[quote=Jacarandoso]I didn’t say it was standard. I do say that the practice has met institutionalized de facto approval as a means of selling some houses. Besides that, maybe it’s just getting warmed up. It took a while for liar loans and subsequent massive inflation of home prices to get going. Guess it’s time to get a Realtor and start fishing for short sellers. Maybe Ocrenter will make a blog about it?
Double sided commissions don’t even have to be evident as proof of deal steering either. Two realtors can participate easily.[/quote]
Exactly right, Rustico.
As a matter of fact, a sale just went through that we placed an offer on.
We offered $58,500 more than the eventual sold price on this short sale. The agent waffled when we submitted our offer, and refused to give us any definitive answers about whether or not it was accepted. Since she controls so much of the inventory in our desired area, our agent didn’t want to piss her off by getting tough with her, so when it was marked contingent, we figured they got a better offer.
This short sale showed another selling agent/brokerage. IMHO, she is working with someone else now, in order to make the sales look more legitimate. She got a kickback of some kind somewhere, because it makes no sense for her to take that offer over ours. The bank lost, and the taxpayers likely have lost this money — all because of corrupt realtors.
We’ve made an offer on another one of her listings last year, and were under the final sale price by about $25K, but I’m now very suspicious about possible “seller concessions” that might have obscured the real price. She double-ended that one.
Sorry if the resident realtors get offended, but I’ve seen FAR too many fraudulent short sales to think that everything is above board.
BTW, we’re reporting her to the DRE and to the bank/servicer who held the previous mortgage. We are also reporting her to our local congressman, the OCC, and the FBI.
