Offer For House!

A couple hours before I got the call from my cabinet guy with his cost for fixing the cabinet fiasco, I got a call from my agent telling me she had received an offer for the property! The offer was for full price ($180,000). The buyer was putting 3% down with $1,000 earnest money. It was an FHA loan. They did not want a home warranty. They will pay the appraisal fee. I am to pay a maximum of $410 towards the buyer's closing costs.

It sounds like a great offer. The only strange thing is that it's an FHA loan. My agent said she hasn't seen one of those in 3 years. I counter offered with the condition that the earnest money is non-refundable once the 10 day inspection period has passed. They have until 5 PM today to respond.

Because this is being bought with an FHA loan, the buyers are owner-occupants, not investors. It also means there are likely going to be some additional hurdles to jump through and I would not be surprised if this sale did not go through. First, the FHA will not issue a loan if the seller has owned the property for 90 days or less. I pass that test, since I've had it for almost 6 months. However, if the seller has owned if for less than 12 months, they may require two appraisals to verify the purchase price. Full details of their requirements can be found here. My agent says sometimes they will want two appraisals, and sometimes they will accept one appraisal, but it will be reviewed by a second person. The other reason I think this sale may not go through is that, during my research on the seasoning issue, I came across the maximum amounts FHA will loan for Maricopa county: $172,632. The buyers will need a loan of $174,400. Oh, scratch this. I found another site that gives a bit more detail. That $172,632 amount is for non-metro areas of Maricopa county. For the Phoenix - Mesa - Scottsdale area, the max is $214,700. So it looks like we're ok there.

If they accept my counter-offer, then it looks like the place is sold and the only thing I have to worry about is the dual appraisals. If they do not accept my offer, I'm not too worried. My agent said she had a couple other agents express interest. She was trying to get them to submit their offers before the reply-by deadline of this FHA offer, but it didn't happen. So there could be other, non-FHA offers out there, waiting to come in.