Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

Precisely.

Forgot to mention, earnest money is placed in escrow and taken off the final closing cost.

If you back out in due diligence period then you lose the due diligence money, but not the earnest money.

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

I've got news for you, a home inspection isn't worth the paper it's printed on! :lol:

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

Well, since we out bid the other bidder, guess that was not the case for us :lol:

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

No but there is recourse if the home inspection fails to find something that should have been found. Sis had a home inspection on property in NJ. After 8 months when they went to do some minor repairs on the upper deck, they found major issues. Called for a new inspection and armed with that took the home inspector to court and won. He had to pay to have the deck and the flight of stairs removed and replaced.

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

If your husbands job works well for him and his employer the green card should be no problem. As a PHD working for a major govt research center all they have do is ask/endorse and the green card will be approved. Spring in TN is very nice and fall is even better. Very shortly you will have so many sunny days you will get of sick them.

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

OK, well if the house is threatening to fall down, you may have a point. Personally, I'd be embarrassed not to have noticed such a major problem. But in my case we just had a list of irritating things as long as my arm of stupid stuff that wasn't worth suing over.

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

Thankfully, they ain't you. :thumbsup:

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

As someone who lives in SE TN, I second that; even though we do get the occasional tornado.

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

Redwing
What town are you in or near? I live in Tullahoma, and we are moving to Moore county near Lynchburg
In a few days. We built a new house on Tims Ford lake and just sold old house.

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

It must be area dependent, I guess. We had to make an earnest money payment but not due diligence. We had separate inspections for general home; termites; chimney; sewer - all were required by the bank before they would provide the mortgage. HVAC & radon weren't included on any of those but weren't a requirement.

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

In GA, No due diligence, earnest $ was $1000, no Radon, no termite inspection (home had active and transferable termite bond in place) HVAC (heat pump) was covered in home inspection, but not in any meaningful way. Had I had a separate inspection, I might have saved 7K when it went out one month after closing and had to be replaced. Pool inspection a must for a home with a pool; also would have saved me $. Then there is the credit report, title services and lender's title insurance, lender's origination fee, and home appraisal. The cost for state and local governments to record your deed, mortgage and loan documents. It all adds up at closing. I think we all get soaked with attorneys fees.

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

I am starting the process of a buying a house here and I am very glad my husband is American born and knows the process, because some things seem weird to me. I second all the things said about earnest $, which I never had to do in UK, and the various inspections (didn't need Radon or termite here). But what threw me in the first place was the fact that putting an offer on a place actually means a contract is drawn up. The last time I brought a house in UK, you put the offer on the place, did all sorts of stuff like house inspections, land searches etc and then signed a contract. I wasn't ready for all the questions we had to answer, luckily my husband was!

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

I doubt that most Americans do "know the process", unless by "know the process" you mean "let the realtor take care of organizing things". That is about the only thing of any use that a buyer's agent does for their 3%, other than drive you around to show you houses that mostly aren't quite what you were looking for.

Certainly in NC, based on what Tom posted, the process appears to have changed because we didn't pay "due diligence money".

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

Well yes, I doubt many Americans do much about the process as it does seem the realtor organizes more things than they do in UK, but not necessarily better than not using one. At least my husband knew the implications of us putting an offer in and that we wouldn't get the earnest money down if we pulled out for no reason. We weren't asked for 'due diligence money', not sure what that means!

I would never have thought about getting my own realtor as a buyer, certainly never did that in UK. We just looked in local estate agents shops (which is a weird thing for Americans to grasp) and arranged to view places. Sometimes the estate agent would take us round the house, sometimes the owners did. But we never approached an estate agent to work for us!

I so agree about them showing you houses that aren't quite what we wanted, I still don't understand what part of 'nothing newer than 1950s' they don't get!! Or, must have a garage, or must have at least 1/4 acre. And I still struggle to understand if a house is right for me based on sq footage, I just can't get my head around what that actually means in terms of the size of the rooms!!!!

Re: Buying a house - anything to be wary of
 

Much prefer this approach in the US vs the English system where you spend weeks between oral agreement and a signed contract where anyone can just 'change their mind'. I liked being in a position where seller and buyer where commited by a contract within days of an offer being accepted.