[quote=walterwhite]SDRealtor, i think your position that sellers can sell whatever personal effects they want is untrue, wrong and silly.
In a situation where a Seller is sorting through offers on a short sale, and they are selling personal items at above-market value as part of a transaction where they are willing to accept a short sale offer the seller wouldn’t otherwise have accepted.
The seller is basically cheating the bank out of the money the bank would have gotten from the higher offer by accepting a lower offer and getting a great price on their used personal junk.
i think that portion of the excess monies received above fair market value for the personal junk is what is called a “bribe” or maybe just a “payment” in order to select the buyer. Isn’t the rule that sellers aren’t supposed to receive money from a short sale? I mean, if i pay 35,000 for an old couch if you accept my lowball offer, that’s bad, right? so your position that they can sell whatever they want for whatever price they can get at their pre-sale yard sale isn’t really true. Actually it’s just flat-out wrong. Maybe even criminal.[/quote]
This is exactly why it should be mandated that all short sale offers be presented directly to the banks (as well as the FB/”owner”).
The PTB know about these games though, and since they are not forcing people to submit offers directly to the banks, they are effectively condoning these tactics. In that case, bribe away — fraud seems to be the only way to get things done these days, unfortunately.
edit: like the OP said, rescind your offer and resubmit it at a lower price with a note (or verbal agreement) that you will buy their furniture for $X.XX.
