OK, so as many of you know, the Steinhardts are house hunting. We found one we liked, but were a bit slow on the draw. As a result, the homeowner accepted an offer from someone else. Nothing was put into writing, but, being honorable people, they are going to work with the people they agreed with first, even though we offered them more. However, they said that they would keep our offer in mind in case the deal fell through.
I know that there may not be a factual answer to this, and it may run into IMHO territory. But I was wondering if any of you real-estate savvy Dopers would know roughly what percentage of real estate offers fall through. IOW, what are my chances of getting this house.
(Of course, we’re still looking at other houses in the interim.)
There is something like it called PERCENTAGE OF LIST PRICE RECEIVED. (5th column on this document below). Here is what a Realtor fact page looks like & your city should have one: http://www.mcar.com/stats/June2003-MonthlyStats.pdf
Beware the deal if it falls through because it could have fallen through due to inspection.
Otherwise, having house hunted myself, deals don’t usually fall through, IME. If they do, it is usually to a ‘failed’ inspection*.
Always get a house inspected. Yes, always. This includes you. Yup, you. Always. No exceptions. That’s right, NO exceptions.
Some deals do fall through, though, so it doesn’t hurt to keep in touch.
A failed inspection is where the damage to house is enough for buyer to walk away or the seller refuses to budge on price to pay for the damages. IME, sellers try to budge very little on damages. For example, we tried to buy a house that had $20,000 worth of repairs needed and they lowered their price $2000. Sellers want to stick the buyer with the problems and will usually not negotiate hoping to go back on the market and snare a not-very-diligent-about-inspections buyer. The kind that buy a $200,000 house but balk at dropping $400 on an inspection. :rolleyes: