I can’t see where the Mommy agent has any legitimate gripe. You accepted a full price offer, and her son’s counter was still below that.
How can an agent complain that a seller didn’t go back on a verbal contract with an honorable buyer? Is she seriously going to take a stance that because she is the local big cheese you were supposed to break your word and behave unethically? In public?
She sounds like what I’d call a bully.
Sometimes it’s better for the chef if the customer doesn’t know how the sausage is made.
Plus, if cb decides to cut a corner like not pulling a permit for something, having a confession on the internet that the buyer can find may not put her in the strongest position should a problem arise.
Although, I hope we do get the address on future flips, assuming cb is willing to keep our private little reality show going. A lot of the fun is looking at satellite photos and street views.
She could PM the address for those who want it. I agree that perhaps a bit more discretion about anxiety and $$ issues is probably safer and then a nice debriefing after the final sale, for CB’s protection.
I doubt the mom knew all the details. From her perspective they were in the middle of a negotiation and had already come up in price, when the deal got lost without ever receiving a counter offer. They were never given the chance to give their best offer, which may well have wound up being higher than the one cb accepted. Cb didn’t play the game as it is normally played. They probably think cb is crazy or her agent is incompetent. Or both.
And sure you can argue that they shouldn’t have screwed around by starting with a lowball and then not getting serious until they knew there was another offer, but that’s how negotiations go sometimes.
Yes, but when you play that game, you do take the risk the buyer may get a full priced offer and opt not to play. We bid full price on our home because H and I wanted it and didn’t want to play games. We got it and neither we nor sellers played games.
I understand the game, but it is a calculated risk. The buyer and clients have to decide how much they want to save $$$ and whether its worth the risk that they won’t get the house. Having a fit when you don’t have things your way is bullying and immature.
@consolation…no according to post 3675, the first folks now have n offer above asking price…but it took them three times to get there. Tough. They were playing the jerk around game.
They really thought a lowball offer would be entertained because they needed to outfit a closet and put up,a shower curtain? I would be embarrassed to put that in my offer to a potential seller.
When you consider that the first folks started with a low ball offer that CB didn’t think she could work with, and then ended up with an offer above asking price, you know you are dealing with power play individuals. Even though their last offer was above asking price, there’s no way of knowing if that would have come to fruition. I know CB thinks the realtor was behind the negotiating tactics, but I’m not convinced.
But as someone said up thread: snooze=lose
Well, it gets even more interesting this evening. Although I am not privy to any further communications between my agent, the Mom agent and the original agent… all of a sudden my agent is sending me frantic communications she has received from other agents.
She has received an email request directly from an interested buyer who contacted her through Zillow.
She has received an email from an agent who took buyers through yesterday and they were planning to write an offer tomorrow (Tuesday). He noticed that the property went Pending today and they are ‘disheartened’ that they did not make their offer sooner. Could we please keep them in consideration if we need a backup offer?
She has received an email from one of the agents she called on Saturday saying that their buyers have finalized their lending and would like to make an offer. Do we have any offers?
Geez… where were all these people last week? Or two weeks ago?
Even though there is no reason your current deal won’t sail through, it never hurts to have a backup offer or two in your pocket.
Well rats, I can’t wait to win the lottery and be able to enter this bidding war. I want to live in one of coral brooks homes in my next life!
Congrats on the bid!
Next Steps
I need to get some documents into Escrow and make sure that they pull the Title Insurance Prelim
We need to fix 3 things that I know are still lingering. Just last week I discovered that 3 outlets on the living room south wall aren’t live. What the hey? I get to pay the dang electrician to come back and fix something that should have been working to begin with.
Buyer’s large deposit is being delivered to Escrow tomorrow. That is the first indication if something is going to be wrong. I had one transaction collapse in the first couple of days because the buyer had second thoughts and never did the deposit.
Clear out all the staging stuff
Clear out the garage. This is a big pain in the butt, I have to get all the paint organized.
Paint garage interior
Home Inspection - Oh Boy!!! can’t wait. Sure hope they don’t show up with that same guy as the Hoarder House. Just my luck 
Fix anything I agree to about Home Inspection. This is going to be really easy because we suddenly have a lot of backup offers and I do not have to ‘give in’ on something ridiculous.
Clean the house - Again!!!
Ohhh, and try to remember to get over there at 0 dark thirty Monday morning and get all the trash cans out! I got a little busy this morning and completely forgot.
Finally open that champagne. Decided not to open it tonight because it’s just not that fun sitting here alone in the house trying to drink the entire bottle by myself.
Agree about revealing too much. It’s very hard because it’s great therapy to share all the challenges.
I know there are some buyers out there that really don’t want to know that we found severe mold behind the vinyl wall paper in the bathroom, or petrified poop under the house. They will never be able to get the picture out of their mind.
Regarding the Mom/Son agents. They have a lot of high dollar listings and are in the middle of selling a big house for these buyers = big commission. Then they are acting as their buying agents for a smaller vacation home. My understanding is that the buyers came through the house on their own (maybe an Open House) and the agents did not ‘show’ or ‘promote’ this house. I could be wrong about that, everything is a whirl right now. They are probably very worried that these high profile buyers are going to be very pissed that the agents did not act in their best interest, are too busy for them and were not on top of the negotiations. They may have lost their clients.
So sad for the Mom / Son buyers. They chose the wrong agents.
Sorry for the mom/son issue, but its not your problem, as you know. They can’t badger you into relenting on a commitment just because they did a bad job of negotiating. Didn’t the son claim he told them to offer higher and they didn’t want to? Do you believe that?
Just wondering, though of course you’ll never know (just wonder your thoughts, since you have a great feel for these things) – do you think you would have had all this action if you’d stayed closer to your original price, even with a price drop (say, hypothetically, to 1019) or is it because you went under 1M?
Does this guy get repeat business from you? Does he take pride in his work? Then he should fix it for free. He should have checked every outlet and switch while he was there.
I wouldn’t clean again until the day before you close.
I think the interest is probably from the magic ‘under $1 million’, although we have had consistent showings throughout the entire 4 weeks. It’s not like there were no showings when it was the original price.
Also, I don’t blame a buyer for trying to start low when they see a house that has been on the market for 30 days AND has dropped price. I just felt that the buyer’s agent did not communicate well and was not giving much hope that there was even a chance to get close in price.
And, yes, I left money on the table. I just didn’t know it was going to get so crazy after I made a commitment to the 2nd buyers and we had not received the second higher offer from the original buyers. He said they were going to send in an offer, but it was not received until about 2 hours after I had made my verbal agreement.
Also, my agent communicated why we held off from sending a counter. He knew there was another ‘potential’ buyer meeting with the Seller. He should have hustled at that point and sent in that other offer. Instead he waited for confirmation from my agent that they were going to submit an offer. That’s when the panic started.
Another thing the original agent should have done to protect his clients was that he should have been more diligent with the offer paperwork and marked that the offer was only good for 24 hours. That would have lit a fire under me and I may have gone straight into negotiations. He didn’t bother and the default is 3 days. I knew I had 3 days to mull it over and make them sweat. A savvy buyer would have shortened that time period.
"Geez… where were all these people last week? Or two weeks ago? "
Nothing looks more desirable than a house that’s already sold.
Agree that it could NOT hurt to have a backup offer at this point.
You DO know all the strategies, CB. You should be an agent or broker!!