In the State of Florida all licensed real estate sales people are considered to be transaction brokers by default. There are different types of representation, but for the most part we are transaction brokers. With this form of representation comes a duty to:
Submitt all offers and counter offers in a timely manner.
In today's market, getting a contract on a property that you have listed is cause for celebration. I don't care if it's a "low ball" offer or not. I can receive a contract, review it, prepare a net sheet and call the buyer's lender to confirm the financing terms and email the contract to the seller in less than an hour.
I will do everything in my power to have an answer to the buyer's agent as quickly as possible and within the contract's time allowance. Last Friday I had an answer back to a buyer's agent in less than 2 hours. That's timely to me.
I'm sitting here this evening waiting on an answer on a contract that I wrote for a buyer and sent to the listing agent over 24 hours ago. As of 4PM this afternoon she had not even contacted the seller or forwarded the contract to him for his review. She was to busy already asking me about a possible counter offer. My response was simple, please present the offer to the seller and let him decide how he wants to proceed. It is not our place to negotiate for the seller, even if we suspect that they might reject or counter the offer. I know that this agent is already playing with some verbal offers and is probably using my written offer to entice someone else to step up, but she is playing a dangerous game and in this market this is a game she might just lose.
How do you handle contracts? What does timley manner mean to you?
;)
Links;)
Archives
Debbie, Timely means Timely. In my opinion you are acting professionally and in the best interest of your client. I hate it when there is a large lag time on an offer especially when the prospective buyer is a "firstie" - of course when it's the low-ballers that think they know everything sometimes it's kind of funny. Our market in the Lynchburg, VA area is very different from yours but we still do not have the luxury of playing with offers and indeed we should not.