earnest money not returned

[Isaac Geller]

Hi all,

Me and my partner signed a contract giving us 7 days to do inspections when the document expressed that we get the earnest money back if we don't want to continue with the deal. I quote "Earnest Money Deposit will be REFUNDABLE for 7 days following the signing of this agreement if property does not pass buyers inspection"

We are OOS investors so we tried to find agents working at  the specific area where the property is located. We found only one and she didn't do enough deals in that area to give us good info of what the ARV is. We also so at zillow that while propetied nearby are sold at 300K and above, in the specific location of the property houses were sold <100K. So we decided not to move forward. The seller told us that since we didn't make an actual inspection of the property with a contractor we can't get our money back. This is the first time something loke that happened to me.

Can anybody here knows how should I act? What are my rights, and what are the options I have?

Can't express how bad I feel about it, like someone is trying to get advantage of you being far away, hoping you will just accept the blow and move on.

Thanks!