One piece of advice we got from a real estate investor that had a lot of experience in buying new constructions was to insist on a two year builders warranty.  We had put this in our list to the seller from day one.  They had constantly pushed back on it.  The reason sited was that they were already taking a loss on the property and just wanted to be done with it.  They didn’t want to have to deal with things down the line.  We heard this so much from the seller, we decided that we would give them an option to sell “as-is” with no additional work and no warranty.  The price we had agreed upon as previously mentioned was 330k.  We decided to offer them an option for 305k completely as is – we would take it and they would have to do nothing.  That offer was flat out rejected, which said to me that they were just making excuses for not wanting to give a 2 year builder warranty.  If you really “just want out” a 25k concession is not much.

After the rejection of the as-is offer we were more intent than ever on a 2 year builders warranty.  There was a lot of push back and they would not concede.  After some discussion we decided that the actions did not match the words and that further left an impression of dishonesty which we did not want to be involved with in a real estate transaction.  Even if they did concede the two year builders warranty, how much would we have to fight with them for any little thing?   As a result, we elected to terminate the contract.

The seller seemed shocked.  They immediately came back and agreed to everything.  With the exception of putting in a cover for the fire place (how bizarre??).  We seriously considered this, but in the end it was too late.  I have a strict policy of doing business in good faith and I simply won’t do business with shady or dishonest people.  I can’t say for sure these people were either, but it certainly left that distinct impression.  As a result we decided to push through with the termination of the contract – being well within the option period, we would simply lose the option fee of a couple hundred dollars and the seller could move on w/ finding other buyers.

Things didn’t quite work out that way.