When Flakey Buyers Cause Back on Market Listings in Sacramento

Back on market are the last words any home seller wants to hear.

Dealing with flakey buyers that result in back on market listings is always a pain. It’s extremely painful for the sellers who were blindsided. One day the sellers are counting on closing by the end of the week, and the next day, wham, the buyer is canceling. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, the listing agent’s duty is to resell the home. No listing agents I know want to sell a home twice and get paid once, but we do it when it comes with the territory. Because we have no control over the buyers. That’s the buyer’s agent’s job, and it’s tough for them to be a buddy and an agent. So they choose buddy.

This is one of the reasons I am happy that I made the decision years ago to work solely with sellers. I care deeply about my sellers and do everything in my power to ensure a smooth transaction, but I am not in the position of having to choose between being a buddy or an agent. Some of my sellers end up close friends, but my primary function is to reach their goal, which is a closed escrow. A buyer’s agent goal is not always to close escrow. If they cause a back on market listing, they’ll just go out with their buyers to find something else.

Except in the case of a property where we were all the way down to the wire and that’s when underwriting noticed this first-time home buyer’s payroll stub. Apparently, nobody else looked at it. Not the mortgage loan officer, not the processor. The name of the company on the payroll stub was a temporary agency and not the name of the company where the buyer worked. The company where she worked refused to write a letter addressing her permanency. That resulted in no approval and no home for this buyer. This buyer might never buy a home now.

Then, to add insult to injury, the seller had elected to paint the eaves on a day the temperatures were over 100. The underwriter called for the painting as a loan condition, even though everybody else thought it looked fine. Paint the eaves and we will close, we were promised. We decided it was better for him to tackle the job to make sure it was done correctly and to clear loan conditions, although it was really the buyer’s responsibility due to the AS IS clause. After all of that hard work and sweat, closing was a no-go. The buyer’s agent had developed her own personal problems and pretty much vanished the day we went into escrow, which was also part of the on-going issues.

Back on market listings can be a source of joy for a buyer who has lost out on offer after offer. First go-around we had 8 offers. We have a solid appraisal from FHA with no conditions. All we need is an FHA buyer who can close escrow. After gravitating toward conventional offers for so long, now we have an FHA approved property and no FHA buyer. Well, we’ll just shake it off and go forward. It’s not the first and it won’t be the last.