Buying a Short Term Rental in Broken Bow: What Really Happens After Your Offer Is Accepted

Avery Carl [00:00:02]:
Hey guys, it’s your host Avery Carle with the Short Term Shop. And I’m really excited to dive into the Broken Bow market with you guys. We’ve got 10 episodes on everything you need to know about investing in short term rentals in Broken Bow. A couple notes that I want to give you guys before we get started. Any up to date purchase prices or income numbers on this market you can find on our website theshortermshop.com and if you’re ready to buy with us in any of the 20 markets that we work in, not just Broken Bow, if you want to work with one of our agents in any of those markets, you can email us at agents the shorttermshop.com be sure to follow us on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook at the Short Term Shop and of course join our Facebook group. It’s called Short Term Rental Long Term Wealth. It’s just me and 60,000 of my closest friends in there talking about short term rentals all day, every day. Again, if you need anything from us, you can email us@agentshorttermshop.com let’s dive into Broken Bow.

Cathy Craig [00:01:03]:
Foreign.

Avery Carl [00:01:11]:
Hey guys. Welcome to episode seven of the Short Term show. Special episodes on Broken Bow, Oklahoma. So what we’re going to talk about today is the contract process. So the contract process is a little different in every state. The earnest money might be different. There might be different deposits or different timelines or different contingencies of the contract. So we’re going to talk about what that’s like in Oklahoma, specifically in Broken Boat.

Avery Carl [00:01:36]:
This almost said in this market in this episode. So I’ve got one familiar face and one new face here to help. But Kathy, do you want to reintroduce yourself for the seventh time?

Cathy Craig [00:01:48]:
I’m Kathy Craig. I’m in Broken boat, Oklahoma, the STS agent here. I have seven, eight short term rentals and 24 long term rentals. I’ve been in this a really long time, so. And Broken Bow is a fantastic market. So that’s, that’s me.

Avery Carl [00:02:06]:
All right, you guys know Kathy by now. You’re on the seventh episode. But we also have a local to Broken Bow home inspector Keith Green. Keith, do you want to introduce yourself really quick?

Keith Green [00:02:15]:
Yes, my name is Keith Green. I work for Inspection Gator out of Texarkana, Texas. We’ve been coming over to Broken Bow for quite a while now, so we’re happy to be there.

Avery Carl [00:02:23]:
All right, well, thank you very much for coming on. We’re going to have some questions for you a little bit later. In the show. But we’re going to just start at the beginning of the contract process here and kind of walk through that. So first let’s talk about. Let’s say we found a house. We. We’ve got our offer figured out of what makes sense for us numbers wise to offer.

Avery Carl [00:02:42]:
Let’s talk about the terms of the contract in Oklahoma. So let’s start with earnest money. Kathy, what is earnest money and what is the typical. Everything’s negotiable, by the way, guys. But what’s. What do you usually see when it comes to how much earnest money someone puts down?

Cathy Craig [00:02:58]:
So earnest money is a 1%.

Avery Carl [00:03:01]:
You.

Cathy Craig [00:03:01]:
We can offer less, but typically it’s 1%. In Oklahoma, there is no option fee. So in, like if you were doing in Texas or another market, you might have an option fee and earnest money. We only have earnest money, and that is due within three days of contract sign.

Avery Carl [00:03:21]:
Okay, and the earnest money is refundable, right?

Cathy Craig [00:03:23]:
Yes. Earnest money is refundable in two ways. One, if during the inspection period, we can’t come to terms on repairs. Two, if that your financing contingency does not go through. So up until pretty much the day before closing, if you can’t get financed, we can get your earnest money back. Although there’s a little bit of a gray area. So we just have to be careful and watch it.

Avery Carl [00:03:51]:
Sorry, I thought I was on mute. Okay, so you have two contingencies in which you can get your earnest money back. One is the inspection, which. We’ll go into more detail on that in a little bit. And two is if you are can’t get financing. And we’ll go into that further in just a minute. I have a few more questions on earnest money. So if a buyer terminates a contract under one of those two contingencies, do they automatically get that money back? Does the title company just say, okay, here you go, or does the buyer have to send some sort of document that officially says, hey, we’re terminating, we want our earnest money back, and the seller has to actually sign that to agree to the earnest money back?

Cathy Craig [00:04:30]:
Yeah. So there are two forms. One is a release form releasing the contract that only requires the buyer signature. The second form is the release and disbursement form. That form is signed by both parties. So if for some reason the seller refuses to sign it, which it’s only happened to me one time, there’s no hard. Even though you might be it, you know, you might be owed it, the seller can refuse to sign it. And then it sits at the Title company until we work something out.

Cathy Craig [00:05:06]:
But typically that doesn’t happen. But yes, to get your earnest money back, both the buyer and the seller have to sign.

Avery Carl [00:05:12]:
Okay, because that’s definitely what I wanted to to touch on is that if technically the only person at the end of the day in a lot of states who can decide to who for sure gets the earnest money back if both parties don’t sign this doc is a judge. So I’ve seen. I’ve had a lot of clients over. Not a lot, but I’ve had a few clients over the past 10 years almost that I’ve been an agent who will want to do something like kind of cute to get out of a property on one of these contingencies or outside of one because they wanted to go buy another one that they saw that came on the market that they liked better. And what can happen is if a seller refuses to sign it, even if you’re like, well within your contingencies, if you get in that inspection and find out that house is full of mold and it’s about to fall over and you’re well within your contingencies to terminate that, the seller still does have to sign it. So if they don’t sign it, then your earnest money is still tied up. So I want to make sure I set that record straight with you guys that most of the time, if you’re terminating under the contingencies, a seller might hem and haw a little bit, but eventually they sign it. But sometimes people are difficult.

Avery Carl [00:06:16]:
Every now and then people want to be difficult just to be difficult. So that can be something you run into. But my main word of caution here is like, try not to get too cute with stuff because you found something else that you like better. Because if they want to not sign it and give you a hard time, they can do that. So anyway, it’s nothing to be scared of, but just like, just know it’s not automatic.

Cathy Craig [00:06:39]:
And in Broken Bow, it’s very words, we’re real small, so there’s only probably six or seven agents that really work there full time. There’s your random person that comes through, but if we can’t be too cute because the other property you might want might be with the same agent. So there’s not a lot of, hey, let’s tie this up to see if we find something else. There’s none of that because it’s so small there that we can’t either. You can’t pull a lot of that stuff, plus you just don’t want to anyway. But, but, yeah. So if the seller doesn’t sign in Oklahoma, it sits at the title company for 14 days. During that 14 days, if somebody can’t, if you can’t come to terms, then it will go to an arbitrator, a judge, and 99.9% of the time they just split it.

Cathy Craig [00:07:27]:
So I haven’t, I’ve only had this happen one time and there was a real dispute about time and the seller not getting something done. And really the buyer was owed the money. Um, but the seller just refused. So instead of tying everybody up, we just, the buyer decided, we’ll just split it and move on. That’s the only time it’s ever happened.

Avery Carl [00:07:50]:
Gotcha. All right, let’s move on to the next thing. So a lot of short term rental properties come furnished. How is furniture addressed on the contract? Are you allowed to mention furniture on the contract or does it have to be on a separate dock from the real estate contract?

Cathy Craig [00:08:04]:
So In Broken Boat, 99.9% of everything is furnished. So, so it goes on a separate accessories page and we list, you know, everything that’s included in the home. It’s not listed on the contract. So.

Avery Carl [00:08:17]:
Okay, gotcha. So it goes on a separate document.

Cathy Craig [00:08:21]:
Yes.

Avery Carl [00:08:21]:
And the, the reason for that, guys, is because when you’re getting a loan, lenders can only lend on real estate, not on personal property. So if the furniture is mentioned anywhere on the contract, then it can get caught up in underwriting with the lender because they’ll say, wait a minute, how much of this $500,000 contract is real estate and how much of it is personal property? Because you mentioned all this furniture on here. So it’s best to just keep that separate. And you’ve got a doc for that?

Cathy Craig [00:08:47]:
Yeah.

Avery Carl [00:08:47]:
Awesome. All right, let’s talk about disclosures for a minute. So when a seller is selling in your market, whether it’s a primary home, or maybe it’s a property that they haven’t lived in, that they’ve been using as an investment, is that the same disclosure form? And what do they have to disclose? Because I know a lot of times in a lot of states, if it’s been an investment property or they haven’t lived in it for a certain amount of time, then they just have what’s called an exemption form, where you just say, I haven’t lived in it. As far as I know, everything’s fine, but I don’t know anything specific to disclose. So how does that work in Oklahoma?

Cathy Craig [00:09:20]:
So in Oklahoma, there’s three different forms there’s there’s a disclosure and then there’s a disclaimer. And the disclaimer has a couple of different boxes. There’s actually two forms. And then if it’s new, if it’s new construction, it’s a, it’s just a disclaimer, like just brand new build. You don’t. That’s what it signed. But if it’s a resale, a lot of agents try to get away with just the disclaimer which just says we’ve never lived there, we don’t know anything, blah blah, blah. The Oklahoma Real Estate Commission frowns on that.

Cathy Craig [00:09:54]:
So every seller has to, unless it’s brand new build, they have to fill out a disclosure. And it’s a regular disclosure that lists everything. You know, the kind of AC is, if it’s gas, electric, kind of appliances, all of those things and whatever you know about the property. So you do have to fill out a full disclosure. In Oklahoma, even if it’s a property that you do not live in, if you have owned it and you’re renting it, then you know about it. So you know, there have been a couple of times when people have just refused to do it. We have to get a letter from them saying I don’t know anything about this property. Which is super.

Cathy Craig [00:10:35]:
You know, it’s a little sketchy because if you’ve had it for a long time and you’ve rented it for a long time and you know about what’s happened there, then although it’s a slim chance, if something happened in the future, you would probably get gigged on that. So it’s easier just to fill everything out. Most everything’s really new and so or newish. 20, you know, 20, 20 or less. So it’s not like crazy stuff. So it’s better just to list it. Move on down the road, protect yourself.

Avery Carl [00:11:05]:
Gotcha. All right, so we’re disclosing anything we know about the property. So we’ve written the offer and let’s talk about some of some more terms of the offer really quick. So we were seeing back in 2021 when everything was crazy, people when, when there were like a thousand offers on every single house, people were removing their inspection contingency. And we always recommend, rather than removing that altogether, just making the offer as is, but still having that contingency in there. So you can pull that so you can pull out if you need to. Like if you get in there and it’s falling apart. So can you explain the difference between as is but still contingent versus removing that contingency altogether.

Avery Carl [00:11:46]:
Because I think a lot of times buyers don’t understand the difference between those two things. And one particular protects you more than the other.

Cathy Craig [00:11:52]:
So we don’t. I, I don’t ever remove the inspection contingency. I just, I just won’t. I just tell them not to. It’s just not worth it. It’s Murphy’s law. If you do that, something catastrophic, you know, you just don’t want to risk it.

Avery Carl [00:12:06]:
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Cathy Craig [00:12:06]:
So when you put in as is, you’re still being able to do the inspection and you’re still under that timeline where you can, if you find something, you know, bad, then you can ask for it. If they won’t fix it, you’re out. As is in Oklahoma kind of means unless it’s really bad, you know, it’s, it’s a little bit of a gray area, you can still get out. But the buy, the seller is going to say, look, if you try to get them to do a bunch of paint stuff or caulking or whatever, they’re going to say, hey, listen, you know, but if your septic is messed up or full or there’s, you know, the AC is not working, it’s a different ballgame. So it, that just gives you, it, it just gives you that little still. It’s the same thing as, as is is just, it’s the same. You know, you can still get out. It just gives them a little of, it gives them a feel good little pat on the back.

Cathy Craig [00:13:01]:
Hey, we’re gonna. But you can still come back and say, hey, this is pretty serious. We need to get this fixed or I’m out.

Avery Carl [00:13:07]:
Gotcha. Yeah, I, I totally agree. I would always recommend offering as is but not removing the contingency. So you’re telling them up front, hey, the number I’m offering is the number we’re going to close out. I’m not going to ask you for, but I’m going to keep that contingency in there just in case something catastrophic comes up and we need to terminate so we’re not forced to, to buy this house.

Cathy Craig [00:13:25]:
Right.

Avery Carl [00:13:26]:
So that brings me to some questions that I have for Keith. So now that we’re in the inspection period, we’ve got to find us a home inspector and a home inspection. Keith, can you kind of just tell us what the typical home inspection covers in your market?

Keith Green [00:13:42]:
So in the broken bow area, when we go in, we’re looking at all kinds of things from the roof all the way down to the ground. So we’re covering Foundations, electrical, walls, everything that’s. That’s part of that house is what we’re looking at. And it’s usually over about six or seven hundred items is what we’re checking.

Avery Carl [00:13:59]:
Okay, so you’re checking everything. Everything that you can see. 700 things. So are you moving furniture to check things? Are you opening up walls to check things?

Keith Green [00:14:10]:
Yeah, you know, that’s a lot of misconception. A lot of people think that. That we can open walls. This is a completely uninvasive inspection. It’s a visual inspection, so it’s the things that we’re seeing while we’re there. Opening up walls is not part of. Depends on the furniture. Sometimes we will move things around just a little bit.

Keith Green [00:14:32]:
Just if we have to get into, like a, you know, into the attic or something, we may move something. As long as we feel like it won’t cause any damage to the object that we’re moving, we’ll do that.

Avery Carl [00:14:42]:
Okay, but you’re not able to, like, open up the house and. And look at electrical, plumbing, or anything like that.

Keith Green [00:14:49]:
Right. Anything hidden from view, we can’t. Now we will look at, like, your main panel. We’ll look at that. We’ll open that up. We’ll look at the wiring, any plumbing that’s visible. We will also check that out as well. Of course, we’re running water, too.

Keith Green [00:15:01]:
That way. We’re seeing kind of what kind of drainage that we have that’s going through the house, make sure there’s no blockage.

Avery Carl [00:15:07]:
So are there any ancillary inspections that people typically need to get in this market, separate from home inspections or in addition to. Right.

Keith Green [00:15:16]:
Yeah. I would strongly recommend. Especially in the broken boat area. Well, any area, if you have a septic. I would definitely recommend getting a septic inspection. There’s several different ways that we can do septic inspections. We have a dye that we put in the toilets. We flush down.

Keith Green [00:15:29]:
We’ll run water for 30 minutes to an hour, usually. At least we’re. We’re trying to get at least about 200 gallons of water through the system. The dye. If there is any breaks in the lines that are in the yard, that dye will come to the top. And we’re able to see that if it’s a septic system, if it’s aerobic system, then we’ll run water inside. And then that way we’ll activate the sprinklers and let those go off so we can see the pressure behind the sprinklers. And then, because if there’s low pressure on the sprinklers.

Keith Green [00:15:55]:
That usually means they’re either stopped up or there’s a break in the line somewhere on that as well. The other thing that a lot of people don’t know we do, and Kathy actually orders a lot of is sewer scopes. So if it has a clean out, that’s one of the best ways to be able to really see inside those pipes. You can see blockage on the newer cabins. You don’t have to really worry about cast iron. On older homes in the 50s, 60s and 70s, sometimes you run into cast iron. You want to see kind of how what those look like. But on what we’re finding a little bit more of on the aerobic systems is even if they’re a couple years old, usually the tanks already need to be pumped.

Keith Green [00:16:32]:
So that’s one of the things we’re removing the lids, we’re looking inside, making sure that everything looks good for the client.

Avery Carl [00:16:37]:
Okay.

Cathy Craig [00:16:38]:
So awesome has like a little combo thing. And the reason we order it that way is just to make sure. Sure. Because every. The terrain is so, you know, wonky that when they do that scope that there’s no dip. That we don’t have a dip in a pipe or a dip in something that’s going to cause a problem for the buyer later. Because if there is a problem, you don’t want to find out when there’s a guest there. Just find out up front and figure it out.

Avery Carl [00:17:05]:
Yeah, gotcha. So we need to be getting home inspection. Do you guys do pest inspections or you need a separate one for that?

Keith Green [00:17:13]:
You do need a separate one for that. We are currently working on getting our license over in Oklahoma. We are licensed in Texas to do it, but we’re not licensed in Oklahoma yet to do it. But during the, during the inspection process, I mean, we’re. We’re still looking for things like that, Termites, stuff like that. But you know, one of the things I kind of wanted to put the listeners at ease is, you know, we’re not out to scare people. We’re just trying to let you know what’s there. That’s all.

Keith Green [00:17:39]:
One of the. A lot of the common things that we see in Oklahoma and I get a lot of questions about is wood to ground contact and then also negative grade. Well, if you buy a cabin in Oklahoma, you’re going to have wood to ground contact and you’re going to have negative grade just because of where those cabins are sitting. So it’s a standard comment we put on there because we’re letting you know that that condition is there, but it’s, it’s, you know, if they decide not to get a cabin just because of that, if they pick up another cabin, it’s going to have the same thing. Because almost every cabin up there has negative grading wood to contact.

Avery Carl [00:18:11]:
That makes sense. So that kind of leads me into my next question. So there are some things that a home inspector can and can’t do in a lot of states regarding what they’re allowed to suggest or like, I know in some states they’re allowed to just say, hey, this thing appears to be wrong. But they’re not allowed to say, this is how you fix it, or this is how much it should cost. What are the rules surrounding that in Oklahoma?

Keith Green [00:18:37]:
So in, in Oklahoma, we are able to tell people how to fix certain things. So what we, what we try to stay away from is anything that is giving an opinion on something. So when it comes to the home inspection, some of these things, like for instance, one of the things that I run across actually starting to see a little bit more of, are lights that are installed next to showers. So technically, you can’t reach out of a shower and turn on or off a light because your hands are wet. Well, people see that in an inspection and they panic. They go, what? Because, I mean, it’s going to be, it’s going to be quite a bit of money to move that light, the light switch. So what I usually try to tell people is like, look, it’s not that it’s a big deal, it’s a safety issue. True.

Keith Green [00:19:20]:
But if you have an electrician, have him go to the panel, find out what circuit that that light switch is on and put a GFCI breaker in. Problem solved. It’s that simple. So, you know, there’s certain things that, yes, we can say that we can absolutely scare a client, but we don’t, we don’t like that. We want you guys to make a sale. And so when it comes to talking to a client, like I said, you know, we’re going to tell them what’s wrong with the cabin, what they need, you know, if they need to get contractors or different ones, you know, from a trade, electrician, things like that, we will tell them about stuff like that for sure. But we’re not, we’re not out trying to scare people. We just want them to know what’s, you know, what’s, if it’s maintenance or if it’s something that’s required or if it’s safety, things like that.

Keith Green [00:20:04]:
We like to tell people, gotcha.

Avery Carl [00:20:05]:
So here’s something that I think a lot of people don’t do when it comes to home inspections that they absolutely need to is just when you get your home inspection, call up your inspector and ask what things are. I think so many people are like, oh my God, it’s 10 pages. I’ve got to terminate this contract and run screaming for the hills and never buy another piece of real estate. Just call your home inspector and say, hey, which of these things do you see every time? Which of these things are not normal? Which of these things look severe? Because I’ve seen a lot of contracts, and myself included, I had to learn the hard way where you’ll terminate a contract over something that’s in the inspection, like insert thing here and then you’ll go get a deal, another deal that might not be as good as the initial deal that you terminated. It’s going to have the same things on the inspection. So what are some of those things that we see in this market that are like normal we see on most inspections.

Keith Green [00:20:55]:
So most inspection you’re going to see, like I mentioned before, negative grade wood to ground contact. One of the other things that have been coming really common is on the back decks, we’re seeing where they’re actually nailing the joists into the ledger board. And so, you know, when you look at that sometimes when you, when you actually read the verbiage that’s in the report, it might scare you, but it’s actually not that hard of a fix at all. But what we’re interested in is we want to make sure that that deck is secure. So to kind of go along with what you were saying while ago, that’s why we offer a consultation. We love it when people come to the inspection. And then that way, what I usually do is I’ll walk them around and let see certain things that are going to be on the report. That way they look at it, because on a report they can see something and they think, man, what in the world is that? But if they’re on, on site and we can walk around, I can show them where it’s at.

Keith Green [00:21:45]:
They know exactly where it’s at. And they know a lot of times whether it’s, you know, if it’s a safety item, if it’s really a big deal or if it’s not that big of a deal at all. And so we love consultations. And please do not be afraid to call your inspector. You want to talk to them sometimes because the verbiage that we have, it might be a little confusing. To some. But we love the phone calls. Trust me, we love it.

Cathy Craig [00:22:09]:
Yeah. I want to give a shout out to Keith and them because a lot of our sts clients are not there and every single time he talks to them on the phone, he answers their questions. He’s answered my questions at 10 o’ clock at night. I mean, there is nothing that he hasn’t done. He also they a lot of times when, and I may be jumping ahead, but when you get an inspection report and there’s all these things that need to be done and you’re not there. Right. And I’m not a certified inspector, they will go back out for a tiny fee and recheck everything from our list. So we send them the list of repairs and he will go back out, do another report and let us know what’s not done and what’s done, which is, is a huge peace of mind to everybody.

Cathy Craig [00:22:58]:
So I just wanted to mention that.

Avery Carl [00:23:00]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So. So Kathy, I’m going to swing back to you for a minute. How many days do we typically have in our inspection period here?

Cathy Craig [00:23:08]:
So again, Oklahoma, we are our own little world. So it says on the contract, if you leave this little section blank, it says you have 10 days, but you really don’t because you have that time frame doesn’t start till three days after you sign the contract. So we really have 13 days to get everything back to the seller. Then the seller has five days to respond and then we have another four days to respond. So it’s like this big long thing, but we try to get it done as quickly as possible and get, get everybody, everybody just tries to knock it out, but we have 13 days to get the inspection done and to respond to the seller with what we want.

Avery Carl [00:23:59]:
So does that timeline start over like the, the amount of time you have to get to the seller what you want after or sorry, sorry. After you get the seller your doc that says, hey, this is what we want. How long do you have to come to an agreement?

Cathy Craig [00:24:15]:
So I would really love to be able to answer that question, but basically it just goes back and forth for a while. So it’s not so. Like for instance in Texas, I’ll just use that because I was an agent there for many, many, many years. In Texas you have however many days you put on there. So if we have, if we put 10 days, we have 10 days to make that agreement. That’s it. We have to get it to them and they have to answer us and we have to accept by that ten days. That’s it.

Cathy Craig [00:24:43]:
In Oklahoma, we just have to get it to them by that 13th day at 5 o’ clock. And, well, there’s really no time, but I try to do it by five o’ clock. Then the seller has five days, then we have four days. So you really could be looking at almost, what, 21 days to finish the whole thing. It’s kind of, you know, it’s a little bit of a good old boy system here and handshakes and things are kind of gray. But because of my history and my work experience, I don’t like gray. Gray ends up being a problem. So I am just.

Cathy Craig [00:25:20]:
I just get it done, get it to them, and I need an answer back. I’ve never had an issue, but I don’t want to risk it. So, you know, technically, after the 13 days, there’s another nine days between the seller and the buyer to get it all negotiated. Nobody really does that. Nobody takes that much time, but that’s how much time there is.

Avery Carl [00:25:41]:
Gotcha. Okay, and is this. In some states, the things that you can terminate a contract on and still fall within this contingency are different. So in some states, it has to be related to the actual inspection report. In some states, it can be related to just anything. Due diligence related. Like maybe you found you don’t like the HOA fee, or you don’t like the rules of something in the hoa, or you’ve just. There are some states where I just change my mind.

Avery Carl [00:26:07]:
And you can change your mind because it’s raining outside and you can get your earnest money back. What does that look like?

Cathy Craig [00:26:12]:
Here in Oklahoma, it has to be related to the inspection report. If you follow the rules, it has to be related to the inspection report.

Avery Carl [00:26:19]:
Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, so that makes a lot of sense, and I think that that’s important, especially if you’re a buyer coming from Texas, where you have an option period and you can terminate for whatever reason you want. Make sure you’re paying attention to this, Texans, because it doesn’t work like that.

Cathy Craig [00:26:34]:
In Oklahoma, because it is not an option period. It is a. A due diligence period. It is not an option period. You are not buying time like you are in Texas. And that’s a good way to put it. Many times.

Avery Carl [00:26:49]:
Okay, so one thing I wanted to touch on before we move on to the appraisal contingency is acting in good faith. So I have seen investors in the past that will make offers on, like, 10 properties when they can only buy one. They are only approved with whatever their lender Is to buy one property, but they want to offer them like 10 to get through the inspection period and see who they can bang up the worst and who will give them the best deal and then just terminate the other nine and move forward with the 10th. So there is a thing that is acting in good faith, something that a seller can go after you for in Oklahoma in terms of earnest money. They can’t.

Cathy Craig [00:27:25]:
No, but, but, but like I mentioned before, it is almost impossible to do that because you have this finite number of agents. It’s very likely that you’re going to run into the same agent more than one time on a listing on multiple listings. So it’s literally almost impossible to do that.

Avery Carl [00:27:45]:
Yeah. So across all states, whether they can legally hold your earnest money over it or not, it’s good to be. To not ever act in bad faith. So not offering on things that we have no intention of buying. Do ride one horse at a time. And especially in a small market where it is only a few agents. I mean, I’ve definitely been on listing side before and had two or three listings and had one person come around and be ridiculous on all three to where when I saw, when I would get a text or an email from them or their agent and I’d see their name, I’d be like, oh my God, this person again. And I’ll tell my seller too, like, hey, I’ve worked with this buyer before and they did X, Y and Z that were, you know, kind of ridiculous.

Avery Carl [00:28:24]:
So we’ve got other offers. Maybe we go with an offer of someone that we doesn’t have a track record of acting in bad faith. So small markets, you definitely want to make sure. And of course, guys, we’re not saying, saying you can’t terminate deals that, that don’t make sense or that you found something wrong with. No, like, everybody understands that. But if it’s true, like just acting in bad faith, that’s. You can really, it’s really just shooting yourself in the foot no matter, no matter what market it is. So only act in good faith, you know, only, only offer on properties that you intend to close on unless, you know, something comes up in the inspection that makes it not worth buying.

Avery Carl [00:29:00]:
Simple as that.

Cathy Craig [00:29:01]:
Now it. If there is a situation where there are two properties that you really, really like for right now, you know, there have been a couple of times recently where there were two properties that were equal. Right. And we wanted to see who was going to come down the most. Right. So in that case, I did a verbal offer to each side to each. Each property. I just sent them an email and said, this is what we’re doing.

Cathy Craig [00:29:31]:
This is where. This is very common in Oklahoma to do this. This is what we’re, you know, this is what we’re looking to spend. This is what it, you know, this. I know it’s going to be 45, 000, 60,000 off the price. Is your seller willing to negotiate? And sometimes you’ll get two yeses, but most of the time you’ll get one yes and one no. So then, you know, okay, this was the better one for us to try to deal on. And so then we go for that one.

Avery Carl [00:29:54]:
That makes sense. Sense. Okay, let’s move along to the. Your appraisal. Well, your financing and appraisal. So the appraisal is not a standalone contingency. Right. That’s part of your financing contingency.

Avery Carl [00:30:08]:
It can be different financing.

Cathy Craig [00:30:10]:
If it doesn’t appraise, it goes to your not being able to be financed and you can get out.

Avery Carl [00:30:14]:
Okay, so let’s talk about what constitutes the financing contingency being triggered. So that means that something has happened that the lender has said, you no longer qualify for this loan at this price. So these are things like maybe there were. You had some debt that the lender didn’t know until they got deep into underwriting. Maybe the property didn’t appraise. We’ll get more into appraisals in a minute. There are any number of things. But you can’t just say, oh my gosh, I’ve got cold feet.

Avery Carl [00:30:44]:
I don’t want to buy this property anymore. We’re past the inspection period. Let me have my lender write me a letter that says I’m not qualified. So a lender can’t write a letter and tell the listing side that you no longer qualify unless you truly no longer do. They can get in big trouble and lose their license for that, so don’t ask them to do it. So sorry I’ve said too many times in the past couple minutes. I try to be conscious of that. So do you.

Avery Carl [00:31:12]:
Can you not. Can your financing contingency be triggered all the way up to like the day before closing? Is there a timeline on it?

Cathy Craig [00:31:19]:
It actually can be triggered all the way up to closing. Because in Oklahoma, one of the. And this is another thing that makes my head hurt about Oklahoma, we make our own rules on the contingent on the form in the contract, on the financing addendum, and then on the form to release, it says if the loan terms are not to Your liking. So basically, you know, let’s say that Avery and I are buying a house together, which would be like my dream scenario. And, and, and we are quoted 6% or whatever it is, and it comes back at 12%. We’re like, that’s not going to work. You can say, I’m sorry, I don’t want to do it anymore because of that. It, it has to have a reason.

Cathy Craig [00:32:12]:
Although you could just say, I don’t want to anymore. You know, it, it does have to have some kind of reason. But you can check that box saying, the loan terms are no longer to my liking. So again, then you get into that situation where the seller can say, well, I’m not going to give your money back. We’re gonna have to, you know, whatever we do. That’s one of those things where the seller can still say, well, you know, you can go jump in a lake. I’m not going to do it. You still have that thing.

Cathy Craig [00:32:42]:
But you can say, you know, I just don’t like the terms of my loan. And then the lender will write a letter and say, you know, buyer has decided. Or actually, we don’t even, a lot of times need the letter. They’re just like, okay, fine, if you don’t want to buy it, you don’t want to buy it. But yeah, so you, you can do that in Oklahoma. Doesn’t mean you’re actually going to get your earnest money back, even though that’s the rule, but you absolutely can do that.

Avery Carl [00:33:04]:
Oh, well, that’s good to know because that’s not like, okay, so now let’s talk about the appraisal. So let’s say I’m under contract for 800. Appraisal comes back at 7:50. So there’s three things you could do, right? You could ask the seller to come down to the appraised value. That’s the most ideal scenario as a buyer. Or you can come out of pocket all the way up to. I guess there’s four things you can do. Come out of pocket up to appraised value.

Avery Carl [00:33:31]:
Not ideal. We had, we saw a lot of people having to do that though, at the height of everything in 20, 21 1. Or you can meet somewhere in the middle where the. They come down some, but you’re going to have to come out of pocket some. But anything that you come out of pocket above the appraisal is cash. Like, the bank is not going to lend you more money over the appraisal, so anything extra is cash. Or you can just terminate the deal. And walk away and say, oh, you know what? I wanted it to be worth 800.

Avery Carl [00:33:54]:
Our contract price. It’s only worth 750. It’s not worth my time to do this anymore. And you can just terminate and be done. Right. Is there anything else that I’m missing there?

Cathy Craig [00:34:02]:
No, it’s. Those are the four choices. Now, we have worked very. We’re in a unique situation where I don’t think I’ve ever had anything that did not appraise over the contract price. So we’re getting appraisals 40, 50,000 over. Oh, really most of the time. So in that scenario, we have people going back and saying, okay, I’m going to add $15,000 to this and then use that as closing costs. So we’re able to do that a lot in this market.

Cathy Craig [00:34:36]:
It’s really helping right now, especially with people buying down rates and, you know, trying to come out of pocket less because they’re having to put 20 down or whatever that is. So we’re in a market where everything really does appraise over and has for a long time now that scenario may change. If next year rates go down and things go up again, we may have to deal with this situation, but right now we don’t have that problem.

Avery Carl [00:34:58]:
Okay, that is very good. So it’s really not a lot on. On appraisal that we need to talk about, but let’s. Now we’re getting closer to closing. So we’ve negotiated our inspection stuff. We got a few bucks off or we’ve gotten them to. To clean up some things for us. It’s appraised.

Avery Carl [00:35:13]:
We made it through that. So we’re getting closer to closing. So the next thing that’s going to happen is going to be your final walkthrough or final inspection. Sometimes it’s called different things. So there are two people who can do your final walkthrough, slash inspection. And who are those people, Kathy?

Cathy Craig [00:35:31]:
Neither one of them are me. It would be you personally or, you know, an agent that somebody that you’ve asked to do it. I mean, I don’t even know if the. Yeah, your home inspector. Those are the only two people that can do it. And like I mentioned earlier, they do have a service, that inspection gator, where they will go back in and check everything and give you a written form saying, okay, this is done, this is not done. And that’s really good for it, you know, especially all of the clients that are out of town. But it just gives everybody a peace of mind and it’s Something the seller cannot question.

Cathy Craig [00:36:11]:
Like if they, if you’re supposed to have your septic pumped and it’s the day before closing and it is not pumped, there is no gray area. It’s not. Not the buyer walking through and going, hey, I don’t know if that was pumped or not. You know what I’m saying? We also in Oklahoma, I asked for receipts or videos, sometimes both, to have an extra layer of protection that this has been done, this is when it was done. You know, all of, all of that stuff.

Avery Carl [00:36:40]:
Yes. So I have some things to add to that. So it can be you personally, you can come, or you can have your inspector who did the original home inspection inspection do it. Because when it’s, I think when it’s called a final inspection inspection, it kind of. It confuses people because it’s not a time to renegotiate the contract. All that the final walkthrough is for is to make sure that the property is in the same or better condition as when you went under contract and had it inspected. And the reason that your agent can’t do it is because they are. I mean, it’s outside their scope.

Avery Carl [00:37:13]:
So we are not licensed home inspectors, we’re not licensed contractors. So if there’s anything materially wrong with the house, we’re not qualified to say whether something’s wrong or not. So, you know, if I walk by a countertop and I see a spot of water on it, I’m going to think, oh, like that splashed out of the sink. And if I don’t think that that’s a, you know, if that’s what my perception of it was, but it actually ends up that there’s a leak in the ceiling above where that was. I, you know, I’m not, I wasn’t trained to know those things. I wasn’t trained to say, oh, you know what that spot could be from a drip, from a leak. That’s not what I’ve been trained to do. So you need to have those licensed professionals who are licensed to do those kind of things to make diagnoses about houses.

Avery Carl [00:37:54]:
And, you know, I don’t know if something’s been fixed right. If you had someone repair a deck in the inspection, I have no way of knowing. I have never built a deck or fixed a deck in my life. I have no way of knowing if that was done right. So you need to have your home inspector who did the inspection come back through or yourself. So licensed professionals or yourself only, your real estate agent should never be doing your final walkthrough for you and before you argue with me or comment in the comments, because I know some of y’ all are going to do it and say, my agent in Indianapolis did that for me. Well, your agent in Indianapolis should not have done that. So it’s a big liability for you personally to not have a licensed professional or yourself come do your final walkthrough, not your agent.

Avery Carl [00:38:38]:
So I think that’s enough on that. So now we’re getting closer to closing. So, Kathy, it’s closing day. Do we get the keys at that signing, or is Oklahoma a state where they won’t give you the keys until it’s actually funded into the seller’s account?

Cathy Craig [00:38:52]:
Keys. Keys are an abstract term. In Oklahoma Keys, you will get the code and possibly instructions on how to change the code. But that happens when it’s completely funded, when all of the money is in and the money has been dispersed. I want to mention that Oklahoma is an abstract state. There’s only about three states left in the United States that are abstract states. And abstract is the complete record of the property from the beginning of time. Now, when I say the beginning of time in Oklahoma, that means when the land was first owned by somebody.

Cathy Craig [00:39:37]:
So in Oklahoma, a lot of that time is going to be. It’s going to go back to the 1700s, and it’s going to be 17, 1800s, and it’s going to be typically originally Native American land, Cherokee, Choctaw, you know, there’s about 87 different tribes. So. So you’re going to see an abstract that has it to the beginning of time. Now, in Oklahoma, the abstract has to be updated, so that’s a fee that you’re going to see. And the abstract is a physical piece of paper. I mean, piece of paper, it’s that thick. So if it’s an older property, I have some properties built in 1905 in, in Tulsa.

Cathy Craig [00:40:15]:
And those abstracts are really thick because if they’ve had a bunch of owners, abstracts in. In Broken Bar are not that thick. It’s, you know, but it’s a physical document that is stored. It’s so, you know, antiquated. But this document is stored someplace. So that document has to physically get from one title company to the other title company and then it has to be updated. So in Oklahoma, it is possible, and it doesn’t happen very often, but it is possible that we could be four or five days from closing and the title. Can we say, listen, we’re not done updating the abstract yet.

Cathy Craig [00:40:50]:
So if title has to push closing because of the abstract. Of course that’s nobody’s fault and we’ll get an extension. Buyer doesn’t have to worry about that. But, but it is a thing. So when you buy a property you want to leave the abstract wherever it is at that title company. Don’t take it personally, let them keep it. So when you sell it, it can go to wherever it needs to go. In Oklahoma you have the choice of your of title companies, meaning the seller can have one and the buyer can have one, which is crazy to me.

Cathy Craig [00:41:24]:
I try to keep it at the same place but so it is possible that one title company has it and it’s in wherever in Oklahoma and it’s got to come back to a different title company. So when you hear, when you’re talking to the title company and they say, you know, the abstract’s not here or we have to update the abstract and you don’t understand, call me or ask them what they’re talking about. Because it is a, it’s not just like a normal title company where you’re like they type it in and it’s updated. No, it’s a physical document.

Avery Carl [00:41:54]:
That’s good to know. So for a client who might be coming into like wants to come into town and close in person, are they going to be able to stay in their property that night or do they have to wait on all that to be where it needs to be before they’ll let them have the code?

Cathy Craig [00:42:08]:
We, if we close early enough in the day then they can as long as we’re closing by three and we talk about that ahead of time. If they’re coming then we try to make sure we’re closing know early enough that it’s going to fund. Typically all the funds are there the day before so it’s not a problem. If it is going to be an issue. A lot of times the seller will let them stay. Like if all the money is there but it hasn’t funded, then we’ll do like a one night agreement and they can stay there until it funds so it hasn’t been a problem.

Avery Carl [00:42:36]:
Gotcha, Gotcha. Because what we want to avoid is people coming into town with like a truck full of furniture and closing late in the day and then not being able to stay in the cleaner.

Cathy Craig [00:42:43]:
No, no, no, no, no, no. We, we, we address that ahead of time. Most people remote close and you know, send the cleaner they’ve hired over there to check it and move on down the road.

Avery Carl [00:42:54]:
All right. So I think that pretty much covers all of my questions about the contract process here. Kathy, is there anything that we didn’t touch on that the listeners would benefit from hearing if they’re planning to buy here?

Cathy Craig [00:43:04]:
You know, I just think, just keep in mind it’s, you know, every, especially if you’re, if you’re a short term shop client that’s bought in multiple different markets, just remember every market is different. Don’t assume anything and you ask the question or you know, listen to our podcast so that, you know, ask me the question, I’ll answer anything and I’ll try to, I try to give everybody a synopsis, but everything is different here. So it is kind of a good old boy shake your hand kind of system, which is great in some ways, but in other ways you just have to protect because you may be a good old boy, but that other good old boy may change his mind. So we just have to, you know, make sure we’re following the rules and doing what we need to do. And other than that, it’s a, it’s a, it’s not a hard market to buy in at all. Everybody works with everybody really well.

Avery Carl [00:43:53]:
Awesome. All right, guys, well, if you’re ready to buy with Kathy, you can email us at agents the shorttermshop.com and we’ll get you connected with her. Or if you’re just wanting to learn more, not really sure what you want to do yet. There’s a few ways we can help you with that. So you can join our public Facebook group. It is the same title as my book right behind me. Short Term Rental, Long Term wealth, or we have a live Q and A every Thursday and you can join that@strquestions.com so thanks so much, Kathy and Keith for being on and we’ll catch you guys later. Sam.