Tuesday, February 10, 2009

No Earnest Money: You Can’t Be Serious

Oh, but I am.

Here’s Wikipedia’s definition:

An earnest payment (sometimes called earnest money or simply earnest, or alternatively a good-faith deposit) is a deposit towards the purchase of real estate or publicly tendered government contract made by a buyer or registered contractor to demonstrate that he/she is serious (earnest) about wanting to complete the purchase. When a buyer makes an offer to buy residential real estate, he/she generally signs a contract and pays a sum acceptable to the seller by way of earnest money. The amount varies enormously, depending upon local custom and the state of the local market at the time of contract negotiations.

I’ve been working with a long term client regarding sale of real estate over the last months. And won’t go in to many details here but there was a shocker regarding a recent offer and contract (where eventually the buyer’s backed-out of the deal) where the listing real estate agent didn’t require nor take any earnest money from these buyers when they made their offer and subsequently backed-out.

UNBELIEVABLE!

And in the end the result may have been the same but it sure would have been nice if the potential buyer’s had a little skin the game…ya know, I think it’s called leverage.

5 Comments:

At 7:00 AM, Blogger Harris said...

You have rightly described the earnest payment or earnest money. This is an important feature for the real estate sector. But still many of us still confused over the right meaning. Your description will help them. The real estate money investing always catches the mind of the investor but very few are aware of its dealings. This good-faith deposit is truly works as a faith builder.

 
At 3:07 PM, Blogger workhard said...

This is informative..

Idaho Real Estate

 
At 2:14 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 2:15 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I truly like to reading your post. Thank you so much for taking the time to share such a nice information.
Beverly Hills Real Estate

 
At 3:20 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

i have seen that there is no any Picture in your some of posts,
can you tell me why is that ?

Real Estate Miami | Miami Condos

 

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