Many buyers, especially first time homebuyers can get very uptight about buying a home, indeed, both buying and selling a home is stressful. I’ve heard it said that the degree of stress that buyers and sellers go through during the home buying/selling process is akin to the stress of losing a spouse. Now, that doesn’t mean that the two are related in terms of importance, but only how the human body metabolically responds to the stress.
Well, we can’t prevent clients from not having stress, but I will say that Arizona’s purchase contracts, which are decades in its evolutionary process, go a long way toward alleviating the stress load and in fact may be the very best consumer-centric real estate contract in all 50 states. Having worked in California for 18 years and using their forms, and then coming to Arizona, there is no comparison in terms of “User Friendliness.” In California, for example, we were told we could not explain to clients what a given clause meant as that would be practicing law, for which we are not licensed. The problem was in the legalese, the lack of clarity.
In Arizona our forms are crafted to be understood. Every few years a large, select group of industry officials including brokers, lenders, contractors, termite and home inspectors, Department of Real Estate, lawyers, to name just a few, meet to see which clauses are working and which aren’t. As Realtors, we have the chance to give our two cents worth prior to the group meeting. Out-dated stuff gets tossed, new legislation gets integrated, and best practices are utilized. I sadly contend that if a consumer will take one to two hours to carefully read our contracts, they might know as much (or more) than their agent about the agreement.
Perhaps the greatest tool in the hands of buyers, sellers, and Realtors, is the “Buyer Advisory” put out by the Arizona Association of Realtors. This contains links to virtually every aspect of house buying in Arizona. To view this form, go to: http://www.aaronline.com/wp-content/uploads/sample-forms/BuyerAdvisory.pdf
“10 day Due Diligence”
But what about the seller, how does it benefit them? It greatly benefits the seller. I feel it goes a long way to reducing ye old “Buyer Remorse.” If buyer, seller, Realtor all understand that the buyer pretty much has a ten day “free look” then once the buyer has gone past this period, they are “locked” into the deal with the exception of a financing contingency. If they back out during the first 10 days, it’s only 10 days, and then we can get the property back on the market. This means that following that 10 days, everyone can pretty much expect smooth sailing to closing.
(…and if you’ll buy that…)
