9/1/2011 2:07:26 PM.

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

under bid considerably.

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

yes, when the sellers decided to take their house off the market to wait out the economic crisis. turns out, they made a HUGE mistake because when they ended up putting it back on the market, the situation was even worse. Their new listing price was LESS THAN our first offer !! They called us begging for us to reconsider but we were already in contract on our house. It still makes me sad because I that house. DH is happier here but I loved that other house much more !!

Message edited 2/28/2010 10:04:49 PM.

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

I had a seller change his mind after he accepted my clients offer

Inspection was today

I found this out saturday

This house has been listed for almost 2 years

The listing agent continued to show it after our offer was accepted....and now he thinks he can get "more" - even though each offer he gets is lower then the last one

I would rather find my clients something else- then deal with a seller who is not in touch with reality....

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

We lost 2 houses. The 1st the sellers backed out after they accepted the contract. We could have forced them to sell has they had cashed the deposit we put on it. The 2nd we backed out after the inspection b/c they had polybuthline (sp) pipes which where known to break apart & cause leaks. The seller wouldn't let us get an estimate on the cost of replacing.

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

The first house we wanted was the perfect perfect layout for us (we wanted a bedroom and full bath down stairs but didn't want it to be the master bath-it was to be a guest room for our parents).

It was beautiful inside and out, had everything we thought we wanted.

Well, someone came in with an all cash offer and we couldn't compete with that so we moved on.

I am so happy that happened. We ended up buying a house in the same neighborhood, and while our house is on a cul de sac (yay!), it turns out that the street for the house we were going to buy is a cut through.

It definitely worked out for us.

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

first house not usch a loss but we were attached to it, and we thought we would get it, it was a short sale and we outbid by a lot!

2nd house we bid market value for the area (and the house was 100% original) so we would have lost money if the market stayed the same and we updated it all, we lost it to a higher bidder, I wanst sad at all though because I knew it was not a forever home for us and we didn't want to keep it in its condition so we would have never broke even when we went to sell

3rd house it was an estate sale. lost it for numerous reasons but it came down to us being abused by the REA (a family member none the less, who was crazy) she was submitting bids without us even sigining them!! so they accpeted someone elses offer that was less

4th house- a ton of electrical issues and we walked away

5th house- I can't even remember

and 6th house was the charm!! it was everyhting we wanted in a forever home

I learned so much through this process

1. never use family
2. I would never by a short sale
3. waiting is worth it
4. don't scarfice, even with a small budget you can find what you want as long as its realistic wants

good luck with your search

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

I fell in love with a house on MLSLI. I called the realtor and went to see it and loved it and just couldn't pull the trigger. I dilly dallied and wasn't sure if I would find something better. Two weeks after we looked at it, I called back and it was in contract. I was so upset.

I do love our house now.. it is everything I want and I guess in some ways it IS a blessing that we didn't pursue the original home. Plus.. at the time we weren't REALLY ready to buy.

I did learn something though.. when you get that feeling.. pounce. When we looked at our current home I loved it and we made an offer the next day.

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

Unbeknownst to us, our sellers had accepted another offer and then accepted ours, allowed us to have an inspection and took escrow money. When the other sale went through, they told us the deal. They were using Foxton's, who never should have let them do this and I am not surprised that Foxton's went out of business after that. There's more to the story but this about sums it up.

Then we were in a classic bidding war for the house we got but here we are!

Re: How many of you "lost" a home you were going to buy? And if so, why?

First house we walked away from after inspection.
Second house we had put an offer the week it came on the market, their agent played games, they ended up calling us back wanting to negotiate but at that point I didn't want to play games and we walked.
Third house we loved. Like I would drive past everynight and think I was home! We had an accepted offer and the day of the inspection found out that they had accepted another offer too bad for us. I was devestated!
Our house went so smooth, they accepted our first offer no countering, we closed in 1 mo. and it is really perfect for us!