Seller cold feet issue

[Elizabeth Beard]

Would love to get an opinion on something. I'm under contract to buy someone’s house, and he didn't want to sell it unless I helped him find another house. I’m an agent, so I did, and he's in his due diligence period with the new house. Well today he's having cold feet.

How much of a hard *** would you be? Technically I found him a house and I could probably force him to sell, but of course ethical and moral concerns here.

His hesitations include:

My dogs howl and I don’t know if my new neighbors will have an issue with that.

It'll be 70 miles away from the closest VA and my cars aren't in great shape.

His mortgage at the new house would be able half what he owes currently, property taxes would be cut in half with the new house, and his current house needs a lot of repairs and the new house doesn’t.

Additionally, he feels too old to move and he's nervous about making a wrong decision. I've talked him down twice now, but the cold feet are still there.

What’s another angle I could work? Or should I just walk away? It’s a REALLY good deal for both of us, so I REALLY want this to work out.

[Joe Gonzalez]

Hey @Elizabeth Beard, 

It seems as though this deal can turn sour real quick - let me explain.

Let's assume that you happen to convince the guy that it is in his best interest to go through with the purchase of a new house, 6 months later he is miserable and files a complaint with your realtor board. There can easily be a case that you did not honor your fiduciary responsibility since you had self interest in him moving out of the original house. My best advice is to always delegate your realtor duties to someone else when wearing the investor hat. This way if you have to enforce specific performance on the sale of the first transaction you would be able to do so without any counter claims of an agency violation.