Please consider these answers I give as speculative and my opinion, not fact. People in the know can correct me if I am wrong.
Lostcat – Your post was a very good example of how to sell and sell fast. I think it was well done and you should be congratulated on the sale. Also I actually read the post and could not tell whether the 20k was done in or out of escrow but because you had a Realtor my guess was that it was done in escrow.
Snail/Lostcat The way the credit is performed will depend on the terminology used in the purchase contract, request for repair, or addendum used to originate the credit. For example, if the terminology used was “seller shall credit buyer for non recurring closing costs” then the credit may ONLY be used for those closing costs that are non recurring. If the credit is not fully consumed then the balance should actually go back to the seller. If the credit was for a request for repairs, then generally the money will be held by escrow and distributed to the contractor used by the buyer to perform the upgrades/repairs.
You guys see what I am saying? The credit is tied to the nomenclature. Now I have read plenty of posts claiming that many a transaction has occurred where a buyer walked away with a huge sum of cash and these claims have been made where this happened through escrow. I am not disputing that this is true or not true. I will say it has never happened in any transaction that I have been involved in. Furthermore I do not believe any lender would have authorized this as well.
Lostcat – First off, you will notice that builder incentive programs ONLY are available if you use the preferred lender. Why is that? Well obviously the builder has worked out a deal with the lender. Think about it, why don’t builders allow you to shine the incentives and lower the price? Well because they really really really want to keep the price intact, (and of course they TOTALLY ream you for those supposed upgrades)….So yes it does seem shady and indeed it is… just on another level like you implied. However it is done with the knowledge of the lender. They wash each others hands, capiche?
