I’ll fully admit this one has been sitting in my drafts folder for a while and I was debating on posting it or not. Its one thing to live by the rule “if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything”. On the other hand, I want to protect the people that happen to stumble upon this blog from having issues going through one of the biggest financial commitments of their lives. So, I’ve decided to help protect people and with that, here is the story of my wife and I buying our latest house in Ankeny.
As many of my close friends know, I moved from the Beaverdale area to Ankeny about a year ago. For the most part, it was a pretty good experience. But there are a few things that I feel the need to warn people about if they are buying or selling a house in the greater Des Moines Area. Mainly, a certain Realtor to completely avoid at all costs. They have been nothing but a pain in the ass.
Now, before I start off, I do not think all realtors are bad. I know that no matter what profession you are in, there are good people and bad. As a matter of fact, I can’t say enough good things about the Realtors that were representing us. They were outstanding in every aspect. It was the Realtor that we were buying our house from. Here’s the brief run down of what happened….
In the early part of 2009, we were flip flopping between moving, staying, moving, fixing up the place and selling, fix it up and stay, definitely fix it up and stay, wait this is a cool house we should check out, we’re staying, putting an offer in, house is on the market, etc etc etc.
After the long process of finding a house, we put an offer in and wrote our earnest check which was delivered by our Realtor to their office. Everything was well on its way and we were narrowing in on a closing date after a few small items like the home inspection.
Unfortunately, the home inspection revealed a rather nasty issue, RADON! Nothing that a little mitigation coiuldn’t take care of. However, this is not a cheap ticket item. It typically runs in the $1,400-$2,500 range depending on what all needs to be done. The estimate for this place was around $1,500 and we, as the buyers, wanted the sellers to pay for it. So we wrote an addendum to the contract based on the results of the inspection.
Now, typically you would think that this is something that you would get back relatively shortly if someone wanted to sell their house. And the couple that we were buying from most definitely did. They unfortunately were getting a divorce and this quickly became an excuse for the seller’s realtor. We’re not sure if it was a legit excuse or not, but one we heard over and over. Even our Realtors at the very end couldn’t get their proceeds check due to this issue…supposedly.
So, quick response? Nope. Not a damn thing. Nothing! It was a freaking week before we heard anything. Even the seller’s Realtor had gone silent. Not a text, email, call. Nothing! Our Realtor had to call the manager of that branch to get some movement. Do they want to sell the freaking house or not, WTF?!?!? At least answer a damn email won’t you!
And we finally did get a response from them. They were going to take care of it. Customer service was dead from this agent. So we trudge on thinking that everything will go smoothly.
And here is the fun part. Our financing needs to have a copy of the deposited earnest money check. So we ask for it from the ReMax agent. It is at this point, 2 weeks after we have signed the accepted offer that we hear, we never got a check.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!
Our Realtor is on the freaking ball. We’ve known her to be top notch and she has the freaking awards to prove it. When our realtor states she did something, you bet your ass she did something. So I know for a fact that our check was delivered. And by law, they HAVE to deposit that check into an account within 72 hours.
For those not getting the full picture here. This real estate company is so freaking messed up that 1, they were breaking the law and didn’t know it and 2, didn’t realize that they didn’t have the check until WE brought it up. That should NEVER EVER HAPPEN!!!
So back and forth the realtors go. We move forward on cancelling the check and simply have to bring another $1000 to the table when we close since it wasn’t put in an earnest account as expected. The unfortuante thing is, to put a long term cancel on a check, it costs you $50. So for the realtor to lose my check, it is going to cost me $50 to make sure it does not get cashed in the future. Our realtor thought that their realtor should cover those costs. So an addendum was created for $50.
Guess when we heard back on the $50 addendum. As we’re signing the papers, via text, to our agent. She sat on that puppy for 2 weeks before letting us know at the 11th hour.
Here is the scary part, I’m pretty sure that the sellers had no clue that this clusterfuck was even going on. How would you like to be in that position knowing that we could have walked away from everything since the check was lost. That’s right, the deal was never fully signed at that point.
So for all of you looking to sell your central Iowa home in 2010, AVOID Kathy Nelson from Remax like the freaking plague.
Instead, I HIGHLY recommend Vicki Plank and Denny Junius from Iowa Realty. Go with them, you’ll be happy you did!
