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Present All Offers Immediately – Part 2

I just posted a blog post: Present All Offers Immediately

Many agents do not seem to get the importance of this. It is required by law here in Hawaii.

In the previous post I wrote about what happened when I bought the home we live in. Since re-entering the industry I have had several agents not show offers to their clients that I presented for buyers.

I am currently representing a seller and am seeing it from the other side. I had a buyer's agent; also broker present an offer on one of my listings. I received the offer early last week. It was signed a days before and was expired by two days by the time they transmitted it to us. I got a call from his assistant letting me know it was coming. I never heard from the actual agent.

The assistant indicated that their buyer's loved the home and wanted it real bad. Two problems with the offer:

It was expired and not executable
It was not complete:
Missing signatures
Missing addendums
No loan letter
No earnest money check

I let the assistant know about the deficiencies in the paperwork and also said the offer was extremely weak. By just reading the offer I would have never guessed their client was serious. She asked that I please recommend to my client to not reject but to counter.

I met with my client and we did come back with a counter offer. We cleaned up all the deficiencies in the original offer, raised the price to something more reasonable and gave them two days to accept it.

I got a call from the agent's assistant on Friday. The counter was about to expire. She said her broker was meeting with the buyers and their response may be a bit late getting back to us.

That was three days ago. I spoke to the assistant yesterday and let her know we still have seen no sign of their response and I have not heard from the agent. She then told me that he called me and I spoke to him. I have never spoken to him, only his assistant. She did not know the status of the offer ad gave me his cell number. I left him a voice message yesterday and yet to hear from him.

If his clients signed a contract on Friday it is probably already expired. What is going on here? Is this agent just not following up or is he trying to steer his client away from this property? Either way he is breaking the law. In Hawaii you are required to present all offers immediately.

For those of us who consider themselves professionals, this is quite a problem. I am trying to best represent my client, yet agents on the other side can put the sale of their home at risk because of poor service or worse.

UPDATE: I just received the counter offer at 9:42 am today Tuesday May 29th. The counter offer had an expiration of May 28th at 5:00pm. Kind of hard to get a contract executed under those terms.

Posted by Randy L. Prothero - Hawaii REALTOR® on 05/28/2007 04:51 PM

Comments (34)

real estate, offers, contracts, hawaii, century 21, ethics

Originally posted at: Hawaii Randy's Real Estate Opinions: Present All Offers Immediately – Part 2

This post has been included in Hawaii Information
Post is included in group: Realtors®

34 Comments on Present All Offers Immediately – Part 2

MAY

2007

Some agents will never get it!!!

This boils down to the question

Is there such a thing as Business Ethics?

I say no, you are either ethical or unethical in business and /or personal life.

Thise who fail to see your point...well they do not have business ethics so they can not be ethical people in general

Randy, I have a question.

When you say "assistant" do you mean a licensee?
Or is this "assistant" unlicensed?

Paul - You said it well

Larry - She is licensed, but acting as his assistant.

Randy,

There is another thing some agents would attempt to do. Call the agent or their broker and tell them you wish to present the offer to the seller in person...sometimes that will work and sometimes it won't. My sellers usually do not want to meet the other Realtor with the offer..they want it sent to me then to present. They sometimes will ask to see something in writing from the seller stating they will only see the offer if it is presented by the listing agent.

I want all offers to be submitted immediately, because I want to be first on the seller's mind if I have an offer from a buyer. On the other side, I want all buyers offers to be presented to my sellers immediately to give adequate time for consideration. This is a serious business and should be treated as such, even without the law.

Randy, just form the original offer that was made it is obvious that this Realtor is very sloppy. I don't think that he is trying to steer the Buyer else where, especially since the Buyer really wanted the property, he probably just operates in his own time table without regard for anyone else, much less the proper procedure to follow.

Neal - Here is Hawaii you never communicate directly with the other agents client. The only exception is where they are doing a limited service listing and they have their clients dealing direct.

Roger - I never sit on offers. it is unethical and bad business.

George - He may have a listing of his own that is on the list of properties they are considering. You never know what they are telling their client. They may be blaming us for not responding.

Randy,

Keep doing the right thing and you will win in the end! As for the others, they will get it in the "end"!

Lucky :)

Lucky - Good advice

Randy, I deal with this all the time. I received an offer about 2 weeks ago for one of my listings. It was off by about 10k so we countered it. I called the agent and left a message. I faxed and e-mailed. Tried to reach her for 3 days and never heard back from her. She didn't call when she presented it either. In fact the only time I ever spoke with her was when she called for showing instructions. Very unprofessional. This is a very frequent occurrence.

Sounds like a lazy agent. She's not representing her clients properly. And she's making us all look bad.

Gee, you are sure having a tough time. Nothing was at the office so they are either really lousy agents and assistant...and...they sure don't care about the client and all parties involved.

Randy - it's unfortunate some agents are so cavalier with their clients "dream home" - I can only imagine if the clients understood how hard there agents make it to do business with them they'd have something to say about. All good points!

Randy - I used to work for an agent like this - notice the word USED TO - she would drive me crazy - we called it the big BS (actually her initials )

MAY

2007

As a buyers agent, you are leaving yourself and your E&O wide open to litigation for failing to properly uphold your BA obligations, even if the contract itself doesn't stipulate that you present within so many days.

Bryant - There are some folks that just should not be in this line of work.

Lisa - That sounds right. How hard is it to either answer your phone or return a call?

Sally - I spoke to the assistant yesterday afternoon and told her the agent never returned my call and I never received the counter offer. If they finally send it, it will be expired. She said she would call me back and get the offer to me. I have not heard from her since.

Cyndee - There are days you wish you could contact their clients without violating our ethics.

Thesa - I hope she is no longer a Realtor.

Jeff - They are leaving themselves wide open, because in Hawaii it is required by law to present immediately. If we accept another offer because their offer was not received, the buyer would have recourse against their agent.

UPDATE: I just received the counter offer at 9:42 am today Tuesday May 29th. The counter offer had an expiration of May 28th at 5:00pm. Kind of hard to get a contract executed under those terms.

Here's one of my favorites ... seller is out of state and requires 72 hours to respond.

Really? There are no fax machines? No e-mail? No telephones? No Western Union? No Pony Express?

Considering this ruse was used mostly by agents working with California (and other) investors, it was beyond ridiculous.

Jonathon - That is code for we are hoping for a better offer once we see yours.

Well that really s-cks!

Neal - That is a nice way of putting it.

On the other side of the coin I get perturbed when a buyers agent sends an offer and gives you two hours to respond. Of course they never call to see if the seller is available and this is a military town so your seller could be in an aircraft, a ship or in some cases in Iraq.

But ALL offers and counter offers need to be presented in a timely manner and there is NO excuse for not doing so.

MAY

2007

Mark - I couldn't agree more. I am also in a military town.

Randy--It is amazing that some of these "professionals" can stay in business! Frustrating when you have to deal with someone like this. We don't have expiration clauses in MN...It says "time is of the essence" which is open to interpretation. I write in a 24HR time frame on P/A's and counters to try to keep things moving but often get comments like "how is that supposed to happen?" It can happen if you operate professionally. Just because the market is slower in many areas doesn't mean that everything should move in slow motion.

Teri - It is amazing how some folks take their duties so casually. Professionals do not behave like that.

JUN

2007

as a lender i have seen offers that have cleared both realtors with items missing and not addressed.

my favorite;

on more then one occasion i have received a contract where the closing date on the contract was before the mortgage commitment date.

wsa anyone paying attention.

i also like closings scheduled for sunday.

JUN

2007

Jay - I have seen the Sunday closing date a couple of times.

Jay,

Loved finding your post. As a past GRI Instructor in HI, I was reminded of a question a learner asked in the classroom within the past 2 years: "How do I know if my offer was presented?" My response was: "Were you at the presentation?" I think you know the reponse. It is sad that many HI licensees do not understand their responsibilities to their clients...submitting all offers immediately most notably among them. More importantly, their client needs them also to be at the presentation. MLS rules throughout the country address the issue, but agents seem to be completely at a loss for why one would want to be at a presentation. You keep up the discussion on timely presentations and I will try to help licensees understand why they should attend the presentations and why the listing agent should allow the buyer's agent to be at the presentation.

http://activerain.com/sedonakathy I have a post about a lifetime real estate license. Love to hear what you and others have to say. I'm co-chair of the Department of Real Estate's workgroup.

Aloha

Kathy Howe aka sedonakathy

how2educate LLC, Sedona, AZ http://how2educate.com

Randy,

Sorry, I put "Jay" instead of "Randy".

Kathy Howe

JUN

2007

Aloha Kathy - I attended two of your GRI classes about 2 or 3 years ago. In Hawaii the custom is to never communicate directly with the other agents clients. I would prefer to not have the other agent communicating with my clients, that is why I am here. I do not think hardly anyt would allow me to speak to their clients.

I have had more than a couple of bad experiences with other agents speaking to my clients and prefer to avoid that.

JUN

2007

Some agents, in all parts of the country, will always be slow. Whether their lack of interest in their client or lack of understanding of the requirements with offers....

Kaushik - Those agents need to be corrected or weeded out of the industry. They are violating their code of ethics and breaking the law in many cases.

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