So your last negotiations on

[Pom]

A house inspection... What was it like? Did you as the sellers fix stuff, give a credit? Did you as the buyers feel you were treated fairly?

There were only minor issues on the inspection report for the house we are selling such as -recommend you trim bushes away from roof. (We trimmed them last fall. So not like years of growth) caulk this or tighten bolt there.

The buyers put every single inspection item on a "punch list" for us to repair. Um the house is 10 years old, not a new build.

I need to take deep breaths.

[raangoli]

I was selling a condo so it was different and the issues they came back with were cosmetic. But I was fed up and I just wanted to move on so I gave the buyer a credit. I probably shouldn't have, but like I said, I wanted to be done with it.

When we bought our house we asked for credits on things we wanted fixed - like leaning wooden steps on a side entrance. We offered an estimate as a justification for why we asked for $x and also requested a home warranty since all the major appliances and hvac were old as hell. The seller conceded on both but begrudgingly.

[celeste]

We focused on major issues only (radon, a recalled electrical panel, active termites in the detached garage, etc). We had already agreed to cover a (not insignificant) base amount of repairs as a condition of our contract, so we asked them for cash back at closing to cover the difference. They agreed. I was happily surprised they didn't try to negotiate that request. I felt like we were treated fairly at the time, but after living in the house for a few months, we now know that there were issues they didn't disclose, so they were probably just happy the inspection didn't reveal everything.

I'm sorry your buyers are being stupid. I would just respond with a list of the things you're willing to do (or offer cash back).

[hbomdiggity]

Let's just say it didn't go well (seller). We were dealing with emotional and irrational people.
But don't be afraid stand your ground and hopefully your realtor can communicate what is reasonable vs not.

[UnderProtest]

Ha, ha, ha. Funny question. We are buying and the inspection report was 134 pages long. Most items are stupid little things, but one is a fire door between the house and garage. They refused to pay for it even though it was required per code. Their agent is paying for it. The cost is literally .001 of the purchase price and they refused to pay for it. The repairs they ARE paying for are .0017 of the purchase price (and are structural). They are CRAZY. They were also trying to get us to take a broken hot tub.

[yentl]

The sellers refused to fix anything we asked for. They did give us credits for things but negotiated us down on all the credits. It was annoying as shit, TBH. I think at one point we were negotiating over $200. I wanted to slam my head through a wall. We definitely didn't ask for everything the inspector came up with, though. It was like, repairing cracks in the roof. Eventually we knew we would need a new roof but we wanted a repair on that in the meantime. 

Unfortunately at the final walk through a massive plumbing leak was discovered sooooo they had to deal with that.

Their list is just a starting point. I don't think they will walk because you won't fix a leaky faucet or whatever.

[konapoppy]

I actually don't think we asked for anything as buyers. There were some things that needed to be fixed (including the fire door), but nothing major we were willing to lose the house over if we pissed off the seller. We were in an extremely competitive environment. Also, the seller was awesome and had done a ton of work.

I just helped sell my grandmother's condo (which I think was positioned "as is"). The buyers wanted some reasonable and some ridiculous things. Some of my emotional family members were so fed up that they essentially demanded that the realtors pay for it (and they did).

[ssmjlm]

Our buyer was BSC and had a bad inspector. By the end of it even her realtor was over it. She had very unrealistic expectations for an almost 30yo house.

DH fixed most himself and we paid a contractor friend a couple hundred for some drywall repair, in our garage, in an area that rarely had finished garages with drywall (yes I'm still bitter).

In the end she didn't get much bc again bad inspector and we had our contractor friend write up some items that actually weren't incorrect as part of our rebuttal.

I feel bad bc she's a horrible neighbor and we loved our old neighbors.

[puppylove64]

When I sold my rental to an investor, I already accepted an offer about 10% less than asking. I knew it was a little overpriced and needed some minor repairs. Then after the inspection, he wanted another 8% or so in credits for repairs. I told him a firm no, take it or leave it. He still bought it. I think he was just digging to pay less, he was good at the game....investor.

Selling our house, all issues were minor. They asked we remove where some bats got trapped in the gable (seen from attic, but actually outside trying to get in). It said bat "infestation" hah! Anyway we did it, cost $500, but we needed to do that anyway.,. I think we are set to close in 3 weeks!

[AAM2012]

As a seller we had 2 minor things that I did as a courtesy (one was to clean the dryer's lint trap/line and the other was to replace the washer hose from rubber to metal..which I should have done years prior) and the others I told them to f*ck off and here's $200 towards those cosmetic things.

As a buyer we had 2 things that were a safety/code issue and we ask for 1-2 other things (the sliding glass door needed a roller replaced and it was really hard to open). The seller fixed the two safety things and gave us $500 towards the other misc things.

[polarbearfans]

The sellers fixed most things but didn't do everything they said they would... Minor stuff. I was upset that in the middle of negotiations the seller did a fast fix on adding a radon mediation system that basically made our upper deck useless since it vented to the deck. He chose to put it there so it wasn't visible from the street. It also sealed the sump pump we were replacing but didn't ask him to since we knew it was age related and I wanted a upgrade with battery backup. I wish we could have coordinated efforts. It would have saved time and money for everyone. He had the system moved to a safe place (front of the house) before closing but i still had to pay extra to have the sump pump opened and resealed.

I honestly would have preferred the cash he spent on things to get it done the way I wanted. We've had to redo a lot because of his "fixes".

eta: he refused to fix the furnace vent that was leaking dangerous levels of carbon monoxide. He had done that vent himself with flexible dryer vent tubing to make more arm room to carry laundry and said it was not leaking anything. He had also unhooked his "faulty" carbon monoxide detector on that level because it kept going off :/ I'm surprised his family wasn't ill. He had 4 kids!

[kittycatlove]

Lurking here.

As the sellers we pushed back on anything that was cosmetic and only fixed the items that were "safety". Our buyers didn't even question it. I think they just put as much on the list to see what would stick.

[womet]

We were lucky that our buyers only asked for the major things. But we ended up reducing the price of the house for fixing those items. I think it worked out for the best because the new owners got to pick their own contractor for those fixes and we didn't have to deal with it remotely (we were out of the house at that point).

[Pom]

Apr 22, 2016 8:22:03 GMT -5 @rennido said:

Pom ,
I'm feeling really salty today. I'm annoyed by your buyers.

Me too and I appreciate your validation!  I don't think I could deal with the stuff you deal with regarding tenants.

[scout8]

Please don't tell me they also asked you to touch up the paint in all the areas they marked too!

[Pom]

Apr 22, 2016 8:26:25 GMT -5 scout8 said:

Please don't tell me they also asked you to touch up the paint in all the areas they marked too!

I was shocked they didn't.  But they mentioned every minor other thing they could.

[aurora]

We only asked our sellers to fix or credit the 3 most significant things, and they agreed right away (still only maybe $500 cost for them). I hope your buyers can take "no" for an answer!

[Redpoppy]

We had a few items on the list, swap out a few outlets for gfi ones, the stair railing and a closet door being a pinch hazard, and something else. We offered them a $500 and they took it.

[scout8]

Apr 22, 2016 8:30:52 GMT -5 Pom said:

Apr 22, 2016 8:26:25 GMT -5 scout8 said:

Please don't tell me they also asked you to touch up the paint in all the areas they marked too!

I was shocked they didn't.  But they mentioned every minor other thing they could.

I'm surprised too! I thought for sure they were going to do that after you said they marked everything.

Good luck! I would probably agree to do a few things and say no to the rest. 

[Pom]

Apr 22, 2016 9:10:22 GMT -5 scout8 said:

Apr 22, 2016 8:30:52 GMT -5 Pom said:

I was shocked they didn't.  But they mentioned every minor other thing they could.

I'm surprised too! I thought for sure they were going to do that after you said they marked everything.

Good luck! I would probably agree to do a few things and say no to the rest. 

We are fixing 2 shingles (wind/hail last week) and giving them $300 to do with what they like.  I mean they got a warranty and $7k (mostly from Mr. P's company) in closing costs and they want us to make the place like new.  We repaired and painted, stained etc to the tune of $18k last year.  They can bite my ass.

[thatgirl2478]

ugh - it's a long story that no one wants to read.  Suffice it to say, we paid for some of the requested repairs (radon mitigation and switch the copper to black pipe for the fireplace gas starter) and then gave them a check to their preferred company to make the other repairs to the chimney.  I'm a little worried about that one since they bitched and moaned about not being able to 'afford' things right away - I'm unsure how they'll come up with $1300 to do the rest of the 'needed' repairs to the fireplace/chimney that their guy said they had to do. I just wonder how long it'll be before they cash that check.

For the house we bought we asked for the following:

- inspect & repair the furnace - there was a cracked drain pan that was leaking water onto the wires & electrical controls inside the furnace.  Their initial 'fix' was to silicone & tape the cracked pan.... I wasn't happy about that 'fix' so I complained and they had the furnace company come replace the pan (which is what should have been done in the first place).
- repair the structural damage caused by a leaking screen door - the sub-floor was seriously water damaged, they took out the damaged piece and fixed it adequately (not great, but ok for now)
- remove the mold in the attic - they hired a guy who isn't actually licensed to treat mold... he sprayed it twice with a well known mold killer, then wiped the sprayed areas with bleach, then painted some stuff over it.  According to our inspector it's actually OK but not preferred... I'm still unhappy about that one.
- fix the leak in the bathroom sink, fix the loose toilet, and fix the leak over the hot water heater that had been 'stopped' with hard water build up (yeah).  He said the sink was 'over looked' and tried to clean up the build up/corrosion to make it look nicer ... not flying with me so I complained again and they brought in an actual plumber.
- fix the leaking hall bath and master bathtubs - he gave us $1k to fix those.

Of course then he goes and fixes the sliding door (which we were going to replace with an integrated blinds model), and put in a new master bedroom window that must have been picked up at the factory seconds store because the bottom sash doesn't actually fit the frame - it's too small by about 1/4" - so it doesn't close all the way.

[sadlebred]

My first house:
-Seller hooked up the water line to the ice maker in the fridge
-$xxx (think it was about $500) at closing to pay a contractor to replace some loose tiles in the bathroom & fix some drywall
-Seller fixed another minor issue, but I don't remember what it was

When I sold it:
-Paid licensed electrician to some and "cap" some wires that were exposed in an outlet. Cost about $100. ex-H could have done it for free, but they wanted it done by the electrician.
-Had a plumber do a minor fix. I think it was about $150.

Second house:
-Seller fixed minor things around the house. I don't remember anything major.
-A few days before closing a large tree fell in the backyard after a storm. There was no damage, but we insisted the seller have it removed b/c he was still occupying the house at the time. ex-H probably could have done it himself in a day, but we saw it as not our problem. Seller did this at his expense w/nothing in the contract about it.

[amity]

We are buying a 16 year old house and there were quite a few little things on the inspection report.

We chose to request that the seller fix the top three most expensive things. It included a new roof, three new windows and a repair/replace situation with the garage door. 

They agreed to everything except a full roof replacement. They ended up splitting the cost of the new roof and gave us a credit. We thought it was all very fair.

My husband is handy, so anything that he can fix on his own, we left off the list in hopes they would feel better about fixing the big things if they didn't have to deal with 30 other little crap fixes.

[bostonmichelle]

Buy House #1: We asked them to fix a bunch of outlets that their realtor stated at showing they were going to fix, they refused and instead gave us a bunch of window a/c's instead. It was fine by us since my cousin is a licensed electrician and it cost us about $150 of his time + materials and the a/c's would've been more $$.

Sell House #1: Our buyers were kind of a PITA, they asked for a bunch of random structural repairs for the roof that DH's uncle looked at and said weren't good to do, a home warranty, and for some carpenter bees to be killed. We killed the bees and gave them the warranty.

Buy House #2: One of the HVAC systems didn't work upon inspection and the roof had holes in it, along with another 30 pages of repairs. We asked for them to cover the HVAC system ($5500) and $3500 of $6k of the roof, they accepted. We got both repairs done within the first two weeks with our contractors. The lawyer cut checks directly to the two companies that we held onto until the repairs were done and we just mailed the checks to the contractors. And they had given us a home warranty as well which was advertised with the listing.