I hope that you haven't learned this lesson the hard way...

In keeping with the learning experiences theme from yesterday's blog, "Has this ever happened to you..." I wanted to tell you all about a big learning experience for me,

Two years ago, REO's were starting to pop up in our market.  I had a Short Sale at the time that I showed to some prospective buyers. It wasn't quite for them, so I kept in contact and sent them a few listings.  One caught their eye, it was an REO.  We looked at it and then my buyers called and said, "Let's write an offer!" 

So we did, but it was a long process because in addition to the 8 page Purchase Agreement, the bank provided a 16 page addendum that basically took away or limited many buyer protections found in the contract.  We submitted the offer, along with 5 other offers.  As with many multiple offer situations on REO's the bank came back and said highest and best, and they wanted all offers submitted by 5 P.M. that night, atleast that's what the agent said.  We submitted our highest and best and in the morning the agent called me up and said, "The asset manager has accepted your offer."

So what did I do?  I called my clients to tell them the good news!  Whoops, bad idea because one of the other agents that hadn't responded by the dead line came back and upped the price $5000 above our best offer. I had to call my clients and tell them, that they accepted another offer.

The lesson I learned was don't say a thing until there is ink on paper and it's sitting on your desk!

I felt horrible and what's worse, I lost those clients to another agent.  She wrote an offer for them on another home and they closed on it.  They said it wasn't me, but that transaction clearly left a bad taste in their mouths.

Although it was my fault, I still owe that agent for pulling that maneuver.  Without jeopardizing my ethics or putting one of my clients in a bad position, how could I get back at that agent?  Or should I just drop it? Dropping it is probably the best way to go: Take the high road, but any suggestions for retaliation would be fun.