We are in the process of buying a house.  Well, “trying to buy” would probably be more accurate.  The house is bank-owned (a foreclosure).  It has been on the market for over a year, been to auction and not been bought, and gone back to the “regular” real estate market.

Several weeks ago, Michael placed an offer on it: x amount “high bid” + 6% closing costs + 5% buyer’s premium (that’s the auction company’s fee), for a total of y amount.  We were told verbally that they accepted our offer, except that they would only give us 3% closing costs, rather than 6% (which wasn’t particularly unexpected).

Over a week later, we finally received the addendum for Michael to sign.  Turns out, they didn’t really accept our offer; they counter-offered (although apparently they don’t think so).  They increased the high bid by 3%, keeping the total (y amount) the same.  This would actually cost us thousands of dollars more, as we would have to pay the same total amount, plus the additional 3%.

So, Michael countered, with (x + $1,000) + 3% closing costs + 5% buyer’s premium.  This would give them an extra $1,000 (over our original offer), but still only cost us an additional $1,000 out of pocket.  The (semi-)immediate response we got from them was, “We already have a contract on this house.”

Well, duh!  It’s ours.

So, after plenty of back-and-forth between our realtor and their people, she (our realtor) was finally told that they had never received our counter-offer.  What in the world?!  If they never received our offer, to what did they respond with, “We already have a contract on this house”?!  It has been over a week.  They still have not been able to figure out what is going on and get back with us.

Is it any wonder we have a banking crisis in this country, if the banks are this inept?