I think the qualified buyer thing (or unqualified buyer), has been muted a bit. It is the game lenders play that always exists, but just played different ways. Originate the loan and sell it.....
Agreed. We were looking at a bigger house, due to having 3 grandkids now, and I found one I really liked. But NC real estate laws are different and you have to put up a 'Due diligence' fee that you don't get back, but gets applied to the final sale if it goes through. Usually around 1%, which is a good chunk of change.
We wanted to make a contingency offering based on the sale of our house, but we didn't want to be pressured into selling our house just to close on the new one. So, while we dithered, the house sold. Bummer.
But the real kicker is, the bank told us "Oh, no problem - we'll give you a loan for 95% of the sale price for the new house. 5% down (I guess because it would be a VA loan). Like, serioulsy? We're both retired and living on SS, (very) small pensions (thanks, Obama), and IRAs, and you would loan us that kind of money??? I was stunned. And they didn't even blink an eye when I told them the condo and golf fees we pay for the place in Florida. We also don't have a mortgage on our house in Charlotte.
That seems kind of risky to me, but what do I know.
The other weird thing about real estate here is our realtor told us a bad inspection report doesn't allow a buyer to get out of the sale, if the seller doesn't want to correct it. WTF? You put a bid on a house and they find the house is infected with termites and you're SOL? Craziness.