[quote=drboom]Long story short, we had a short sale that fell apart in the approval process (stupid BofA: the house is still vacant and on their books 18 months later). The seller’s agent on that deal asked us if we were interested in having him represent us on a 50% commission split; he knew we had the research squared away and that we wouldn’t waste his time. He’d proven himself to be a true professional throughout the deal, so we were happy to engage him. I’ve told the story elsewhere, but the short of it is that he showed us exactly one house and wrote exactly one offer (OK, and one counter) for us. The sale closed three months later (short sale). Easy money.[/quote]
drboom, it appears from your post, above, that you ended up purchasing a property that had been close to default, in default and possibly in default with a trustee sale repeatedly postponed (in order to effect a short sale). The listing agent here had been fvcking with a recalcitrant lender (BofA . . . lol) for the better part of two years trying to sell the listing. Of course, it would depend on the way your original offer to purchase and agency agreement was drafted, but in a standard single-sale agency agreement, he most likely wasn’t allowed to engage you as his client until 181 days after the termination of your escrow due to the “short-sale fallout” or your “ex-Navy RE-agent veteran/relative” would have gotten his commission!
Of course the listing agent offered to split his commission with you! By that time, his listing may have been 22 months or more behind in payments and his client-seller was going to lose the property to foreclosure! Then ALL OF HIS PREVIOUS WORK ON THAT LISTING WOULD HAVE BEEN FOR NOTHING. You “saved the day” for this agent by agreeing to “go direct.” Obviously, he figured making something after all that time and work was better than making nothing.
I just received an NOD from a client on Wednesday of this week (beneficiary is BofA, just filed by their contract trustee ReconTrust) and requested all their payment stubs which they brought me yesterday. Their last mortgage payment was credited by the lender on 2/13/08. Yes, they are still living there. BofA is very slow on the dime to take back properties, ESPECIALLY properties where they bought (or inherited) the trust deeds (at a discount) from another mortgage lender. BofA often may not have as much “skin in the game” as the face of the underlying trust deed would indicate and/or the properties are not worth the value of the face of the trust deed, anyway, so they let these properties languish longer in limbo while they foreclose and market the ones they can recover a little from.
drboom, I’m happy that you were satisfied in your dealings directly with the seller’s agent. In your case, all the work had already been done and cutting out your wife’s relative as your buyer’s agent was *just enough* to make the short-sale deal fly. If the property you had made a purchase offer on was NOT IN DISTRESS and did NOT have to be SOLD VERY SHORT, you would have closed your purchase the first time around and your wife’s relative/agent would have collected his due commission. If the property had been a “traditional sale” which fell out of escrow for other reasons, I don’t see that listing agent ever approaching you with an offer to give up part of his commission to you. This was a “special circumstance,” a win-win for you and him. The only one that lost here was your buyer’s agent/relative.
Just wondering though . . . How does your wife’s relative feel about you both now after he was cut out of the commission on that deal?
