‘Relocation’ properties can be good bargains
Homes that are offered by sellers who are transferring to a new job can be a great deal, but buyers must be prepared to close the deal quickly.
Q. A real estate brokerage in our area advertises that it specializes in selling “relocation” properties, and some of the homes that appear on its website seem like really good deals. How do relocation sales work? Are they a good bargain?
A. Relocation properties, often called “relos,” are typically offered by brokerages that are hired by corporations when one of their employees is being transferred out of town.
The corporation pays the agent’s commission or, in some cases, actually buys the worker’s house first, then remarkets it through the brokerage.
The inventory of relo homes is growing, in part because many large companies are consolidating but don’t want to lose their most valued employees — even if it means transferring them to an office far away from their current home.
I know a few homeowners and realty investors who have purchased nice relo properties at below-market prices.
One advantage is that the brokerage firm is often hypervigilant about disclosing defects in the home or making repairs, in part to discourage lawsuits that might be filed against the brokerage or corporation after the buyer moves in.
Another benefit of buying a relo is that most big companies that are transferring an employee aren’t involved in the real estate business, so they’re anxious to unload the home as quickly as possible. They won’t take a ridiculously low-ball offer, but they’ll consider one that’s within the range of their offering price.
Of course, it’s always important for buyers to get preapproved for a mortgage before they go shopping for a home so they know how much they can realistically borrow. But getting preapproved is even more critical for those who are pondering an offer on a relo home:
Because the corporation usually wants to make a deal quickly, there won’t be much patience to wait several weeks for a buyer to seek loan approval, then several more weeks for the deal to close.
Q. We signed an offer to buy a house and followed your previous advice to make the offer contingent on first obtaining a satisfactory report from a professional home inspector.
The inspector uncovered several serious structural problems that the seller would not agree to fix, so we canceled the sale and got our deposit back. However, can we also demand that the seller reimburse us for the $450 we paid for the inspection itself?
A. You could file a lawsuit in small-claims court that asks the seller to reimburse the $450 cost of getting an appraisal, but the time and money you would spend to pursue the claim probably wouldn’t be worth it.
Most purchase offers today require the buyer, not the seller, to pay for the cost of a home inspection. So, you don’t have the right to be reimbursed unless the offer you signed stated otherwise.
Though you probably can’t get the $450 back, it was money well-spent because the inspection helped you to avoid purchasing a property with lots of hidden problems that would be costly to repair.