Homestead &

This spring, I contacted a realtor with Homestead Realty based upon a recommendarion from friends who had recently moved to the Oklahoma City area from out of state. My family was also preparing to move to OKC from out of state.Before long, we found a house and made a contingent offer. The offer was accepted by the seller, so I scheduled a $650 home nspection. I also booked a flight, hotel and car rental for 4 days to see the house, attend the inspection and explore my new city. In all, I spent nearly $2,000 for the trip. During the trip, I was told by my realtor that the seller had recently fired his realtor who happened to be a friend and colleague of hers from Homestead Realty. She said the seller was "emotional" and simply difficult to work with. The inspection occurred, an inspection addendum was sent to the seller requesting several repairs before purchase, and I returned home to my state where I was busy selling my home. The seller countered the inspection addendum, and we accepted the counter. Then we waited and waited. Our realtor told us that at some point the seller "went quiet" and stopped communicating with the company altogether for no reason. We waited until the last day of the inspection period at which time my realtor said we had 2 options: we could extend the inspection period 3 days and hope to hear from the seller, or we could start the house search from scratch. At this point, we had ordered a moving truck, were nearly ready to close on our own home, and my husband had a start date set for his new job in OKC. After talking to a couple realtor friends from our home state, we suspected something fishy had occurred and we were not hearing the whole story. So, the realtor selling our house contacted the owner/principal broker at Homestead Realty to learn that the seller had not actually gone quiet. Rather, it seems he had fired his realtor prior to inspection (and my trip to OK) because she failed to tell him that our purchase of his house had been contingent upon the sale of our house. He was livid, so the principal broker offered to meet his demands and pay for a home warranty and offered him money toward the repairs we had requested.Meanwhile, we also learned our own realtor had not offered us the third possible option following the inspection period, which was to buy the house as-is with no repairs per the inspection. After learning this new information, we contacted the owner/principal broker of Homestead Realty, requesting reimbursement for the cost of the inspection for which we had paid. He said he would have to ask the realtor. After a few days with no response, I emailed the same person. Instead of a reply, I began receiving new home listings from him. Sadly, we had to fire our realtor, find a new company, and begin the home search again. Currently, we are living in a hotel in OKC thanks to tte ineptitude and unprofressional business practices of Homestead Realty.