California E&S Insurance

Rant: Feeling taken advantage of by the industry at every step. At first, my agent seems really attentive and helpful at the start. We make some offers, lose some offers. Finally, I get a counter offer. She describes it to me but won't show it to me. The sellers made a couple changes, all minor, and requested that "$895 buyer paid admin fees" be removed. I ask my agent, what are buyer paid admin fees? She says they are standard fees and we cannot accept their counter offer because they are required. I say, "if they're fees paid by me , why are we pushing to include them?" She says they are standard required fees. I tell her I want to accept their counter offer. She refuses to present it to me because "we cannot agree to remove buyer paid admin fees". I call a real estate attorney. He tells me that when buying agents tack on "buyer paid admin fees" its literally just extra money to pay the agent on top of commission. They're not standard and there is no reason other than greed to include them. He informs me that withholding the counter offer from me is illegal. I tell my agent to remove the fees or I'll just use another agent to get the deal done. Magically, we can accept the counter offer without the fees now. Too bad this whole internal negotiation took 24 hours and I was applying under the California Dream for All program. I missed the deadline to secure program funds by about 2 hours...no dream for me I guess. Time to look for a lender and shop rates. The agents preferred broker says he has the best rates and that there is no need to shop. Yeah fucking right. I ask for a loan estimate. He says he doesn't give those out because he doesn't want his good rates to be used for shopping. I remind him of the TRID rules. Magically, he can give me a loan estimate now. I find a rate .75% lower, no points, from another local lender. I give Original Lender the opportunity to match, because he did in fairness help during the whole putting in offers process. Original lender then spouts a bunch of bull about how the new lender's numbers are wrong and the closing costs are artificially deflated and that the new lender won't be able to close in time and that they will change the rate even though it's locked. Magically, he then sends me a docusign with initial disclosures saying he matched the rate, hallelujah! Only upon my own revuew of the terms did i see that he achieved this by increasing my down-payment from 15% to 30%. When I asked if he can do this rate at the 15% I planned... of course not. Good thing I didn't sign the initial disclosures he sent. Guess I'm going with the new lender. My agent was PISSED. She spent at least 20 minutes trying to talk me out of it. If she wants me to use that lender so bad, she can front the extra 15% to get that rate, lol. Fast forward a few days, and its time for the inspection and sewer scope. I go to the house to find my agent there for the inspection. Whenever the inspector tries to talk to me, she interrupts about how it's a small thing or an easy fix. When I try to watch the sewer scope (since it doesn't come with a video after) she tries to pull me away to look at the stupid garden in the backyard or the stupid back gate. Inspector summarizes the issues and says it looks great and that there is nothing to worry about. But I get a bad feeling, he seems a little too slick and a little too obsessed with pleasing the agent and praising the house instead of looking for issues. I review his report and find out he didn't inspect half the attic and half the crawlspace. There was 2 entry points into each since there was a permitted additional wing added 20 years ago. He doesnt offer to go back and check the rest because he's sure it's fine, only if I insist. I insist. No surprise, i see the pictures and it's a mess. Major active leak under the restroom. Crumbling subfloor and foundation. Inspector's report says "minor discoloration". I show the same pictures to a GC/structural engineer and he says money pit. I feel like my due diligence has saved me thousands at this point already. But the stress is killing me. I feel like I'm constantly having to defend against people trying to pull the fleece over my eyes. I caught some lies and tricks, but I'm losing sleep worried about what I may have missed. What if I wasn't me? And I didn't speak perfect English or know how to read contracts or understand how things worked? They are literally trying to rip off the vulnerable who are trying to buy a place to live. It's just sad is all. I'm also in a publicly hated profession. I know there are good and bad eggs in every field. I'm just bummed that I picked all bad eggs so far and that they have sullied what should otherwise be an exciting process.

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  "title": "Rant: Feeling taken advantage of by the industry at every step.",
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