A Little Older A Little Wiser

If I would of known then what I know now. A common expression that is often used. I think about it when I look back at the purchase of my first house.

My wife, who was my fiancé back in 1994, and I decided that we would go with a new construction home. We met with a Realtor, who at that time was a family friend, who introduced us to a builder in Cumberland, RI, Back then Buyer's Agent were not too common. In our minds we thought that this Realtor was representing us, when in fact he was representing the builder. In our meeting, we decided on the type of house that we were going to have built. We then wrote a deposit check made out directly to the builder.

That was a big mistake on our part. In Hein sight, the deposit should have been made out to the Realtor's company and held in their escrow account. Being young and naive about becoming an owner of a brand new home blinded us to the danger of what we ended up dealing with.

The builder went bankrupt. Our deposit was gone and we never ended up with the house that he was building for us. Just like that, all of the money that we saved for a down payment was gone.

Luckily we ended up in a beautiful home in Seekonk, MA but it was an expensive lesson that we learned. My advice to you, use a Buyer's Agent. It cost nothing to do so and in the end it can save you a lot of money and headaches.

Oh, and by the way, this builder is still selling houses as a licensed Realtor, go figure - Buyer Beware.