Tales From the Karma Train: In the Driver's Seat

Tales From the Karma Train:  In the Driver's Seat

If you've been a producing real estate agent for long enough, there is no question that you have witnessed truly awful negotiating tactics on the opposite side of the transaction.  You've probably also seen some truly horrendous personality traits as well.  We are lucky when those things aren't happening with our own clients. 

From time to time I wonder why people think being nasty or insulting is a good line to take in a real estate transaction.  Sometimes they are taking cues from their real estate agent.  Or maybe, like my own mother, they feel the only way they can grab control in a situation is by amping up their anger and act out.  When tactics like that arise on the opposite side of a transaction, I want nothing more than to shut it down.  Of course, I can only do what my clients want me to do.  It is very refreshing to have a client that will not be intimidated by these tactics and push a hard line against a cry baby.  In my opinion, not enough sellers do push back. 

This year, I represented sellers who received an offer from a buyer they had actually ran into while arriving back to their home after a showing.  Mr. Buyer expressed way too much of his hand and Mr. Seller was happy to express that back to me when the lowball offer came in.  "He said he'd do anything for the house.  That is going to be paying full price."  Negotiations were tense.  The Buyer's Agent vacillated between being polite, then turning nasty.  Mr. Buyer got in on it when he copied me on an email telling his agent the house was overpriced and there was no way he was paying full price.  At that point, Mr. Seller and I chatted and I advised him that we needed to go quiet for a day, maybe two.  Let them get the pissing and moaning out of their system and then reconnect. Meanwhile, more showings happened and another offer arrived.  Time to reconnect.  My Seller got exactly what he wanted out of Mr. Buyer.

A late month settlement date was what was agreed to in the contract.  It was a nice surprise, since the sellers had moved out and were leaving in temporary housing in another state, when the buyers wanted to move up settlement by two weeks.  My sellers were thrilled.  They could ditch temporary housing and get the deal done quicker.  We had the buyers initiate an addendum to move up the settlement date to early in the month. 

Evidently, the buyers were so anxious to move up settlement that they had overlooked the reason they had chosen their original late month settlement date.   Apparently, they could get a lower mortgage rate going with the later settlement date than they had originally written in the offer.  So the Buyer's Agent copied the title company, loan officer, his clients  and me on an email assuming it was a non issue to move it back out.  All that mattered was the low rate to the buyers, not how the contract had been amended at the behest of his own clients.

The lender assured me the lower rate was not necessary for the buyers to qualify for the loan.  Sharing this with Mr. Seller, he decided to stand firm.  The buyers, after all were the ones that wanted to move to the earlier date and, as a result, Mr. Seller had moved up his settlement date of his next purchase out of state.  

When the Buyer's Agent and Mr. Buyer (two peas in a rotten pod) were told no, a variety of tactics were unleashed.  Mr. Buyer even called me directly pleading.  He was playing stupid.  He insisted he didn't understand how the settlement date got moved because he had requested later in the month.  Oh please! What he didn't understand was that the world didn't revolve around him.  He had opened the door for the sellers to make a tad more money and move in to their next home earlier.  The sellers had no contractual obligation to accommodate the request to move settlement date again.  Mr. Buyer would be in default if he didn't settle at the amended, earlier settlement date.

Yes, despite an attempt to run around the sellers and assume the date would be moved again, followed by an ugly attempt at bullying, Mr. Buyer and his wife were held to their requested early month settlement date.  Sometimes karma for being a complete jerk in negotiations comes quickly and at the hands of those you verbally abused and insulted.  Had Mr. Buyer and his agent been respectful in their dealings from the beginning, that last minute request to move settlement again would likely have gone down differently.  Maybe the agent and the buyers learned, but somehow, I doubt it.