Scared Off

Like I said: far too little happened, then far too much.

I'll skip my description of the remaining units at Palm Avenue.  I eventually did decide to start an offer on one of them, a short sale.  It seemed perfectly situated - top floor, corner unit, views of the hills and the park - and I thought it would be worth the hefty price and HOA fee, despite the fact that it wasn't in great shape.  (It wasn't decrepit or anything, but the doors stuck, and was really cluttered.)

I did the Redfin offer wizard thing.  This works pretty well.  Because this was a short sale, it wouldn't fit into the normal Redfin model - typically they refund up to 50% of their commission, but it's only 15% for short sales.  Their web site says that these deals are handled by special affiliated agents, but in my case it was a Redfin team member, Sean Sullivan.  He was extremely nice and helpful, like everyone I met at Redfin.  He talked me through the process, got the disclosures, and sent them over.

Well.

I'd been cautiously optimistic before, but after reading the disclosures, I was ready to run away screaming.  The seller seems to have been barely conscious while filling it out.  Not only were many sections indecipherable, but many were just blatantly wrong.  I mean, yeah, I can see why a seller might not want to admit certain things, but why on earth would you say "No" to the question "Is this property a condominium?" when, uh, it's a condominium?  Are you trying to fool someone, who things that your single-family house happens to be elevated thirty feet in the air and surrounded by other single-family houses?

I chatted with Sean, and we mutually agreed that it wasn't worth pursuing.  In addition to the "haphazard" (to use Sean's wonderfully understated phrase) manner in which the seller had filled out the disclosures, the seller's agent's disclosures also listed some serious stuff that I had overlooked, like mold and some encroachment issues.  Sean's basic message was, "If you want to move ahead with this, we can, but personally I'd recommend against it."  I agreed, and from that moment on felt confident that Redfin was on my side.