$100 is all you need to put down a deposit on a house in my state. those that are shocked in this thread, did you ever buy a house before???


Yeah... what kind of a house are we talking about? $100? that's really nothing... the minimum would be $1000 before I would sell my home to someone. Someone with really bad credit or has all kinds of issues with cash would probably be ideal for you if you're happy with $100.00 as earnest.


No decent seller or buyer should be taking such high risk with $100 earnest.

When I bought my house, I was asked to deposit $500 with the realtor when signing the contract, because you can have about 10days from the effective date of the contract to deposit the earnest money. (Sometimes people will put off that untill the last minute, usually after the inspection.) In my case the earnest is 5%.

$100 is really nothing.

We have our condo listed through a Realator and had an offer that we acceppted from a buyer. We agreed on pricing and have both signed a Buy/Sell agreement. The earnest money was only $100 as apparently the buyers don't have any money to put down for a down payment.Without reading further, you need to fire your Realtor, ASAP. Maybe things around your neck of the woods is different, but I have never ever heard of $100 for earnest money. Here in NoVA, the norm is $5000, with amounts less than that significantly frowned upon. The Realtor would also require detailed financial statement from the buyer before accepting the contract. By letting you go forward with a $100 earnest money, the Realtor is not only wasting his time, but also yours.

We got a call last night from the Relator (who is serving as a dual agent) that the buyers are getting cold feet now and may not want to go through with the deal. He told us he informed them that it's a legally binding contract and they are obligated to purchase the condo regardless.Go get another Realtor, and then go see a lawyer and see if you can sue your current Realtor for his incompetence.

Before we learned about them wanting to back out we signed a buy/sell agreement on a house we want to purchase.Then your Realtor should have put in a sale-of-current-home contingency for the contract on your new home.

i think the lightbulb should have been turning on when they gave $100...

i just purchased a home and the agent asked me to write a check for $500, i told her i'd write it for $1000 so they took my offer seriously, but even that was only .5% ... It being my first hoouse i had no idea...

looking back, they must have took my offer really seriously after seeing that $1000 check with Star Wars for its background.... THEY WERE FREE!!!

Personally, I don't care how much earnest money someone puts down. The earnest money really means NOTHING. Why? Because in order for the seller to keep the earnesy money, the buyer must sign a release of the funds. If the release is not signed, the seller doesn't get the money and cannot sell the house to someone else! So who has who's nuts in a vice? Just give the buyer their $100 back and move on.

Hopefully, your offer on the other house had the proper contigencies. You do have a lawyer for both transactions, right?

I once made an offer for a house without putting any earnest money down. I told the realtor I would pay up after the offer had been accepted (not written in offer contract). The seller rejected my offer due to price, and I did not counter. Supposing the seller had accepted my offer, there was no earnest money for him to collect had I walked away.

This realtor was the listing agent, by the way.

Thanks for all the feedback...

A little more information on my situation.

It is definatley a buyers market where I'm located right now. I've had this condo for about 4 years and it's seen no appreciation. I'll be losing money on this deal if it goes through. Selling price is just under $90,000. The condo is about 5 years old.

After having the condo on the market for almost a year with no bids and priced very competitively we were estatic just to get an offer. We realized at the time that $100 was chump change but if that's all they could cough up we weren't going to turn it down. They had been pre-approved for financing at that time.

In my state they have 3 days after submimtting an offer to back out and that's more than past. According to the Realator the guy has cold feet but now realizes he has to go through with the deal (or at least has been scared into it enough). Today the apprasier came to our property and apparently the buyer authorized him to do so.

The offer we put on the house we are buying is contingent on the closing of this condo. We put $1,000 down as earnest money on the house (which is typical in this market).

You're screwed. Your realtor screwed you. On the plus side, you got $100, on the negative side, if you can't affording to pony up for the condo and the new house too, you're going to lose whatever earnest money you put down on the house. States differ a little on earnest money laws, but not enough to do anything for you. There's a reason it's called earnest money. Lesson learned is a tough one, but hopefully you'll know better next time.

{Edit}

Just read your last post. You're lucky, and if the buyer doesn't really want it and it buying, he's a complete moron. If he only put down $100 and there wasn't even an appraisal yet, he was free and clear if he would have backed out. You must have a pretty shady real estate guy...good for you!

When the buyers get cold feet you cannot do anything much. They can say that they cannot get the loan approval, or they do not approve of the CC&R in purchase of a condo, or any reason based on the contigencies in the offer.

Good luck on finding the new buyer.

BudmanTom said:When I bought my first house I only gave the Realtor $100 as earnest money, the market was substantially different then....


Tom

But back then $100 was SERIOUS money ... photos of Budman Tom's Cabin obtained via the Freedom of Information Act ;)

edit: attempted to fix link