OK, so we’re buying a Fannie Mae forclosure, negotiate a price, and get our offer accepted.
The day after the offer is accepted, I read something that says that “Buys of Fannie Mae HomePath homes will receive up to 3.5% towards closing costs or applicances.”
They clarify the “up to” being related to lender restrictions on seller assistance to the buyer.
I ask the question - “WTF? Why didn’t you offer me this incentinve” to which they essentially reply, “Too bad, you already have a contract. Go pound sand.”
Their realtor said our realtor should have known. When our realtor asked their realtor, HE didn’t know about it, and only started acting like he did after the fact. So, if THEIR Realtor didn’t know about this, how is OUR Realtor supposed to have known? When she asked him he replied “They have all sorts of incentives but you have to finance through them” which is NOT true for this incentive. Furthermore, HTF am I supposed to have known? I found out entirely by accident.
This is THEIR advertised incentive, and other HomePath properties actually list this in the description of the property. This one didn’t, and would / should have been eligible.
I feel kind of screwed here. I know I’m not getting anything, but I am going to bitch up the chain to whomever will listen for whatever it’s worth. Maybe I can get a coupon for TGI Friday’s or something for my trouble.
The press release says:
"…people purchasing a Fannie Mae-owned HomePath® property will receive up to 3.5 percent of the final sales price to be used toward closing cost assistance or their choice of appliances. The offer is available to any owner-occupant who closes on the purchase of a property listed on HomePath.com before May 1, 2010. "
Sounds to me like somebody possibly breached their fiduciary duty of full disclosure & of course you can rescind your offer within the states’ timeline statute…
You should have 7 days from FM for the inspection and back out. Just depends on how bad you want the house as the realtor WILL announce it now that you have uncovered it.
FM is not letting anyone know of this 3.5 other than listed on their website. Wifey is a realtor and their office was unaware.
Well, I don’t want to back out. It’s a good price for the house. I just feel like I was denied information during negotiation … the outcome, agreeed price, etc. MAY have been different had I been provided all the info. Maybe not.
In the end, I am getting the house for $68,000 less than the original owners had it built for in mid-2007 so I think it’s a good price. But still - it would have been nice to have known this to at least open up options.
I guess at this point I am just going to complain as far as I can go in Fannie Mae - obviously, I am not expecting any sore of compensation, but I’ll be a PITA for whatever that is worth.
It’s also VERY misleading - they make it sound like “negotiate your best price” and THEN receive the incentive. What their Realtor told me is that they would have raised the cost of the house to compensate, which is not much of an incentive at all (since you can always negotiate sell-paid closing costs anyway, even with Fannie Mae.) We elected to not do that - but if the incentive was REALLY an incentive, who wouldn’t jump at it?
Give the appearance of walking away (not saying I would really walk but make it look as if). If you have 7 days from date whatever to walk then play chicken. See what happens.
Agreed, I would play chicken. Then again since the .gov basically owns them now again, you might want to get on the squawk box to your congress critter and see what you can shake loose that way.
You guys are priceless, screwed by Fannie, screwed her sister Sallie, but better than not being screwed by her brother Freddie. Funny stuff right there.
I hate to break this to you, but Fannie Mae, and any other seller of a property have always had this ability. Its simply a matter of you asking for it. They have no obligation to disclose this information to you.
Your realtor not advising you to ask for it is more the issue here than Fannie. I buy and sell foreclosure homes and shortsales for a living. Just like anyone else, Fannie is trying to maximize their proffit on the deal, giving away closing costs when the buyer didn’t ask for them doesn’t do that.
There is also the chance that they simply would have countered your offer to a higher price if you had asked for them. You never really know what the bottom line is with those guys, it just kinda depends on how long they have held the property and how much they are losing on the deal.
Seller has been paying concessions for many, many years. Nothing new here, sometimes it’s better to write a clean deal and get an original lower price, usually the "free’ concession is built into the final sold price and financed for 30 years. No free lunch.
The Realtor should have explained this to you, if not, maybe it was their first day in the business?
Oh, I understand that. Fannie gives closing costs all the time. And, it’s not like I didn’t budget for closing costs.
What gets me is the way they are pitching the incentive … 3.5% off your final sales prices towards closing costs or Whirlpool appliances. Your’re right - the reality is they are not really giving you anything they couldn’t have given you before - that is the financing of your closing costs. And, the reality is I’d probably be paying $9375 more for the property. But they certainly don’t sell it that way in their press releases and on the HomePath site.
I still think that since they are offering the incentive, their realtor should have mentioned it. They mention all the other Fannie Mae incentives such as the financing, etc. Just not this one.
In reality - I think the FM’s realtor just didn’t know about the incentive. He should have. The realtors representing FM are SUPPOSED to be up on all this crap.
This is an issue with your real estate agent/Realtor®. They could waive their commission or you could file a complaint with the Board of Realtors® or State licensing agency. The Principle Broker they work for has to carry Errors and Omissions insurance to cover just such screw-ups.
Most of the time, the very best deal is where you DO NOT ask for the concessions and you write what’s called in the industry a clean deal. Often times there are competing offers and the cleanest has the best chance of success. Buyer concessions can cause unpleasant appraisal issues, depending on the loan, each loan has it’s own differing guidelines.
As you’ve found out, purchasing a home, especially an REO can be a daunting and complicated process and this may have been explained to you but was lost in the process?
