We have been tracking the house for quite a while. It was initially on the market for 120 days, and then expired. They re-listed it, as a “new” listing, so now it shows up as having been on the market for only ~20 days.
I don’t know how much equity the sellers have in the home (where do I find that?). But I do know they are the original owners and have lived there for over 20 years.
The day before their initial listing expired (we didn’t know it was about to expire) we had our agent call theirs to ask the standard questions. He told our agent (this was over a month ago) that he had three offers on it (above what we were offering), and that they were countering even above those other offers.
Then the thing expired the next day. We, and our agent, were quite perplexed by this. One day from expiring, and their agent says nothing about it?
Then it got re-listed a few days later.
We waited about two more weeks, figuring that if their agent was right about having those three other offers that it would be dropping off into escrow at any moment.
But there it sat. Day after day. Not going into escrow.
We assumed then that their agent was either lying or incompetent (he just can’t close even one of three offers that was within 2% of the asking price??) We figured we would throw our offer out there to see how they officially reply.
The official counter came back, with the whopping $500 drop and a claim in writing that he has these three other offers going. Assuming these are the same three offers he claimed to have had two weeks earlier, they would no longer be valid. Right? Unless he was implying that he had three NEW offers (and all at EXACTLY the same price btw).
It all seemed a very dubious claim designed solely to scare us off or make us raise our offer way up. That’s why we think he’s lying about the other offers.
We countered again with what would have been our “planned” counter-counter – a full $20k higher – had they responded with a reasonable counter of their own. Our thought was, we’ll leave it at that – and if it’s still on the market 100 days from now we can ask him how those three other offers are coming along.
But their second counter was even weirder. They dropped another $500 (gee, THANKS!) But he actually asked our agent, in writing, why he didn’t have us “ask or counter back with the seller carry back 2nd trust deed for the difference”.
Huh?
Again, this guy (and/or his client) is either delusional or just incompetent. Our paperwork in the offers clearly stated our situation: well-qualified buyers (mid-FICO in the 790’s), 30% down, and not contingent. Coming up with the money is not the problem. The problem is that they’re asking too much for the freakin’ house.
Anyway… I understand that some people simply will not (or cannot) sell a house below a certain price. But if an agent has to resort to lying – which I believe to be the case here – rather than just stating outright that they absolutely cannot go below a certain price, I think it’s unethical and deserving of a complaint.
