Have a rental property in the works, its a duplex (had been held up a year with the Moratoriums, but finally had to go ahead).

Anyway went back and forth on price with realtors for a couple weeks in grueling negotiation, and finally reached a deal.

But here's the problem: There's a two car garage on the property which is locked, and no key was in the lock box. There was also a room locked on the main floor, which I was told had a water heater behind it- and no key to that either. I've never seen these areas.

Buying "As Is". Their realtor sent a contract to sign, but I said before I sign, I'd like to see all the "Is". As in, what's behind Door #1 and #2.

They came back saying the owner has the only keys, and he's on vacation until this weekend (??)

My realtor says if I don't sign now, the house could sell to someone else before then. Their realtor answered, "She is correct".

After all this?

You know there's a profession called a "locksmith". For a fee, they can pick the lock and you can have a look.

I don't know, somehow this seems suspicious.

Why would the owner take off at the end of negotiations, and leave no one with a spare key to areas of the place... not even the real estate company showing it?

Why can't they just say reasonably, "We realize the place is half locked, and have a verbal agreement.... so we won't show the place until he gets back".

The appearance is they're trying to pressure me into signing an "AS-IS" sale without seeing whats in the closed areas, by danging the prospect of it being sold elsewhere

WOW and he took all his keys with him on vacation??

I would want to know what was inside. Could be Aunt Bessie..

Communication use to be the Key. (Pun intended)

Why wouldn't the Listing Agent contact the Seller

and ask for permission to enter (both) areas ?

duplex_IL,

For the garage, can you get a ladder or a drone and take a peek at the roof? Is it in good condition or full of holes and rotten shingles? What is the exterior siding like? Full of mildew and holes or nicely kept?

Any windows with mini blinds? If so, you can actually look through the holes where the strings that go through the mini blinds are. You won’t get a great view, but it might put your mind at ease.

For the locked room inside, what is the condition of the rest of the home? Holes in walls, filthy floors and appliances or fairly well kept? I would expect that room and any water heater to be in a similar condition to the other appliances and the rest of the home.

We live in a very competitive market and if we want a property, we are prepared to pay the asking price or above and we make it very easy to sell to us.

We purchased a property from an lady who was very set in her ways. The property had an old farmhouse with a locked room and we were not allowed to see that room.

The Realtor did not have a key to the padlock and we were told it had some of the owner’s personal items in there. The windows were blocked by shades so we could not peer into them. We purchased that property anyway.

At closing, we were still not given access to that room and the contract allowed her up to 30 days to come and clean the room out. She never did, so we ended up breaking the padlock and hauling the junk in there to the dump.

The contract also allowed her something like 120 days to come and clean out a barn which she never did either.

If it were me, I wouldn’t let a locked garage and locked room deter me from purchasing a property provided everything I could see looked ok.

All the best!

Renne

Make the offer As -is but make it contingent on an inspection of what is in the locked rooms. You get the benefit of the haggling price but are also able to cover yourself in the event of finding your future meth lab that they are hiding.

I can't speak for your market place, but the single families are flying out the door. However the Multi-families are not selling nearly as quickly. Since this is a MFH, don't cut corners for the sake of speed.

In business you get something fast, something high quality or you get something cheap........pick any two. In the Multi market, speed isn't the highest priority.