Families. I’ve sat and considered before how families affect buying a home.  I once worked with a young, newly-engaged couple who found a beautiful home.  We had searched high, low, over, and under.  We found a new construction in which the builder was going to pay $5,000 in closing costs, the buyers could pick their own carpet and counters, plus could close and move within 35 days!  Then the Mom came on the day they were to write a contract.  She completely talked them out of if… and by using the word "talking" I’m being generous about what she did.  She pitched one of the biggest hissy fits I’ve ever witnessed.  They didn’t get the home, but about a month later found another without her help.

Fast forward to today.  I’m meeting a homebuyer’s family to do a walk through on a new construction.  Called a "Punch List" this tour will identify problems with the house, usually cosmetic but sometimes more.  In this home, we’ve already seen that a tear in the bathroom flooring was fixed - but it’s still visible.  We’ve also seen that a cable outlet is not yet installed - an outlet that was agreed to in the contract.  My challenge is that the daughter-in-law (who I think is fantastic; she’s funny, smart, and intelligent) wants to negotiate the fixes with one of the workers rather than allowing me to do my job to see that this work is done prior to closing.

The daughter-in-law is going to school this coming week to start her real estate license studies.  I think she has great potential to be a top agent.  What she doesn’t understand is that though she loves real estate and negotiating and working with people, that it’s still my name on that contract representing that buyer.  I think it’s great that she’s willing to wait two weeks after closing to get the cable outlet installed (which she’s tried to negotiate with the site supervisor), but it’s in the contract that it’s installed prior to closing. The only way I’d allow it to not be installed is if we have a written, signed agreement giving a date of completion. Oh wait.  We DO have that already.

So you see my dilemma?  I don’t want to offend the daughter-in-law and yet I still have to keep MY client’s needs above all others.  I think I’ll go with what I ethically, morally, and legally have to do.  And that’s to see to the needs of my buyer.  We will have the cable outlet done and the new bathroom vinyl laid prior to closing.

I really like this list of NEW CONSTRUCTION TO DO’s by Ron Henderson, a Kansas City, Missouri agent. Though it doesn’t concentrate on when "families" are involved, it does provide good tips for new construction.