How texting can make you THE BIGGEST LOSER
An agent of ours (she is relatively new) went to the listing agent's office to present her offer to the sellers. When she got there she was escorted to a conference room. At the table were the sellers, the listing agent and the listing agent's manager. The offer was not a full price offer because she (our buyer's agent) found out that there are plans to install sidewalks in front of the property. This was not disclosed on the seller's disclosure and the comps would not support this additional five to seven thousand dollars that would be assessed to the current owner at the time that the sidewalks will be installed.
During her entire presentation, the seller's agent seemed more interested in his laptop than listening to the offer. As she presented her offer the agent would be typing seemingly, the details of her offer. This puzzled her but she kept going.
When she was done, she asked when she could expect an answer. They then told her that she would hear within an hour because there was another offer being written by another agent of that firm in another room at that very minute. Later she found out that the other buyers had seen the house an hour and a half before she arrived, and that they got to the office shortly after she started her presentation.
Within 15 minutes of her leaving she got a call telling her that the other offer was better than hers, and that her offer was rejected.
Now I know how this office does things, because I used to work from there. I know the type of things that went on in there as a matter of practice. Many times I saw an agent being told what other offers were (if the other offers were made by competing offices). When I was an agent there I had been told that if my buyers would make an offer of XXX amount that MY buyers would get the house.
Of course our agent was mad and disappointed. But let's examine just who the biggest loser was here.
Our agent's buyers?
Our agent?
The sellers?
Of course they all were losers, but potentially there is an obvious one. Let's hear your thoughts.
In our office we do not allow an agent to represent both sides of any deal. If there is ANY chance of competing offers, we only accept offers in sealed envelopes and they are only opened when the seller is present. We do not allow any showings of an in-house listing until the listing is on the MLS and is available to all agents from all companies. (We had two exceptions to this in the past; however both were at the request of the sellers)
Incidentally, the other offer was exactly $500 more than ours.
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