Size Up the Neighborhood Before You Make a Low-Ball Offer

You should also take care when making a low-ball offer to a lender that owns a foreclosed property you want. Working with a lender on a foreclosed offer or short sale can take weeks, or even months. That's plenty of time for the listing agent to continue to solicit bids on the property. Several readers have written complaining that the properties they thought they were negotiating for were bought by other people. These buyers were mad because the listing broker never gave them another opportunity to up their offer.

But that's the thing about low-ball offers. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. But when they do work, you'll get a property for an exceptional price.

When we made the offer on a house, it had a new pellet stove. The sellers said that they were taking it with them. We said that it is attached and that we wanted it. Their real estate agent said that the stove was excluded in the listing. When we went for the final walk-through, the stove was not in the house. Do we have any rights as buyers?

It depends on what your purchase and sale agreement provides. If your agreement provides for the stove to be conveyed to you as part of the purchase of the home, you have a right to object and not close on the purchase until the situation is resolved.

While you clearly stated that you thought the stove was part of the house, you had a verbal disagreement with the sellers. While the listing agreement may have excluded the stove, did the contract to purchase do so? If they specifically excluded it, you may be out of luck. If there is nothing in the purchase and sale agreement relating to the stove, you may have a better negotiating position depending on the state law.

You may wish to consult with an attorney. I'm not a real estate attorney, but my understanding is that the seller is entitled to remove his personal property from the home, but generally fixtures must remain. To avoid ambiguity, some purchase and sale agreements specifically state that the heating and cooling systems of the home are fixtures that must remain in the home after closing. Some contracts go so far as to provide that plantings in the garden are considered part of the home and must remain.

In some parts of the country, it's customary for some items of personal property to remain with the home. These include the refrigerator, stove, dishwasher and oven. In other parts of the country, the seller commonly takes these items. If the pellet stove was not the primary source of heat for the home you're buying, it could be considered an item of personal property that the seller could remove.

I am considering refinancing my mortgage, and I also want to make some upgrades to our home. Can I refinance and borrow money for upgrades under the same refinancing loan?

What you're proposing is called a cash-out refinance, and it's tough to get one right now. They're expensive, and lenders typically won't do them unless you have tons of equity in your property.

But when I tell people that a certain type of loan product is hard to get, I frequently get follow up e-mails from loan brokers telling me that they can in fact get these loans for homeowners. So you may find a lender that is willing to give you the loan you're seeking.