treehugger doesnt this just sound kind of odd to you?
Lets think… you saw the sign and chances are that many others did as well. Similarly she had held two open houses with not a nibble? Really? Now she puts it on the MLS and now they get 22 just a few days. Magically that if you would have submitted a full price offer prior to it going on the MLS that yours would have been accepted… hmmmm… well perhaps…
My read, and I have said this many times before. When an asset manager assigns an reo to a broker there are several steps the broker must take prior to listing the property on the MLS. While they are taking those steps to prep the property they can put a sign up and even market the home. They can receive and submit offers even. However they cannot put it on the MLS until they get a price from the REO owner. Many lenders will instruct the agent to collect offers for a day or two or even a week. Yes when you saw the sign you should have done something but I am not as positive that the agent would have locked you into the deal for a few reasons. One that she would have even had a price yet and two that the lender would have accepted your offer given that she had not marketted it on the MLS yet.
In this market with this activity then clearly she is a boob if she actually could have marketted it on the MLS but chose not to for two weeks.