I've been beside myself all night, unsure of what to do. You Knotties have been good at offering sound advice, so I came here.
We have started our house search. Our agent was always a little flakey, but we used him anyway. I regret it to my core now. I found all the listings we've seen and have spent far too much time doing things I think he should have been doing. The whole point of us using an agent was to take some of the pressure off me because I'm also wedding planning and job hunting.
Anyway, the second house we see we love. The neighborhood has been moving fast with competitively priced homes. Things are going on and off market in 3 or 4 days sometimes, and over asking. The market is relatively hot and I made the rookie mistake of trusting the realtor's advise to move quickly. He also told us that his market analysis revealed that the house was overpriced, but only by about 8k. Trusting that was mistake number 2.
We draw up an offer for 8k less than asking when the house had been on the market 8 days. The sellers are highly motivated and have outgrown the house. They need the cash from the sale to buy another larger house further out from the city. We thought we were doing good. We signed but the Easter weekend caused some unexpected delays and now I'm so thankful for that. The offer couldn't be sent.
Then my dad starts showing me comps he found. They are CONSIDERABLY under what we were even going to offer, let alone what they were asking. Even for houses that were similarly updated, larger in size, with similar lots and 2-car garages (the house we like is one of only a handful in the area that only has one), they sold for between $20k and $40k less than the asking for this house. So, we demand comps from our agent and see the truth. The house IS grossly overpriced and our agent knew it and recommended a higher offer than was really reasonable. All our family suggested an offer of $40k under asking. We decided to go in at $30k under, which was over $18k less than the previous offer we voided. We told the agent and abandoned our earlier offer, which was going to be a stretch for us to afford in the first place and that we were now no longer willing to give.
We got the new offer signed, a sellers lease agreement (which would help us both out) and we sent it off with a hand-written note from us. It took 5 attempts for our agent to get these documents correct. Details are clearly not his thing. Wrong dates, wrong names, mismatched amounts, etc. Finally, we send it out. Within hours we heard back. They accepted our offer as is at 12 days on market.
We were elated (and questioned whether our families were right and we should have offered less). We had our dance lesson and just beamed the whole time. WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!
And then I got a text to call our agent back.
I could tell by the sound of his voice that it wasn't good. He made a mistake. A big mistake. He sent the wrong offer. The original one. The one that we could barely afford and that the market didn't support. No wonder they accepted so quickly.
Now, we have to figure out what to do. Both sides are tainted at this point. They are probably just as heartbroken as we are. We are furious with our agent. We don't know what to do.
Our agent says (really not trusting him at this point) that all we can do is submit the correct offer and begin negotiations as normal. I think he's trying to save his own skin.
Thoughts?
"They say there's no such place... as Paradise. Even if you search to the ends of the Earth, there's nothing there. No matter how far you walk, it's always the same road. It just goes on and on. But, in spite of that... Why am I so driven to find it? A voice calls to me... It says, 'Search for Paradise.' " - Kiba, Wolf's Rain