Emotional Seller- backing out after signing purchase agreement!

[Jon Spencer]

I am dealing with a "for sale by owner" situation that is getting frustrating...

Here's the Deal.  I found a house that I wanted to buy as a rental. Asking was $23k.  I found he had multiple homes for sale so we negotiated for me to buy 2 houses for $55k.  The other homes asking price was $40k.  When talking to the owner he wanted to close real fast... like me hand him the money, he hands me the title and we walk away.  I told him I don't work like that.  I would be crazy to do that.  So I kind of felt his personality and saw that he doesn't do business too often and doesn't know how selling a house works...  Every time I talk to him it's like I'm teaching him how to sell me his house.  I even had to talk to his lawyer to tell them how to write the purchase agreement...

Anyway, so since this wasn't going to be a 24hr sale I could tell he is trying his hardest to sell to someone else also and whomever comes up with the money first he will unload the houses.  By the way to sell the homes fast he says they are already rented out to tenants (I know this could be good or a nightmare!)

I went to go see the houses and found that one of the tenants keeps the house really messy and doesnt have furniture. Just a blow up matress and stuff everywhere.  The area was definitely C class but I see potential.

After seeing the houses I renegotiated the price to do both houses for $45k.  He quickly agrees because he had some other buyers come to buy the house and for some reason they didn't want it anymore.  I know it's probably because there were supposed to be renovations done in the house but you can tell no renovations were done really. I already saw the buyer bought the homes for $6k six months ago.  I expected at least $5-10k reno to be done but it looks like he just painted the exterior and interior.  And even though I would like to pick my own tenants they are paying $625 each.

Long story short... When I talk to him he whines about when can we close.  I told him I am going to do an inspection on both and check them out.  It took me a few days to get him to send the purchase contract and sign it.

Now that he and I have signed the purchase contract.... he stopped answering the phone... What can/should I do?...

[Jay Hinrichs]

Originally posted by @Dennis M.:

Originally posted by @Brandon L.:

@Dennis M. you may have the experience to handle this, but from what I see the original poster does not, and the seller does not. So in that scenario, the better option would be letting " 2 attorneys hash it out"? 

Will they be charging the lawyer rate per minute to "hash it out"? 

I suppose someone with a deep wallet could get away with this but another option is to hire an experienced Realtor who:

1. Has all the required purchase documents

2. Will not charge extra to draft these documents

3. Has experience overcoming all the objections and obstacles that are coming from this seller to keep the deal together and push it forward.

4. Services that are free to the buyer since the seller normally pays a buyer agent commission.

There are always multiple ways to get to closing but I want to do it in the least painful and expensive way possible. Just my Realtor 2 cents. 

I pay  my re lawyer less than 500$ to do this kind of thing And the lawyer knows more about the law then the real state agents  in my area

works in Attorney closing states but does not work in title and escrow states. attorney hashing it out at 350 an hour can be expesnive plus the seller probably wont hire one..   

big difference when you have attornies will set fees that close deals and when you have to engage them to negotiate contracts I Mean out our way this would be 2500 dollar retainer right off the bat.