I am curious to know what the general consensus is on listing agents disclosing OVER full-price offers to competing buyer agents, or even under-asking-price offers, if the situation warrants it (i.e. if it would be useful to MY client, the seller).
My latest experience in this was on a home that was 7 days away from sale, and I had an all-cash buyer who might be interested.
The asking price was $1.7MM and the property had been on the market for a significant time. Since my buyer's max budget was in the neighborhood of $1.5MM, I suggested to the agent that we might offer that. Her response was that she already had an offer "a little over that".
When I asked her what it would take to beat that offer, she refused to say, saying instead that "it wouldn't be fair to the other agent". There may be negotiating reasons to deflect the question, but "fairness to the other agent", does NOT seem like a valid reason to me. After all, our FIDUCIARY is to our client!
When I represent sellers, I often tell a buyer agent (especially if the offer is OVER asking) that we already have a strong $xxx offer, and any offer less than that won't prevail (assuming this is true, of course). After all, what use is another offer that is less than what I already have? I realize that there is some chance that the later offer could come in higher if the buyer agent didn't know the amount of the other offer. But, hey, as soon as that buyer makes his offer, I am going to go back to the first buyer (or buyers, if more than one), and let them know that they need to raise their offer, or lose the property. I will keep this round-robin process up until I feel that I have the highest offer I am likely to get (and KEEP, since in California, the buyer has up to 17 days to back out of a signed offer).
I realize that there are more dimensions than just price in selecting an offer, but just to keep it simple, I want to limit my question to what the consensus about disclosing other offers is. I would be interested to know what other agents think of this question.
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