Buyers

Someone to look out for you: I recently ran across a young couple that purchased a home that belonged to a broker. They purchased it directly from the broker who was obiviously representing his own best interests. The house that they purchased had a small single apartment in the back that brought in an income of aproximately $400 per month.

They paid $209,000 for the house and apartment. Today it is worth about $150,000 or so becaues the little apartment was not legal and the city told them that they could no longer rent it out.

The broker told them that it was grandfathered in and that they could make the higher payments with the income from the apartment. Now they are stuck.

It really upset me because they were the nicest kids you would want to meet. They wanted to move back to their home state. I told them that there wasn't much they could do other than walk away from the house and have to deal with the repercussion of a forclosure - like a bad credit for 10 years. I tole them that they could keep the house and hope that someday it would be worth what they owed on it.

I spent about an hour with them and told them that there was nothing I could do. I recommended that they turn the broker into the real estate commissioner so he wouldn't be able to cheat anyone else.

They sent me a thank you card and a gift certificate for the movie. What a nice thing to do. That just made me feel even more badly for them. I have always believed that you got to stand for something and at least I know what I won't ever do to someone.

I have seen too many real estate agents as well as other people who will just as soon screw you as look at you.