Austin Real Estate Transactions Often Very Difficult

Photo of sale pending sign

Being a Realtor in Austin, or anywhere, is an interesting and rewarding profession. And often frustrating. It’s a profession where the two most visible components of the job – the screwups and the easy deals – are what the public sees the most. On the back-end though, there is a lot going on that is not visible and sometimes remains unknown to the parties because the agents just take care of it. Still, a lot of deals crater because of problems. Some for good reasons, others that could have been saved with better efforts and more tenacity, but were not because the seller, buyer or the agents involved were not able to find resolution and solve the issues (or emotions).

Thus, real estate transactions in Austin are often much more difficult to complete than most people realize. I’ll use two of my recent buyer closings as examples.

Example 1 – Underwriter Wants a Paystub
Buyer moving to Austin for new job. Solid credit, income, etc. Years of industry experience in the same profession as the new job. We go through pre-approval, get the lender letter, find a house, get it under contract, then find out the lender actually can’t do the loan until the underwriter has the first paystub. A signed employment contract is not good enough,  it turns out. It use to be, so now I know.

I argued this with the lender from every angle I could think of, tried different lenders, but that’s just how tight things have become, even for good, quality buyers. Since the new job wasn’t going to start for several months, and the old job income couldn’t be used because he was leaving, this catch-22 meant buyer had to drop that deal.

Read more