Had an email from a very frustrated buyer who has been searching for a home in particular submarket. Like most buyers this person has been frustrated over the past year by the lack of quality inventory in additionl to the prices that people are willing to pay for what is there. This is complicated by the fact that there have been a few homes that have not made the market but went to flippers and then were placed on the market at a bloated sales price.

So I was told that at an open house to one of these flips, that the listing agent told this person that he could get them one of these deals “before they hit the market”. However the listing agent stated of course that this person would have to use this listing agent as his buyers agent. What makes this fairly laughable is that this agent is the listing agent of the home that is being flipped. Not only that but the listing agent works for or may even be part of the investment group that does this. This buyer knew I have had investment experience with groups that did trustee sales. He also even asked me out loud, how could this listing agent promise this, and at the same time get his investment group these deals?

I told this person that I would do a little data mining on the agent to see if there were past sales that indicated that this agent did indeed get his buyers below market sales. Of course after mining the data over the past two years, nothing came up at all. As a selling agent this realtor had nothing but a few standard mls sales for this particular submarket.

Now there may be a chance that this agent did get some buyers some deals before they hit the market but I am skeptical. I encouraged this person to ask the agent for hard data to substantiate the agents claims. If there were pre-market sales then at least I can check realist to see if they were really undermarket.

Perhaps this agent did indeed get real honest owner occupants pre-market sales. To me, if he really did do that, then the listing agent he dealt with, or perhaps he double ended the deal, did a disservice to the sellers.

So either way, to me this is the type of stuff that contributes to the bad reputation realtors have.