How NOT to Negotiate an offer....Unbelievable!

This is Just Unbelievable!!!

Suzy a buyer’s agent, showed a co broke listing last Monday... she was pretty familiar with the house because her buyers had previously looked at it, made an offer and had a home inspection done but it ended up falling apart.

Meanwhile the listing expired, got foreclosed on, is now bank owned and put back on the market with a new firm.

The showing was at 11 a.m. on Monday and at 1 p.m. an offer was drawn up. Suzy called and spoke with the listing agent, Leslie.

Leslie is a experienced agent and works for a small office. Suzy told her that she had an offer on the property and asked if there were any other offers on the table …Leslie told her that there were no other offers in and that she was out straight and couldn't talk so please call her back at 5pm.

At 5pm Suzy called and spoke with Leslie…Leslie was abrupt and told her that she had another appointment and was running late…could Suzy fax the offer to her home fax?

The bank was closed anyway so it would not be presented till the next morning.

Suzy agreed and asked again if there were any other offers in and stated that she wanted to go over the details of the offer and the buyer’s history before Leslie presented the offer to the bank.

Leslie told her no other offers were in and that she would call her in the morning.

When Suzy didn’t hear anything by 10:30 that next morning (Tuesday) she called and left a voice mail for Leslie.

She called again at 1:30 and again at 3:30… Suzy’s buyers were anxious…they had made a full price offer and were asking for one minor fix and could close in under a month…Suzy wanted to explain the buyers history to Leslie.

Suzy left 3 more messages both at Leslie’s office and on her voice mail to no avail; she decided to e-mail all the details to Leslie…still no response.

Wednesday after leaving 4 messages she finally heard back from Leslie who told her that she faxed the offer to the Bank on the previous day but hadn’t heard anything back from them yet and that they usually respond via e-mail.

Suzy asked her why she did not call to discuss the offer and she responded that since it was UA before with these same people that she didn’t see the need. She then said she was on the road and she would check her e-mail when she was at a computer later on and would call Suzy back before 5pm.

Guess what …no call back!

Thursday… several unsuccessful attempts were made to contact Leslie.

Friday afternoon Suzy finally reaches Leslie. Leslie explains that she has not heard back from the bank and that…that was unlike them and she reiterated that there were no other offers in.

She told Suzy that she would track it down and get back to her ASAP.

No call back that day…several messages were left for Leslie.

Saturday afternoon Suzy called and actually got to speak with Leslie’s Broker who told her she had no idea what was going on but would look into it and then casually mentioned that whenever you have multiple offers these types of things happen!

Suzy flipped out and gave the Broker an earful. The broker promised to straighten it all out and get back to Suzy.

Early Saturday evening…Leslie finally called Suzy back!!

She apologized and said that there were multiple offers on this property all along and that she had NOT presented Suzy’s buyer offer at all!!!!

She said that she has more than one property with the same address and had gotten them confused.

She then assured Suzy that she would call the Bank 1^st thing Monday morning and get it submitted right away especially since Suzy’s buyers offer was the best offer!

She promised to call Suzy as soon as it was presented.

Monday ….several messages were left with both Leslie and her Broker…no call back till 4p.m. Leslie told Suzy that the bank had accepted one of the other offers before even getting to look at Suzy’s offer and get this, the one they accepted was for less money. Leslie then asked if Suzy’s buyers would like to be a back up offer.

Suzy is Livid…and her buyer’s think all REALTORS are a bunch of crooks…they are thinking of hiring an attorney but still want the property.

Can you imagine being treated like this by a fellow REALTOR? How would you handle it if it were you?

Aside from a clear, in my opinion, violation of The REALTOR code of ethics there are some license law issue at play here…What would you do?

I mean who was Leslie representing here?? Not her client....they have no idea that they even... had a better offer.

Does this type of stuff happen in your market?

Monika McGillicuddy

Serving Southern New Hampshire and Rockingham County

Monika McGillicuddy Real Estate Training Website

NH Real Estate Blogs

Prudential Verani Realty

Hampstead NH Real Estate

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