Goodbye, House

After a whole lotta wrangling with very demented Remax people, we have dropped the deal. They admitted they knew about the square footage discrepancy but didn't see a problem with it. Hello?! No problem with artificially inflating the value of the house? That might just be illegal, folks. Not only did they not see an issue, they tried to blame their client for providing them with the wrong square footage. First of all, they were the listing agents when he bought it and the paperwork went back to them. Second...it's an agent's JOB to measure a house they are putting on the market in order to calculate the square footage. This was a major red flag to our realtor because this exact same situation arose last year with another client and that client had to pony up the difference in the appraisal value and the sale price at closing. That wouldn't happen with us because of the type of loan we have (the VA protects against just such schemes), but it really set off our realtor and we decided to push the issue to make a point. That and with the reduction in value and size, we no longer wanted the place.

They wouldn't sign off on an amendment to lower the price to whatever it appraised to (which would have had to happen anyway thanks to the VA loan process but we weren't going to tell THEM that), we refused their offer to have it appraised at their cost because the only appraisal that will matter is the VA guy anyway, so we are dropping the deal. Actually, they tried to not let us drop the deal, but our realtor called our mortgage guy, explained the issue and he said he wouldn't finance a house with that kind of discrepancy in the paperwork. Since the sale is contingent on financing, guess what? Matter closed. Go away. Find another sucker.

I'm relieved, but we flat out refuse to look at any more houses sold by Remax. It's not just this issue, this is the third home we've inquired about through them that they've given us a ridiculously hard time about for various reasons. And we aren't even their clients. So....I won't even give them the satisfaction of a split commission, and after we buy something here, we are filing a complaint against them with the board of realtors, the Better Business Bureau and the state attorney general's office. It helps that my sister works for the attorney general's office so I can streamline my complaint right through their office.

But in good news, after over six months of looking at houses in the area and thinking we had found the one, John finally went gaga over a house. I did over one a long time ago, but it was sold by Remax and that was one of the houses they gave us such grief about. I won't go into it, it's complicated, but we didn't even put in an offer because they annoyed us so much. This house John loves is outside of town on three acres, is brand spankin' new and is as big as we want with the open feel we want. We walked in and his eyes just lit up. I'm not thrilled with how far outside of town it is, I guess I'm not the country girl I thought I was, but the kids love the location, too. I might be outvoted on this one, but I admit I was smitten with the house, too. The kitchen just took our breath away, the master bedroom has a walk in closet the size of a small office, and there's a jet tub in the bath. I don't even like baths but I might make an exception with that one! More later, I was going to do a quick update and wound up writing a novel.