With years of exposure to a variety of REO properties, one would think that a real estate agent would have seen it all- but not so. I am sure most of you reading this who are realtors will agree with this point- just when you think you have seen or heard everything, something new comes along and surprises you.
I had an interesting thing happen to me this week that i am sure most realtors will be a little surprised out- but not by what happened, but rather by whom.
My partner Dawn and I sell foreclosures, short sales, regular listings- and work with buyers, investors, and banks- we are pretty much like every realtor out there- we are trying to make a living and stay busy.
As such, nothing irritates more than an unprofessional agent- we work hard to get our properties on the market for our asset management partners- cleaning them up, trashing them out, taking care of the pools and lawn, getting repairs done- not to mention the endless reports and paperwork we go through- and nothing is more exciting than getting an offer at the price that i recommend the bank list it at- it lets me know that I have judged the market right and that other agents feel confident enough to show our listings.
so what happened? We got an offer from a very excitable, very pushy agent. He called me 10 times as soon as we had the property listed. He wanted to see it right away- I had to send him pictures of both before AND after cleaning. He arranged to meet the HOA. He asked me to help him and meet his clients for a SECOND showing- which i did, because I wanted it sold. We got an offer that was low, but i went to bat for him and got the bank to meet him halfway. Yeah! We had an offer. but wait...
He had 5 days to get the inspection done- his buyers are purchasing on an As-Is with right to inspect. Day 5 comes along, and he says that his buyers are cancelling- they had the inspection, and detected a previous water leak- they were afraid there might be mold. ok. understood. it's a foreclosure. it sat for a long time. No telling what happened previously. But this didn't sit right. i went over that home top to bottom, and 99% of the time, I can detect things like a water leak- you just learn what to look for. Something was up. My partner asked him to, out of courtesy to us and the bank, provide a copy of the inspection- we wanted to let the bank know so that we could advise them properly and have the issue remedied. no problem, the agent stated. One day goes by. Then two, Three, and four. Finally, a week later, the truth comes out.
The realtor tells us that a family member of the buyer was a contractor, and that he had done the inspection, so there was no written report... ok... i can live with that...
But my partner calls him a few hours later, unbeknownst to me, and gets a different answer- the buyers actually just wanted to cancel, they never did an inspection... JERK- so just tell me that, rather than make me look like a putz to the bank- do you know what it feels like to crawl back to your client and tell him you messed up and missed a major problem- and there really never was one!!!!
Oh, it gets better.. so I call him back a day later... now the TRUTH comes out- yep, he found a better deal down the street- not for his buyers, but for him. he wasn't happy with the 3% we were paying him, nope, he wanted the 5% that somebody else gave him- so HE told his buyers to cancel and go down the street...
i have every intention of writing a complaint letter to his broker... but, no, his day will come..
So agents, PLEASE be honest when dealing with a Foreclosure- don't make our jobs or lives anymore difficult. if you don't want the property, tell us- TRUST ME- there are plenty of people in line behind you to buy it!
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