When is a full offer not good enough? How about when an auction company is "teasing the public"?
When is a full offer not good enough? How about when an auction company is "teasing the public"?
You are probably wondering what I am talking about in the above sentence! Does it sound crazy? Here is the story:
A house is listed at Smith Mountain lake for $549 a year ago, it was reduced to $499k last August. March of this year it was reduced to $449K. July 16, the price is reduced to $374K. July 20, verbiage is added to state that the property will be auctioned. July 23, the price is lowered again to $299K. July 30, our client writes a full price offer with no contingencies....a very clean contract with a large down payment.
The contract is rejected?!?!?! The sellers want to know if our clients will pay more for the property....uh...NO! August 1, the property is raised $50,000!?!??!?! August 2 the price is raised ANOTHER $100K??!?!?!? Now the price is $449K again?
Ah...here is the answer from the Auction Company's own lips! Below is a quote from Lynn Gardner with Homeland Auctions the auction company who is playing this game on area home buyers and real estate agents:
Auction is all about the marketing. We do for real estate what a 4th of July sale does for a retailer. We set the date and time, we set the terms, we TEASE THE CONSUMER AWAY FROM THE COMPETITION (emphasis added), we advertise it like crazy and we sell it to the masses.
How is that for flat out manipulation? How is that for our buyer who drove in from the mid west to buy a home, make a full price offer, leave a large deposit check, only to find out that the seller has now raised the price 50%? And it was all a game contrived by Lynn Gardner and her company, Homeland Auctions!
Not only is this flat out wrong, it is a manipulation of the very system we use to showcase homes to the public and to other agents in an attempt to match buyers and sellers.
I guess this truly is a case of Buyer Beware!Damon Gettier, Broker/Owner RE/MAX 1st REALTY --ABR, ABRM, CDPE, ePRO, GRI, SRES, AHWD, VA Licensed Real Estate Instructor
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