House Hunt: Today's Hard-Core Realities for Closing the Deal

Gone are the days when the search for a new home in Greater Brandon — and possibly just about everywhere else in the country in these recessionary times — involved a weekend trip throughout the chosen neighborhood to engage in a weekend jaunt of “open houses.”

“Historically, buyers would be in the market for a home and they would physically want to look at properties three or four times and then make a purchase,” said realtor Susie Morris of Yellowfin Realty, who sells homes throughout the Greater Brandon and Tampa Bay area. “They might even look at 25 homes.”

Today, if a potential home buyer visits a home, “we view that now as if it’s a second look,” Morris said. “They’re serious now, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking their time to physically see the property.”

 Thank the Internet for this, and the ongoing minefields and challenges in securing financing and closing deals.

“They’ve often investigated a home online, they’ve already driven through the neighborhood once, they’ve already researched the crime statistics for that area and likewise the assigned schools,” Morris said. “When they actually visit the property they’re seeing if it measures up to what they’ve learned and to look for obvious blemishes and those things that make them feel at home, like the location of a grand oak tree.”

The good news is that a well-versed buyer is well-prepared and ready to make a decision after visiting some five houses, as opposed to some 20 houses in the past, Morris said.

The bad news, of course, are today’s economic realities, which make it increasingly difficult to close a sale, even when both parties are willing to seal the deal.

One house, for example, might have a last-minute lien put on it by the Internal Revenue Service, which is a situation Morris recently faced. As she put it: “It’s a constantly changing financial environment that can put any transaction at risk. 

Other minefields exist:

Ready to close, a short-sale is approved by both the seller’s and the buyer’s banks, but then the seller falls behind on a credit card payment and the seller’s bank won’t address the new debt — even if it’s days before closing.

To save money, the homeowner, or the bank, has let the swimming pool run dry. “Nobody knows if the pool is going to work again,” Morris said, “until someone pays to refill it with water to test the pool’s operation, and banks today want proof, not assurances.”

The buyer is ready and willing — but unable to secure a loan until the seller meets certain conditions on the property. “Not only does the buyer have to qualify for a loan but so, too, the property itself must quality for the sale,” Morris said.

“Criteria on the buyers are tougher than ever and criteria on the property as well,” she added. "For example, to close on a VA or FHA loan there has to be four or five years of verifiable life left on the roof.”

All of which makes negotiations “increasingly treacherous,” Morris said.

Not to mention determining what a property is worth in today’s market.

“Five years ago you could not find a single family home in Brandon under $200,000,” Morris said. “The only thing we could sell under that price were townhomes. I recently did a search for a man who wanted to spend no more than $125,000 to $130,000, and 85 homes came up in Riverivew and south Hillsorough area."

Price and conditions are essential to closing the deal, which in turn is dependent on both seller and buyer meeting their respective loan criteria.

"You really need to work with a real estate agent now more than ever," Morris said. "Every deal we have, we have to track it constantly. It’s all hands on deck to get the deal closed.”