Overpricing is a Terrible Practice by Some Agents to Steal Listings?

There is type of agent that pops up every now and then, who makes us all look bad.  They cost the seller's time and money and they cost quality agents a listing every now and then.

It just happened to me and Lielane Peralta, who is a new agent in our office, who teamed up with me on a potential listing.  I see this happen from time to time and wasn't personally as upset as I was disappointed for this new agent, who I feel earned this listing to only watch another agent steal it with a less than ethical practice.

This is what happened:

Three days ago Lielane received a lead from a friend at church about this family who is looking to sell a home in a town not far from here.  The home is 7 years old and in better than new condition.  They use about two weeks a year and leave it vacant the rest of the year.  The owners live in San Francisco.  The home has very nice furnishings, central air and professional landscaping.  It would have been a great listing.

Lielane got preliminary information on the home and sellers and we prepared a pre-listing packet for them.  Pulled the comps and made the appointment to meet with them at the home.

The home is in a planned community that has an over supply of inventory and has several builders in the area competing with the resale market.  Not a good formula.  In their size and price range there are already several for sale and not one closing this year.  Not real encouraging.  To add to the problem, there are many more homes in other size and price ranges.  Their neighborhood is littered with "For Sale" signs.

We met with seller's and had what I thought was a really nice meeting.  If anything it lasted too long.  They wanted to talk story with us, but indicated they were quite comfortable with using our service.  They wanted their son who was part owner to review all of the documents before they signed the listing.  I e-mailed him everything and got no response.  Lielane followed up the next day and got the bad news.

They are going to list with another agent.  I asked her why, well after a little investigating she found out the other agent was willing to list it for more money, a lot more!  A lot more I asked?  She said yes, about $60,000 more.

Here is the rub; there has not been one closing since December 2006 in their size and price range.  There were several listings that have been on market and not moving starting at $517,000.  We agreed to take the listing at $529,000 because of the quality of the home and with the agreement that the seller's would lower the price if we were not getting the appropriate response to the home.

The agent who got the listing took it at $559,900.  The seller's response was the other agent offered us more.

Here is the problem, the home will never sell or appraise for anything close to that amount.  The agent who took the listing must have known that.  They raised the price to steal the listing.  Once they have it and it doesn't sell they can try later to get the seller to lower the price.  They will either lower it to where it should have been in the beginning or never sell it at all.  Either way the seller's interests were not looked after.  I also fault the seller. We did a very thorough market analysis and gave them all of the materials.  They were made quite aware of the market value of their home and we were even willing to push the price a little.  They chose to go for the brass ring.

The last thing that happened was Lielane was asked by the seller's that if this didn't work out would we be willing to take them on later?  I told her of course we would.

To wrap up what I said to this her.  It is better lose than take a bad listing.

1. You will never sell it and waste a lot of time and money.
2. You will hurt your reputation in the community.
3. The Realtor's in the area will not respect you.
4. You will have done harm to the seller.
5. You will not get referrals.

I will follow this listing and see how it turns out. 

Any predictions?