Sellers, Greed Can Cost You

Sellers, greed can cost you.  Don’t be greedy when considering offers or it can cost you dearly as in this case. I took a listing where the sellers were divorcing. Neither made enough money to refinance and put the home in their own name so they had to sell. Within the first week of the listing we got an offer. It was a good offer and would have given each of the sellers quite a lot of seed money to begin new lives. A seller walking away with ANY money is a good thing with short sales being so prevalent. I discussed the offer with the sellers and showed them the seller’s net sheet. The wife wanted to take the offer but the husband got greedy, he wanted more money and wanted to counter the offer. So against my advice they countered the offer and the buyer walked away. Months later after lowering the price several times we received a couple of offers, but they were low offers and the seller (husband) wouldn’t even consider them. He was still holding out for that imaginary fantastically high offer.

Fast forward three years…yes, three years. The property was still for sale, with a different agent, only now it was listed as a short sale and priced about $150,000 lower than when I had it listed. Somehow this property had fallen through the cracks at the bank because the sellers were not paying their mortgage all this time. I now had a buyer for the home and we put an offer on it. The lienholder did their review and countered the offer at a price $40,000 above what my clients offered. I knew the property would never appraise at that price and the buyers didn’t want to go that high so we withdrew our offer. The listing agent went through 4 or 5 other offers and each time the lienholder refused to negotiate on their desired sales price. Now, because of the husband’s greed the property is in foreclosure. The sellers will get a huge hit on their credit, not to mention, they will owe a deficiency judgment. And of course they will walk away with no money. If only they had listened to the professional they hired…