Just signed an offer should I bail out?
So I just signed an offer on a small studio apartment in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The first question I asked the agent before I even went to see the place was, is this student accom only? As most places around this area are. They answered via email "anyone can live in it". I'm not a student so can't live in it if I buy it which I've just agreed to do. I want to live in it.
But the agent also told me that the current tenant is a student, who is on a month to month contract, the sale of contract has a vacant upon settlement part too. Then I found out today that the tenant is actually on a fixed lease until Feb 2023. Does that mean I have to honour the lease agreement?
So now I'm not sure if I can trust the agent and I'm suddenly paranoid that this IS really student accom only! What else has the real estate agent potentially misled me on?
I only signed the offer yesterday so I have a 3 day cooling off period in which to bail out. Any advice would be appreciated.
Update: So today (Mon 4/7/22) I spoke to my conveyancer as many people suggested. She agreed with me that things felt very dodgy with the agent not being upfront about the tenant. She advised me against taking on a tenant, I agreed. She also was able to find out for me that this is NOT student-only accomodation, so at least that was correct. However with the tenant being on a lease until Feb, I would then have to ask them to vacate 60 days from then, giving me a move in date arounf April 2023. She also said it's pretty impossible to get them out any earlier. With all that, plus her advising me not to take on a tenant, she asked me if I wanted to continue or bail out within the 3 day cooling off. I took an hour to weigh things up and then went back to her to ask that we end the contract. She then sent this decision to the real estate agent.
The agent called me immediately and tried to convince me that they could gaurantee the tenant would be out by settlement in Sept and to reconsider. They would offer them a few weeks rent-free to break lease and maybe move them to another apartment in the same building or something. I thought about it again for a bit and then called them back and said no, my decision still stands. I am now out of the contract. A part of me is a little sad/dissapointed, I was looking forward to finally owning my own home. But everytime I think about getting back into it/changing my mind again I'm like NOOOOOOOOO!!! I would've had anxiety about it everyday and whether the tenant would've been leaving or not and along with my conveyancers reccomendations to get out. So that's it, no more new home, but no more anxiety about the tenant situation either.
Thanks to everyone who has commented, I didn't expect to get so much feedback! But it was all taken in and appreciated. This has been a HUGE learning experience for me!