Real Estate Rules of Engagement: Do SOMETHING
About three weeks ago, I had Buyers that fell in love with a particular home. My Buyers also happened to be Sellers. We had already placed their current home on the market. The ideal was to be under contract to sell their existing home and have a home of choice contingency on the sell side. THEN, they could go out as Buyers and make an offer contingent on the settlement of their exisiting home sale.
That's not how it happened. When love strikes, you go with it. The best my Buyers could do was make an offer on that dream home with a home sale contingency. The Sellers and their Agent delayed my Buyers two weeks. The Listing Agent was so pleasant about the stall and didn't seem to understand that the things her Sellers didn't like about the offer could be COUNTERED. The list price of my Buyers home, for example, was a term in the home sale contingency. So was the home sale contingency period. They could shorten that up.
About three days into that stall, a Buyer's Agent showed up for the existing home sale. Calling, texting, emailing me wanting to know if there were any offers. He was sending one ASAP. I don't know what his definition of ASAP is, but it doesn't match mine at all.
In an attempt to make the Listing Agent of my Clients' dream home have news to quell her Sellers, I told her about this upcoming offer. As soon as we got it in hand, according to the dream house Listing Agent, her Sellers would sign my Buyers' offer. So what did I do next? Grabbed the phone and started bugging the Buyer's Agent for the existing home sale. "Oh, we are getting together tomorrow." Next day, nothing. So I laid down the law. "Here's the deal Buyer's Agent. If your Buyers really want THIS home and no other, they need to get something in writing NOW. The Sellers have found the home they want and have come to verbal terms with the Sellers of that home, but the Sellers there won't sign off on the offer until we are under contract here. If my Sellers lose that home, they are pulling this one off the market." He assured me they did and he'd get on it.
Meanwhile, Listing Agent of dream house is calling daily saying how much her Sellers want to sell to my Buyers. They could. By this point, if they had countered our offer and shortened the home sale contingency time, my Buyers could have been through with the appraisal and home inspection. But no. Let's just stall.
The day the Listing Agent of the dream home called me to tell me she had an offer on the home that wasn't contingent, she actually offered the position of being a back up offer to my Buyers. When I reminded her that her Sellers wouldn't touch the home sale contingency, she said, "Oh yeah. Nevermind."
This whole mess made this Type A agent insane. Do something for goodness sake! The Buyer's Agent on our sell side is still MIA. I've heard all the reasons why his Buyers weren't comfortable writing, but it doesn't matter. This week, when they are ready, the home will not be there. It was taken off the market.
As for the Listing Agent of the dream home, I firmly believe that if she'd had a firm understanding of what a home sale contingency is vs. a coinciding settlements contingency, and how the time frames worked, her Sellers would've taken our offer. Last I heard, the dream house Listing Agent was puzzled as to why the second offer's Buyers wanted to delay closing so long. Hmmm. Let me think. Your Sellers are listing a $650,000 home in which just about every buyer that comes forward will need to have to sell or have sold their home to buy. Perhaps these second buyers are just not as forthcoming. It happens. And after stalling my Buyers for three weeks, I can honestly say, it would feel like a bit of karma for that deal to fall through due to an undisclosed home sale that tanked.
Buyers and Sellers in real estate can do as they like. No one needed to take an offer, or write one. But don't say one thing and do another. If you say you want to sell to someone, counter their offer. Or say you don't want to sell to them and reject the offer. If you say you want to buy a home, make a written offer. It's really not rocket science.
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