My wife and I set out to find ourselves a new home. Our current condo was proving to be too small for our growing family and we needed room to grow. Our thoughts of buying a home brought us to an agent we were told was good at short sells. We weren't in any hurry to buy so we thought for now we could make some offers on some short sells and see what happened.
We found a few short sells and made offers. Next door to a short sell we found a foundation already poured and wondered about it. Our realtor looked into it and found that it was for sale by Alpine Homes of Utah and the price was a little high but in what we decided was the very top of our price range. We were told there was another couple that were about to make an offer so we were rushed to act on it. We were told if we gave them a $500 check we could get a chance to give them an offer as well. I am not sure how all this works but I didn't think I had anything to lose since we would get our money back if they didn't want our offer. We would even get our money back if they decided they liked our offer. Looking back it seemed a little fishy but who knows. Our agent seemed to think it was normal.
We made a preliminary offer to Alpine Homes and got the go ahead. They told us they liked us better for some reason. I seem to think there really wasn't another couple at all and that it was a tactic to get us to make an offer quickly and/or encourage us to give a better offer. I don't have any proof of that but I am definitely in doubt of their story. It just seems a bit odd that in a market such as this, there was another couple that just happened to want the same home as us at the same time. Anyway, we made the offer and our agent suggested we ask for A/C and solid surface counter tops. We offered what they were asking as far as price and the Alpine Homes agent accepted.
My wife and I decided to do as much research as we could to determine if this was the house for us. The way this 'offer' worked was if we couldn't come to an agreement before the official contract was signed we could walk away and get the $500 back. We drove around the neighborhood and found every home that had the same layout and elevation. We asked a few to allow us to come inside and look around. People didn't have any trouble allowing us to look around their homes. We decided there were some things that were out dated and needed to be changed to fit a home being built in 2011. We found out from a neighbor the foundation and concrete had been poured about 5 years previous. The spec home for the neighborhood which was the same model as ours was built in 2002. The layout of this home was definitely out-dated.
At this point we sat down with the builder's agent. We found out that A/C was already included in the deal. Our agent obviously hadn't done her homework. I would have asked for more had we known the situation. We told the agent that we wanted to make a few changes.
We made some relatively minor changes to the floor plan Alpine Homes provided. We moved a closet, removed some decorative pillars, moved the island in the kitchen and consolidated two pantries, removed some decorative wing walls and that was about it. Brad told us we could do all of the changes without question and that it wouldn't be a problem at all. All these changes were documented on a drawing that seemed clear to me. Later I would find they argued it was not clear and would not complete as originally was promised. My advice, don't let the seller's agent draw up the changes. Do it your self so it is exactly right and remember this is part of the contract.
We didn't immediately sign the paper because I felt like we were being rushed. Brad from Alpine Homes was upset we wouldn't immediately sign. He told us his boss expected a contract and that he went out of his way to choose us over the other couple. He was trying to manipulate us into sign right then but I was not comfortable so I didn't.
Brad went out of town that weekend so we planned to sign the papers and get the contract to Alpine Homes. There were some items in the contract that didn't seem to my best interest so I changed them. They wanted me to use their loan guy. If I didn't then they wouldn't pay the closing costs. I changed this so I could use my own lender and they would still pay closing.
When he told us all the things we asked for could be done we signed the papers. We were excited to get things started and build our new home. Little did we know at this point who we were dealing with. What a crappy company. I wish I would have known they would be such dirt bags. I would have done things differently. My suggestion to all who read this is to get everything in writing. Even if it seems small.