Packing up is hard to do: Sell the house and get out

(As seen in the 10/9/20 Ledger column)

Houses keep selling, often more quickly than owners anticipated. With the holidays approaching, many sellers who were not expecting the houses to sell and close in such a short time period are attempting to push the buyers into allowing them to stay longer in their homes.

These homeowners are hoping for one more Halloween, Thanksgiving or even Christmas in the homes.

These sellers feel such a request is reasonable and cannot understand why the buyers would not empathize with the situation and grant them their request. The only problem is the buyers want to spend their first Halloween, first Thanksgiving, or first Christmas in the new home they purchased for more cash than they ever dreamed they would spend on a house.

Possession has always been sticky, but is more so now with the throngs of people relocating from afar. Those moving into the area have all of their belongings packed into moving vans and are eager to unpack and begin their new lives in the land of no state income tax.

Additionally, sellers find it troublesome that buyers might walk away from the transaction at any time and only lose their earnest money on deposit. Homeowners worry they will load all of their worldly possessions only to learn the buyer cannot perform, at least on the date specified in the contract.

Lenders do not seem to put as much weight on the closing date as the other parties involved. If an underwriter is overworked or an appraiser is running late with the appraisal, everyone will just have to wait a day or two.

And that wire, the bank wiretransfer that provides the seller with the proceeds, that will come soon. Just hope it’s not a Friday afternoon.

In that case, the seller might not receive funds until Monday. What happens over the weekend?

Richard Courtney is a real estate broker with Fridrich and Clark Realty and can be reached at [email protected]