Please... I need advice quickly

We are trying to sell our home and move back near family. We have been away for 3 years and are extremely homesick. We hate our jobs. We don't have any friends or children. We are depressed. And we will do whatever it takes to leave here as soon as possible. The house has been on the market since Feb. My contract for my job was up in June, so ideally wanted to sell the house in the early summer and get home late summer.

Well as a result of the housing market, it has been extremely slow going. We have only had 2 serious inquiries since Feb and one has already fallen through. The other is a couple that looked at our house last Sunday. They came and were extremely interested. They are an older couple and live in Texas in the winter months only. Her brother will be the one to actually buy the house, but they will be living in it 75 % of the time.

Our asking price for the house is X. They called night before last and made us and offer 4,000 less than X. We told them we would think and call back. The issue was to haggle or to take the offer straight away. We discussed it. I wanted to take the offer and run. We have been miserable in this place and swore we would take a hit if we had to in order to leave. This is a hit, but it is only a 4,000 hit. I wanted to take it. Hubby wanted to take it. We were in total agreement. Then I decided to talk my husband into calling his parents while I called mine and asked for advice from them. His parents said haggle, it can't hurt, worst case scenario they say no and you have to take 4000 less than X. My parents said the opposite. They said take it and run, this is not a market to haggle in. We used our realtor as a tie breaker. He said the same thing hubbys parents said, it can't hurt. Hubby changed his mind and went with his parent's view. So I was out numbered and that was fine, I was still confident about it.

So we call them back and ask us if they will meet us in the middle at 2000 less than X. They said they would think and call back.

They called the next night and said that the first offer of 4000 less than X is off the table. They will now only offer 9000 less than X. I am talking to the older man as a middle man for his wife's brother that will actually be buying the house. The man told me he thought our counter offer was fair and advised his brother in law to take it, but said that he was a "bulldog" and wanted to pay us in cash and that was what he was willing to pay now.

I am devastated. We should have taken it and ran. We blew it.

Now the question is whether or not we should take the offer now of 9000 less than X or say no we will not take that, but we will take your previous offer (now off the table) of 4000 less than X

Hubby and I hold opposite views. I think we made a huge mistake not taking the first offer. I think we should learn our lesson in this and just take the 9000 less than X so we can finally move and be rid of this horrible place that has held us hostage and exacerbated my mental health issues. He thinks that if we just tell this guy that we will go no lower than 4000 less than X, then they guy will put his previous offer back on the table and make a deal with us. I can't believe he doesnt want to leave here enough to take a 5000 hit. I thought we were together on that. I am astounded.
I don't think the guy will take it. I think he is playing with us, and after talking with my mom about it, I'm not entirely conviced that this guy is serious about buying the house at all. He sounds like he is just fishing for the cheapest house he can get.
Hubby has given me the power in the situation to have the final say. I just know that it will be held over my head if I happen to be wrong about this.

If I choose to take the offer of 9000 less than X, we are clear of our mortgage and fees, and will have more than enough to move and start over again. If we don't take it and the guy won't pay us his first offer (which I don't think he will) then we are trapped here once again until someone else wants it enough to buy it, and we could be stuck here for up to a year or more longer. That makes me want to curl up and die just thinking about it.

Please.. any advice would be greatly appreciated. We have to get back to them tonight.

Yikes, what a stressful situation.

If it were me, I would accept their current offer (9000 less than x) - since it will not put you in financial ruin, etc. It sounds like it will be worth it for your happiness and peace of mind which is worth so much more than that.

However, I also have to say that I don't like the sound of these buyers. I really really hope it works out, but I think that even if you take their current offer and come to an agreement with them, you should prepare yourself for the possibility that somewhere down the line the deal could fall apart anyway.

Good luck. Trust in yourself that you will make the right decisions.

IMO I don't think you should take a hit of 9,000. They know you weren't pleased with 4,000. I agree you should have taken the 4,000 hit but you can't cry over spilled milk. These people are old and experienced so be careful. You guys are secretly itching to sell and make sure you never let on you're anxious to sell - play it cool. Tell them you're insulted with the 9,000 dollar hit and won't take more than the 4,000 dollar deduction. They're being greedy IMO. If it falls through, could you rent it out, so you could move? Usually a counter offer should be less not more.

Happiness is more important than money in my opinion. Mental health is more important than money in my opinion. Come to think about it, just about everything is more important than money in my opinion.

I don't like the sound of them either. I think they are playing mind games. I'm really with you on taking it and running bc we won't be in a bind really and we will be happier. But I am starting to see hubby's point of view too, and when I think about these buyers acting like they are, it makes me wonder if they will back out down the road no matter what.

Lynn I really hear you. I am sick about a 9000 loss too. I am insulted by the offer and am really pissed about it. I think we probably did give off the hint of desperation to leave. Thanks for the suggestion, but we can't rent it out bc we are moving from deep south Texas to Alabama with full time jobs and won't be able to keep check, on it, make repairs, ensure it isn't being destroyed, etc... We don't know a soul down here that could keep a check on it for us. Plus I would expect people will not pay rent and leave without a trace frequently... So if it falls through we just have to wait on another buyer - who knows how long. Thats the real catch to not just taking this offer.

I could not agree with you more!

Thank you all so much for replying!

To be fair - and I mean this in the most supportive way possible, just thinking that a different perspective might be helpful... it seems to me that you are both playing games. I don't mean that in a bad way but this is how people do business. You were happy with $4000 less but tried to get more. Well aware of the housing market, they very well might have said to themselves after your counter offer, "I don't like the sound of them either. I think they are playing mind games." If they felt that their offer was fair and felt you were being greedy, they might have gotten aggravated and decided that if you didn't want to play nice (not saying you weren't - just that they might think so) then they aren't.

Good luck.

Wow, it seems to me like those people are taking advantage of you. Losing 9,000 is a lot of money. I think they saw how desperate your situation was and sought after it. I guess all you can do now IS accept their offer if you really want out quickly. I hope it works out for you.

Yes I agree - it's well known the real estate market functions like a game with both sides bargaining back and forth. There's also psychology involved - each one feeling the other one out. If they didn't like your refusal to accept the 4,0000 hit, they should have said no. If they really want this house, they shouldn't raise it up to 9,000 - they should have dropped it to 3,000 or simply stayed inflexible.

True money doesn't bring happiness but there's principle here. Like I said before you can't let them know you're the least bit anxious - a little like playing poker - you can't let the other guy know what you thinking. If you didn't want to take 4,000 - how will you appear if you accept 9,000? If I were you I would act offended, but quickly state you're fine with 4,000. Keep us posted - I would like to know what you decide.

The counter offer that La Doctora made was $2000 less than the list price so how can it be called greedy? If THAT is greedy, then why wouldn't they think the original list price on the house was greedy and so not even make an offer in the first place?

The fact is that everybody lists real estate higher than they expect to receive, and everyone bids lower than they can pay.
And then through the negotiation process the two parties meet in the middle. That is not playing games.

IMO, it is odd that they would respond so unreasonably to a reasonable counter offer
That would be like if you're offered a $50,000/yr job and ask for $55. They will not come back and say no you can't have $55 and now we're only offering $45. If they can't go higher, then they would just say no, $50 is all we can offer, take it or leave it.
So I'm just sayin, I don't get it.

I had another thought. Might be that this is a good time for complete honesty. If you find a need to compromise between your husbands views and your own you might tell them, "Look, we should have taken the $4000 hit but to be honest, we got blindsided by a little ignorance. We thought maybe you went lower than you were willing to pay cause you thought we were going to haggle. We would have accepted the $4000 hit but figured this was just the way it worked - we have an asking price, you counter, we counter and we end up in the middle. We can't afford the $9000 hit but are now sorry we didn't accept your first offer."

Everybody plays games - not playing games is refreshing and you might get them to come clean if you lead the way. Just a thought.

Something I was thinking about is that in the course of investigating the property they may have discovered more information about the area and or the property that has since soured them on their original bid. Discovering that there is a proposal to build an airport in two years or that there are seven sex offendors living in the neighborhood or etc. etc. might have caused their initial offer to drop.

I agree - it's very odd they would respond this way and that's why I don't think you should accept it and stand firm on 4,000.

Thanks everyone for your opinions. OK, so here's what happened this afternoon...

Hubby and I discussed the situation.
When we talk to them I am the talker, but it is on speaker phone so hubby can listen too. (He likes it that way ) He felt that I was not clear enough last night on the fact that we would gladly accept their first offer of 4000 less. He also thought they didn't make it clear that that first offer of 4000 less was off the table. I thought it was clear of course, but I agreed w/ hubby to call them and just ask for clarification.
I got to talk to the woman whose brother will be buying the house. I asked her clearly if the offer of 4000 less was off the table or would they consider it still. She didn't answer the question and went into this long story about how she and her brother have been arguing all day about this. According to her: she does not want him to pay cash for the house bc it will drain his savings. She wants him to let them finance some of it for him and he put some down. He is now refusing and says he wants to pay cash and he wants to pay 9000 less. She says she is trying to talk him out of buying it all together bc she doesn't want him to spend the cash. She says if he will do it her way then she and her husband would have some say so in the deal, and would have encouraged him to take our counter of 2000 less. She said she thought it was fair and we were doing what we could. But that he wants to do it his way, so they don't have a say so in how the deal goes down. And more stuff, they have been fighting over it all day, blah, blah, blah. She says that they like our house the best though bc it has all the things/features they were looking for. She ends by finally saying, "So I don't really think that 4000 less is off the table or not and we don't really know if you can do 9000 less." To which I replied, "Please let him know that we would be happy to accept his first offer of 4000 under, but that we just cannot accept 9000 less bc it will not work for our financial situation. We want to make this work, but 4000 less is the absolute lowest we can go." She said that she understood and would talk to her brother, then get back with us. I don't really expect to hear from them until tomorrow. The woman is very sweet and seems perfectly reasonable. I feel inclined to take her at her word that what she says about their situation is true. They are just the middle man. I think the brother is being unreasonable and apparently his sister agrees with me, lol.

I think we were really fair to do some normal haggling and ask for only 2000 under the asking price. Especially when you take into consideration that the asking price now is 16000 less than our original asking price. They knew that too. We explained to them that we had gone as low as possible. We have been dropping it a little along as the months went on and we weren't getting any bites.

My anxiety has been off the charts today worrying about this and I had numerous meltdowns at work today, but I am feeling calm again bc the ball is now in their court again. My husband is happy with what I said. He thinks we have done the right thing, and really all we can do at this point. I think I am feeling like we did the right thing too. Not 100% because my anxiety makes it hard not to analyze and doubt, but even if this whole thing goes south I'm not going to beat myself up bc I think this guy acted out of character for a normal haggling procedure. I don't think we could have predicted what he did.

I think you handled this well and hopefully it will come back in your favor tomorrow. I wonder why the guy isn't doing the deal himself and wonder why he's paying cash and not taking a mortgage? Is this a private sale without agents? Try to relax for now and hope for the best.

The reason he is not handling it himself is that he has just bought ANOTHER new house in Pennsylvania. His sister and her husband (the ones i have been talking to) live down here in an RV park during the summer months. They are an older couple and what we call "snowbirds" or "winter Texans". The plan is for the couple to live in the house pretty much all the time, and the brother will come stay there randomly to visit. There is an additional apartment with the house so this was a plus for their situation.

Why is he paying cash? Well the sister doesn't seem to understand that either. He apparently has just above the exact amount he has offered us in his bank account. So if he uses it he will drain the account to nothing. I'm not sure the reasoning here. This was one of the reasons I thought the guy was trying to mess with our minds here. His actions just really didn't make sense. We were clear about the fact that cash would be nice, but was not important to us to make the sale. They could do whichever they wanted.

Yes this is essentially a private sale. We have a realtor that is a close friend of ours. He is doing nothing to try to sell the house, we have done all the advertising and showing. But he has agreed to help us with closing for a small fee much less than commission. Sounded like a good deal to us.... The other party is aware of him and don't have a realtor either.

I am with LynnP on this one. They are professionals who have bought other homes and are manipulating in a down market...If they want it they will accept the $4000

We didn't hear from them yesterday. If we don't get a call by this evening we will call and see what they are thinking. I have a feeling they aren't going to buy it.

Oh that's too bad, I'm sorry. Hopefully if it doesn't go through you'll be lucky to get another interested buyer. True the best window of opportunity is in the first few days, but all you can do is learn for next time.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many replies to read through all of them... but.. i didn't see one that spoke the whole truth and that is that no *place* or people or anything makes your happiness or breaks it. One should not make irrational decisions for escape unless one's life is in physical immediate danger and then it wouldn't be irrational

But.. calm yourself... separate the two situations because you are clouding your judgment with emotion. Happiness is important, moving forward is important and those do weigh in, but you are building the place you are into an unrealistic hell mentally. You are safe, fed, housed and more or less ok - so no tiger chasing you today, ok?

step outside of the deep passion to run for cover back home where lollipops grow from trees and happiness is everywhere Yes, deliberate sarcasm because EVERY place is just a place and 99% of how you do is due to how you look at it. You're internally equating losing the sale to never ever ever getting away and we simply 100% must be miserable until we do! Well.. if that is how you see it, then that is how it will play out.

For god's sake.. get a realtor to sell your house. Rent it out and move back home while you wait for it to sell. Put your stuff in storage and have a realtor or someone manage the rental property. Those are practical solutions to the "trap" your head is creating, and believe me... you can't move anywhere that will stop those, you have to consciously stop them right where you are now.

deep breaths... k? Life is ok, you are ok.. and whether or not you like the outcome, things will work out somehow, some way.

peace

Everyone's given you good advice, I will have to go back to the thing with the sister haggling though, regardless of what they are saying, it seems really strange for someone else to be making a deal with you. If it came down to it, and it was closing day, they could literally stand you up and you would have no recourse because you've never dealt with the real buyer. Or maybe they are just ****ing with you altogether? I'm so sorry this is happening!

You made a good point that didn't occur to me Perpetuallysad - wondering why his sister is handling the sale and not the man who's buying the house. He's a big boy and should be handling his own deal, unless big sis is wheeler dealer lol - it always easy to say "oh he doesn't like this or that". It will all work out - probably for the better. I also agree don't be in too big of a rush and remember play it cool.

I just saw this and it reminded me of when we were looking for our first home. Though we didn't have the same sense of urgency that you do it was so stressful.I had to make a deal with myself to let it be. The time would come when it was the right time. As soon as I got that mindset, it started rolling quickly.
It doesn't pass the smell test to me. The sister is making the deal, yet she doesn't seem to have authority or knowledge of her brother's actions? Nope...walk away....don't even call them back. As hard as it is, wait till they contact you then be very cool. You need a real realator not a friend. I wouldn't trust any deal w/o a realator on both sides. Like others have said...it feels awful to you right now, but the reality is there are some options. Good luck and please don't feel bullied by these buyers.

Thanks rhino, I really needed to hear that. I need to make the most of the time while I am here or it was just wasted time. And it could be a lot worse than it is.
I don't think it will be irrational whatever we decide. We wouldn't do anything that would put us in financial peril. I have crunched the numbers and know what we will have to work with for different sale prices on the house. I have tried to include all expenses and guessed on the high side when I wasn't sure. We are discussing all options and weighing them carefully.

Ok here's the deal with the realtor. He is an actual realtor with a real estate company. He is just doing us a favor at the same time. We like him and are using him bc he helped us find a place to rent and then a place to buy when we first moved here. He did us right back then. Back in Feb. when we first put the house up for sale we listed the house with the realtor. He put the listing up online and all the normal stuff. Well we didn't even get calls on it, much less any showings. I live next to the border of Mexico where hardly anyone has internet. We felt like this was the reason we weren't getting calls. So the realtor put an ad in the local newspaper and we started getting calls. Well ads are expensive and I found out that it is not customary for a realtor to spend money on ads in papers. So he offered us a deal. He said he felt like we were much more likely to sell the house through the paper than through the listing. In order for us to be able to lower the sale price on the house he agreed to leave the listing up til it expires (it's still up), let us continue to run the ads in the paper at our own expense, and help us with closing when the time came for a small fee MUCH smaller than commission. Hubby and I couldn't think of any reason not to do this, so this is how we have handled it. We thought it would save money. We are still getting some calls from the paper ad, but none from the listing online.
What do you guys think, is this realtor up to something, or is he just trying to help us out?

Well the reason the sister is handling the sale makes sense to me in one aspect, but there are other aspects that confuse me. Here is what makes sense:
The couple I am dealing with are winter Texans. That means that they spend their winter months down here and return home up north for the summer. These people live down here in their RV about 95% of the year. Basically, they are here and he is not so they are handling finding him a house.
The brother lives in PA but wants to buy a house down here for a summer home. The plan is for the couple to live in their brothers house that he buys 95% of the time, and he will come to visit from time to time. The house has an extra apartment attached, so this was a plus for accomadating their needs.
What doesn't make sense is why the brother won't let them be involved in the financing of the house if they will be living in it most of the time anyway.
The couple say they want to be involved in the sale. The original plan was for the brother to put a large chunk of $ down on the house and then the couple would finance the rest. They want to do this bc they will be living in it and want to have some say so in decisions regarding the house.
They are telling me that the brother has changed his mind and no longer wants them to be a part of the deal financially. He wants to pay all his cash for the house so it is only his. That's why he is offering me less than the first offer, bc that's all the cash he has. The couple tell me that they are trying to talk him into going back to the original plan so that they can have say so in the deal, and if they do they will buy it for the 4000 less than asking.
I called them last night to ask if they had reached a decision bc I hadn't heard from them since Friday. Told them we still won't go as low as taking the 9000 hit, but we will still take their first offer of 4000 less. They said the brother is out of town on business until Wed and he wants to mull it over until then. They said they would call Wed or Thursday.
Hubby and I have been talking. If they decide not to buy it for the first offer they made of 4000 less, we may give it a while and call and see if they will buy it for the 9000 hit. It will be a tough break but we can handle it financially. It's just not ideal. We still don't know about that though. Just chewing on it in case it comes about in the future.

I have stopped losing sleep over this. I am sure that we were fair. If they don't buy they house, then they don't want it bad enough or they weren't going to buy it anyway. We will get more offers eventually. Hopefully sooner than later.

Thanks to everyone for your replies, thoughts, and avice. It is greatly appreciated.

I agree la_doctora

It just doesn't sound right to me. I can understand him wanting to own the house outright himself and not have the problem of worrying about sibling arguments etc however it still doesn't sit right.

I honestly think they are trying to force you into taking the $9000 hit and are trying to worry you by not having contact etc...don't play that game and stand firm on the $4000 or no deal. There will be other people intererested, try to be patient and you should do ok...

Rhiannon