Question 1

Can I Cancel My Listing Anytime if I Am Not Yet Under Contract With a Buyer?

Accepted Answer

Articles on: Homepie

You have no obligation to Homepie to leave your listing on our platform with our free Homepie.com listing. Keep in mind, if you do cancel, you will not be able to use our online transaction/negotiation tools. Ask a representative for details on how to cancel your Limited-Service Listing Agreement.

Please note that if you have an outstanding contract with a buyer, cancelling your listing will NOT automatically cancel the legal contract you have with the buyer. In that case you will need to take additional steps if you want to cancel your contract and there may be legal ramifications to do so. Always read the entirety of your contract before canceling and seek legal advice if needed. Homepie cannot help you with real estate or legal advice specific to any transaction or agreement.

Updated on: 16/12/2023

Question 2

How Do I Evaluate an Offer I Received on My Home?

Accepted Answer

If you're not familiar with a real estate deal and all the nuances that come along with it, knowing which offer to accept or knowing if an offer is good can seem tricky. Here we will break down the structure of an offer to help you make informed decisions.

There are a handful of components to an offer that with make it stronger or weaker. When reviewing an offer you received, pay close attention to each of these but be mindful of the whole picture.

Preapproval and Proof of Funds

If a buyer is getting a loan, it's imperative you get a copy of their pre-approval letter and make sure they can afford to purchase your home. If the amount on their preapproval letter is shy of the purchase price, not to worry; they may still qualify but you will want to ask them to have their lender update the letter with the higher price. You also should obtain a copy of a bank statement showing proof that they have adequate funds to close; whether they are paying all cash or just putting a down payment.

To take it a step further, if you feel the need, it's not a bad idea to call their loan company to get a feel for how the loan officer feels about their qualifications. This is something real estate agents frequently do as some upfront due diligence on the buyer. Of course their lender will not give out any private information unless the buyer gives the loan company permission to do so.

Price

This one is obviously the most heavily weighted to most sellers. If you did your homework

Question 3

My Home Is Already on Zillow, Why Do I Need Homepie?

Accepted Answer

For Sale By Owner listings on Zillow used to be a fantastic way to get free exposure of your home for sale online. However, this changed when Zillow made some updates to their site. Now, all For Sale by Owner homes are separated and hidden from traditional agent listings. In simple terms, they have become hard for buyers to find. If you list your home on Zillow, you will quickly learn that most of the inquiries you get are agents who want to solicit you to list with them. Most sellers complain about the amount of agent calls they get trying to persuade them to list their home with them.

Additionally, a FSBO Zillow listing is simply a poster board. Zillow does not enable you to actually perform as a seller. If you are lucky enough to get a buyer, then you are on your own. Contrary to Homepie, where you and the buyer are guided at every step of the process so you can sell easily and confidently. Homepie is the only site that offers a free offer and negotiation tool that automatically produces a purchase contract, then has a Transaction Coordination Service to guide you through the balance of the process with all the required legal forms so you can confidently close escrow and not worry about the paperwork.

Listing on the MLS through Homepie will not only put your listing on Zillow in the traditional listing and publicly visible area, but it will also be seen on 100+ more websites including Realtor.com, Redfin, Homes.com, and Trulia.

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Question 4

What Is a Notice to Perform and How Do I Use It?

Accepted Answer

A Notice to Perform is a document used in conjunction with the purchase contract to help enforce an obligation by one of the parties. Once you issue the Notice to Perform, the party receiving the Notice to Perform has two days to perform a specific contractual obligation, if the contingency period ends prior to the end of those two days. If the party does not perform the specific action, the party issuing the Notice to Perform may cancel the agreement. If the contingency period ends more than those two days, the party issuing the Notice to Perform may not cancel until the contingency period ends if the receiving party still has not performed. Usually the Notice to perform is issued after a due date of a contractual obligation has passed, however, it can be issued prior to but it will never shorten the contingency period.

Question 5

When Do I Provide Disclosures to the Buyer?

Accepted Answer

Homepie’s contract is set up to allow a seller a certain number of days after entering into a contract with a buyer. It is based on how long the buyer’s inspection contingency period is and can be found in section 7.K. of the contract. Most often, the seller will have 7 days to provide them to the buyer.

It’s a common practice in most of California for sellers to provide buyers the required seller disclosures at the beginning of an escrow period, however, in some areas of Northern California, it is customary for sellers to provide disclosures before a buyer makes an offer. Because of this tradition, if you are working with a buyer who has a local agent, they may ask for them before even writing you an offer. At that point, it is up to the seller whether they want to do that, but it’s not required.

Unless there is a very good reason, a buyer or an agent should not have any issues writing an offer and making a deal without seeing the disclosures. Here’s why…

Unless they opt-out, a buyer will have an inspection contingency with a given number of days to review these seller disclosures and perform any non-invasive inspection of their choice. The inspection contingency is very common in almost every single real estate transaction; even cash investors use them very often. After the buyer reviews disclosures and does their inspections (provided they do this while they still have an inspection contingency in place), if they feel the property is not up to their standard

Question 6

What Are Property Inspections?

Accepted Answer

Property inspection refers to any and all inspections that the buyer may want to do. This includes a home inspection, pest inspection, HVAC inspection, plumbing inspection, foundation inspection, research on natural hazards, sex offender databases, nearby landfills, military bases, airports, schools, traffic patterns, and anything else that may affect the property whether on the property itself or even nearby where it may impact the property in some way. It's important to understand that this contingency includes all matters that may affect the property. With this contingency, the buyer has a right to investigate all of them, some of them, or none of them, if they choose. It's important that any buyer inspect and investigate anything that they feel could be an issue.

Most commonly, a buyer will start with a general home inspection. Depending on what the general home inspector finds, they may ask some specialists to come in to further investigate a possible issue.

That being said, many localities have their own customary standards. For example, if there is an area known to have a lot of moisture, it may be customary to always do a mold inspection. In an area known for certain types of soil, it may be customary to always do a geological certification, and so on.

Not only do localities have their own norms, the choice of inspections will also depend on the subject property itself. For example, if there is a large tree in the front yard, and it's known that the se

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