A New One
I’m in a fun escrow on a fourplex right now. My client is buying a property from a slumlord because that’s often where you find upside in turning a property around. See Moses Kagan’s post on the topic for further explanation on that point.
I’m mostly being sarcastic by calling it fun, except when this slumlord’s listing agent, his ex-wife, today served us with a Demand to Close Escrow. Sounds intimidating, right? A DCE is a signed document that can come from the Buyer or the Seller to demand that the other party close escrow within three days, but not before the agreed upon escrow closing date in the purchase agreement.
I’ll explain more about this particular situation once escrow closes, but receiving this DCE today was a first in that I’ve never gotten a DCE the day after I served the Seller with our own DCE. Essentially, this seller is demanding to close escrow on the same day we are. Just a little tit for tat, I guess? If you play the trump card, so can we? I’m due to write a post on how real estate agenting is 80% psychology, and this is a prime example. When you’re dealing with small business owners and not banks, logic doesn’t always factor in to the decision-making process.
If there’s a lesson here, it’s this: make sure your agent knows the purchase agreement inside and out, or you may end up feeling undue pressure to close escrow the same exact day you asked to close anyway.