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Since October 2009
Definitely get yourself a real estate attorney. Why does the seller need so much for his closing costs? Sellers closing fees from a title company are typically under $500.
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Should we buy without a realtor or broker? Person to person just using title company and bank.
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evi1joe
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The seller wants to get a title basically for how much he owes on the house (according to him, "$143K") + his closing costs (according to him, "$6-$7K). Since $150K is our max amount to pay, and his minimum amount to take, he suggests forgoing a realtor (who would add 3-5%) and just buy it from him; he'll have a title company write up a title/contract, which we then take to our bank (we're preapproved, but we may want to shop around). He says we'll then have it appraised, inspected/WDO, and then do the deal. IF it appraises $3K under his asking price (he just "want[s] out, without hurting [his] credit"), we'll buy it for the appraised price via an 80/20, 30yr fixed, and we'll split the difference with him (e.g., by giving him like $2K in cash and just taking that out of our down payment).
Is this safe to do? What should we look out for or do to protect ourselves?
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