Realty Check
Tough talk on all things housing -- booms, busts, bargains and more -- from "Nightline" correspondent Vicki Mabrey
Vicki Mabrey is a correspondent for "Nightline" based in New York. She covers real estate as well as a range of national stories.
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Buyer's Remorse??
July 21, 2008 2:36 PM
Since Roxanna has big news today, I'll let her take the reins:
"It's over. I closed on Friday. The feeling that this would never end, led right up to the moment that I signed this horror out of my life. Broker No.1 did not take the news of my closing with someone else lightly. Broker No. 2 was gracious and even seemed happy that I had found a good deal. Business is business – we were each forced to tell ourselves.
That's that, but I still couldn't help feeling sad about everything that had happened as I made my way to the closing. The closing itself was an anti-climactic math class. I twirled a pen in my hand while the lawyers tapped on calculators, and occasionally pushed a piece of paper in front of me to sign. Each time I did, there was a sense of relief and the more I signed the lighter I felt.
Afterwards, I stumbled out into the hot streets feeling different. For better or for worse, I was a homeowner now. With keys tucked into an envelope, I made my way to the apartment that had dangled in my imagination for all these months like a rosy apple that I couldn't wait to eat. Call it immediate buyer's remorse, call it post-traumatic stress, but standing in the middle of this empty apartment I fought so hard for, all I felt was confusion.
I guess it makes sense that this long-awaited moment would be disappointing in some ways. While I no longer had the urge to graffiti the place (too tired), I told myself there'd be no house warming party here. The last time I had been here, the view out the windows was obscured by a fresh blanket of snow. Now that view was a steamy parking lot, low rooftop and brick wall. This was not urban chic… rather it was complete and total urban bleak. I'd need beautiful curtains, I thought.
In the bathtub, there was a water bug lying on his back curled up and dead. A symbolic image of the life I had chosen to live? I really hope not. At least there was nice afternoon sunshine filtering through the windows of the large bedroom. There's good closet space too."
Vicki here again... Sunlight, large bedroom, good closets -- all bonuses in New York apartments. Rox's friends will do their (our) best to make this place feel like home.
But it made me recall my own first home buying experience (and all subsequent ones, really). My first house was a three-story rowhouse in a rough part of Baltimore known as Reservoir Hill. I was probably too young at the time to be scared -- should have been, though. It was $42,000 when I bought it in the early '80s -- about $40,000 when I sold it a few years later. Probably worth a fortune now. Yep.
But is Rox's trepidation a function of what she's gone through, or is it just normal buyer's remorse? Isn't there a moment after you've signed the papers that you wake up in the night thinking, "OMG! What have I done?!" Or maybe not. What's your range of emotions after closing -- elation? fear? remorse? pride?
July 21, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (5)
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Posted by: Joe | Jul 21, 2008 3:10:52 PM
My closing was stressful, but I didn't regret buying it at the time. Several years and thousands of dollars in repair later, I wish I could run away!
Posted by: Deb | Jul 21, 2008 3:42:44 PM
I've closed 11 times in my life, so my answer to your question, "What's your range of emotions after closing", is YES.
Posted by: JR | Jul 21, 2008 4:41:23 PM
I think its terrible that she screwed over two brokers with no compensation and apparently no remorse for having them work for her for months with no compensation. Sick.
Posted by: Ed | Jul 22, 2008 3:45:14 AM
You are nuts if you think there was no remorse, also for thinking that I was going to watch more than $20,000 go down the drain because I was afraid of how two brokers felt. You also don't know what I've worked out with them in terms of compensation. You should also take note that I brought the two new brokers on only after waiting too long (half a year!)...AND was upfront with all three that others were working on this. What they were unaware of was how close the others were coming to close. My attorney was worried and advised me to keep them at top speed. I couldn't have agreed more. Are you a broker?
Posted by: Roxanna | Jul 22, 2008 1:14:24 PM
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