Less Impressed with Highest & Best!

That's a story that hits the heart of all agents that try to do the right thing and treat their counterparts respectfully

Had he called with a friendly, gentle approach, you and your sellers might have been impressed. Such a shame for his buyers.

I am glad that the sellers did that.  I have witnessed many times where a bad agent cost their clients in this same manner.

There are some less than professional agents out there that have used back handed methods that back fired on them and their clients.    Let's just hope they learn from their mistakes.....

Wanda:

Highest offer is pretty easy to identify but BEST is more complicated, and it's not always the highest. Strong arm techniques including rudeness are less likely to meet with success and accomplish nothing except to show a lack of professionalism.

Jeff

Good Wanda - using the hard negotiation techniques can cause you to lose.

The situation you described is universal and a great example of why an agent's behavior matters. Additionally in my market, where most of the inventory are co-op's a true highest and best offer might not result in selecting the highest offer on the basis that the buyers financials and sometimes other factors might not be the best fit. For example, if the building allows buyers of a pied a terre, and the highest offer comes from a buyer planning on using the apartment that way, the seller might be close with the board- and while pied a terre purchases are permitted- the board would prefer a buyer that will be using the apartment as a primary residence. I have won clients bidding wars on the basis that our offer wasn't the highest, but my buyers profile overall came across as the strongest for board approval. I have even won bidding wars with an offer that wasn't as high as the best bid, but this was for an income restricted co-op and I had considerable experience working with these property types while the other brokers that submitted offers didn't (and these boards can be very finnicky to get buyers approved). Right now, I have clients approved by a co-op board not only because they were the highest and best, but the building used to have a doctor that lived in the building, who had since left- and the board members were over the moon to meet my clients - the wife is a pediatrician and the husband was also a doctor but left the profession (but still has substantial medical experience/knowledge).  

I have heard this story before.  I am glad this market is changing.  Much less stressful than reviewing 15 offers on day of listings.  Sellers were overwhelmed.  Spreadsheets came in handy for organizing offers.  Really glad it is changing.