As-is?

Hi again! I get the feeling ya'll are going to be seeing (reading) a lot of me!

We got back a counteroffer. As part of our offer we had asked the seller to remove the oil tank. No dice, which I can understand because of liability issues. What bothers me is that they also said they were selling the house "as-is".

Apparently the homeowner went into assisted living and the children don't want to deal with the issues. I also completely understand this. What is the difference between a normal purchase and purchasing a house "as-is"? Is it normal in these situations to do that? Would we be asking for trouble if we continued negotiating on this house?

Re: As-is?

We purchased our house "as-is." I think you need to see what comes out as the result of the inspection (if you haven't already), and see whether the issues are things that you can live with doing yourselves, and if the house is worth it you at the price you offered without certain things being taken care of. If there are immediate issues, I wouldn't necessarily purchase "as is", but it worked out for us.

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i put an offer on a house that i didnt realize said "as-is". during negotiations we noticed they didnt have COs for 3 rooms and they refused to get them. my next broker told me my old broker should have known that when a house is posted as as-is its known that they will not get the COs. so thats just an example.

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we purchased a house as is what it means is your responsible for anything that will be mentioned in your inspection report to handle not the seller. For us we had to have the house painted in order to close (FHA loan) so we paid 2K to paint the house so we could close (our responsibility) we also had a CO issue which we had to pay 1K in order to close.

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it means anything you find wrong with the home, they will not change, but it doesn't always mean they won't give you a credit for it

so for example they don't want to remove the oil tank. find out how much it will be, and ask for that $ off the price. (I would wait until a home inspection is done to find out if anything else is wrong so you can add it all in at once)

Typically they don't budge, but its always worth asking!

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I bought my house as-is... they wouldn't negotiate or pay for anything we found once we had an accepted offer. Period.

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This is, hands down the best group of posters on the internet, THANK YOU.

You guys talked me off the ledge and we countered, hopefully we will agree on a price soon and move toward inspection!

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Posted by Lori11514

This is, hands down the best group of posters on the internet, THANK YOU.

You guys talked me off the ledge and we countered, hopefully we will agree on a price soon and move toward inspection!

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you wont be able to get anything put into the contract to be fixed or changed if you find anything wrong during the inspection. if you are okay with doing everything yourself after the house is bought, then as-is is fine.
good luck!!

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I've purchased 2 houses as-is. In our most recent purchase, we waived the engineer's report because we knew there were other offers on the table. We were told that waiving the inspection is what won us the house - as they knew we weren't looking to negotiate.

I should add that we've completely renovated 4 houses prior to this one. DH once worked in the construction business and still has great contacts - - so we knew we couldn't tackle something we couldn't fix or get fixed ourselves.

Good luck.

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We purchase our house as-is
Same kind of scenario - it was the grandma's house and she passed away so the house was vacant. Our lawyer told us that the chances anything happening with no one living there were slim. We were as-is as of the date of contract so we got to still do the final walkthrough and everything was fine. We then had the oil tank abandoned on our own and had no other issues...

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I'm selling my mother's 80 year old house "as is" after she passed away. Sometimes that's all a seller can do. I have done everything I can financially and can not afford to do more, so it's listed "as is". I've freshly painted it completely inside (12 gallons of paint & supplies, $500+, plus my labor), legally abandoned an in ground oil tank ($1,250), had asbestos removed on pipes in the cellar ($4,600), paid for numerous small repairs ($1000), took out the overgrown bushes and replanted the front ($2,500) and redone the kitchen ($10,000). The baths need updating, the floors need refinishing, windows need work, etc. But, I simply can't do more. On the other hand, the roof is new, the outside paint is only a year old, septic is three years old and the boiler is just a year. Yes, someone will have to do work, but it's a good solid house and served Mom well. It's also priced waaayyy below any others on the block. The trade off is fair, I think, I just hope someone else thinks so too. We bought our own house "as is" years ago.

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Cant you just have an inspection done... and if it comes up that the house is in bad shape, pull out of the deal? I could be wrong... Im sure someone on here can offer more info

ETA: Sorry... just saw this is like a week old post now... Im sure you've moved on from this point LOL

Message edited 12/22/2010 8:05:37 AM.

Re: As-is?

And in this case the OP said the house seller went into assisted living. We bought our house from an estate and it was as-is. But not the same as-is as a foreclosure or short sale. Basically the sellers (deceased womans kids) fixed a broken window and a few minor thing but sold the house as is because they could not tell you of there was soemthign wrong. They didnt live there since they were children so it is a legal way of protecting them since they are not able to give first hand knowledge.

To OP if there are things that come up in the inspection still try and get them fixed because my guess is they might fix minor issues.

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Thanks everyone! As an update, we decided to move forward. I was just so reluctant to spend $500 on an inspection if "as-is" was an indication that it would be a money pit or a bad decision.

The inspection came back and the house is in much better shape than we thought. There's still a lot that needs to be done, but it's a good solid house. We put in an offer and had it accepted last week. We have had contractors out for estimates and on Monday of next week will write the downpayment check and it will officially be off the market! Thanks so much to everyone for your help, reading all of your experience really calmed my nerves about it all!

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congrats and good luck!!!

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congrats!!

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Message edited 12/23/2010 9:19:30 AM.