Are selling agents part of the problem?

[NotCranky]

SDR or anyone else who is aware of it,do you like the one page letter of intent? I have brought it up a few times but nobody has given additional views on them.

[NotCranky]

SDR or anyone else who is aware of it,do you like the one page letter of intent? I have brought it up a few times but nobody has given additional views on them.

[SD Realtor]

Hi Rus –

I don’t have anything against the letter of intent. Again though, I have received letters of intent for listings I have had and in some cases an offer followed and in others it did not. So I don’t get to excited if I have a listing and one comes in. If I am on the buyers side I don’t send them in, I would rather just write up an RPA. I feel that carries more gravity.

No strong opinion either way though to be honest.

SD Realtor

[SD Realtor]

Hi Rus –

I don’t have anything against the letter of intent. Again though, I have received letters of intent for listings I have had and in some cases an offer followed and in others it did not. So I don’t get to excited if I have a listing and one comes in. If I am on the buyers side I don’t send them in, I would rather just write up an RPA. I feel that carries more gravity.

No strong opinion either way though to be honest.

SD Realtor

[nostradamus]

If the buyer wants to contact the seller directly (bypassing the agent and revealing the buyer’s identity) it is easy to locate the seller using tax records (you have to physically go to the assessor’s office and bring the address of the home). If you really feel the agent is pulling a fast one (like the $200k in electronics in the OP) it would be very worthwhile to do this. That really sucks about that deal, that seller lost out on $200k due to the agent’s shennanigans. Even to a millionaire that’s a depressing loss.

[nostradamus]

If the buyer wants to contact the seller directly (bypassing the agent and revealing the buyer’s identity) it is easy to locate the seller using tax records (you have to physically go to the assessor’s office and bring the address of the home). If you really feel the agent is pulling a fast one (like the $200k in electronics in the OP) it would be very worthwhile to do this. That really sucks about that deal, that seller lost out on $200k due to the agent’s shennanigans. Even to a millionaire that’s a depressing loss.

[raptorduck]

SDR and others, thanks for your insights.

First off, I don’t want to imply that all RE agents are crooked etc. Lawyers and stock brokers get picked on, but most are honest. I don’t know that any RE agents are crooked.

But perhaps because I have toured so many houses and considered offers more than the average # of times, I have seen a few “outliers.” Most of my friends who buy houses tour 2, 3, or even 4 and buy one. They don’t tour hundreds. Both my agents have told me I am “not” the average buyer. The average buyer does not tour over 100 homes before they buy. I am the same with cars and women. That is just me.

The first time I bought a house 7 yrs ago, I toured 60+ homes and made 17 written offers in a major seller’s market. Towards the end, before I bought my house, I had an experience that opened my eyes to the problem with my assumption that all selling and buying agents play fair and honestly.

I wanted to put in a bid on a house I liked. The selling agent was not very nice nor cooperative, but we, and over a dozen other people, put in our bids. I did not get the house. After the sale, my agent found out that the selling agent also represented the buyer. Now it was a closed/blind/sealed bidding situation, or whatever it is called, so we did not know how to place our bid to ensure that we got it. But of course the selling agent knew everybody’s bid. So one buyer had an agent who knew everybody else’s bid and the other dozen or so folks were playing blind. When escrow closed the house sold for exactly $50k more than my own bid. Go figure.

To show you how green I was as a first time buyer, and ignorant/clueless, the house I bought was staged. I did not realize that. I had never heard of staging before. Staging really works people. Look at me.

Anyway, that “dual agency relationship” opened my eyes to my ignorance and assumptions on fair play. So this time around, I started a little more mindful that things I or my agent are being told by selling agents may be not quite true. Whether we call it negotiation tactics or dishonesty does not matter. As SDR says “so what.” I am informed enough now to be looking out for such things. I think particulalry in a market like this, where RE agents need to pay their own mortgages, there is more pressure to sell and do whatever it takes to generate interest. My view is that the ways these agents I described went about it had the opposite impact they desired.

SDR. It is not that I am being emotional by walking away if I detect any other third party interest and are not willing to get into a bidding war. In this market, I don’t have to. In fact, this time, I have taken my emotions out of the equation. I have written my “10 commandments of home buying” and no matter how much I love a house, I am sticking to them. That way, I don’t get caught up in my own blind emotions and think rationally in an emotional situation with the help of a rule book.

The first time I bought, every house had multiple bids and if you did not write an above asking non-contingency cash offer with 3 months free rent back from the get go, you were out of luck. This was early 2000 in the bay area. In some markets, like Los Altos (which I gave up on back then), many homes had 30 bids and a few were selling for twice asking. I had no choice, but to either compete for a home, or rent and sit it out. People here would have said rent, and they would have been right. 4 yrs later, the market had dropped quite a bit and I was under water in my San Jose house I paid $100k over asking for to get. I am back above water now, even in this market, but would have been better off buying stocks (wait, that is not true, I would have lost even more on that one, I bought just before the stock crash . . . I mean correction).

In this market I just don’t have to compete. I think you touched on this. Of the homes I “considered” an offer on, I really only loved 2 (the electronics one and the stretch one). In those cases, no matter how much I loved them, I was turned off by the selling agent’s comments. The first was outright bad conduct IMHO. The second, well she told my agent they had that all cash no contingency offer richchex just referred to earlier. To be honest, on that particular house, I could not afford to compete even if I wanted to. It was at the absolute top of my range at low asking. But I like to think I would have still walked. Why get into a bidding war in a buyer’s market? Seller’s market sure, but buyer’s market?

Of course, as you indicated SDR, if I like the house I should not let a rule get in my way. You are right. But only 2 fit that bill so far, not the others I listed. That one house with 10 offers was not going to be my house. It was going to be an investment. It was tiny and not what I was looking for. It was for sale 3 doors from one I was looking at. We walked over saw the price and immediately started talking offer. The sole one I actually wrote an offer on was a tear down on a magnificant lot/neighborhood.

Either way, I think I will take your advice and write an offer if I like the house enough. If another higher offer comes in (whether true or not) I don’t have to respond by upping mine. I can just (i) say to the selling agent “please consider mine a back up offer” or (ii) withdraw and tell the agent “please call my agent if it falls out of escrow.” But I will not compete. Not in this market.

Have you ever noticed on eBay with multiple auctions of the same exact item? One has 15 bids and another that closes just 1 hr later for the same item has 0 bids. People feel that if there is competition for something, it must be worth the extra price to get it. I am the guy who waits the extra hr and puts in 1 bid and pays the lower price for the same item.

Ok, homes are not identical (well unless you live in my neighborhood of 5 interiors, 4 exteriors, and 4 exterior colors). But with 200+ homes for sale in RSF, I have enough choices to ensure I don’t pay more than I should.

I did find my dream house down there, but it was that last one and even with her, I refused to play outside my self induced comfort zone. Indeed what you described is exactly what I observed. The house was on the market 4 months the first time I decided I wanted to write an offer. No offers had come in. When we said we wanted to write one, suddenly there was a cash offer. We walked and 2 more months went by. What happened to that other offer, it never went into escrow. So we were going to try again. Again, suddenly 2 offers were comming in that day. Again we walked. Again those other two never materialized. Just weeks later my agent took another client through that house as a favor for another agent and boom, no offers pending. Now, it seems to have actually sold.

Yes, on that one, I should have just written my offer and let it sit. Next time, if I find that dream house, I will take your good advice SDR and write a formal offer. Anything short of that dream house, however, as soon as I detect the game, I won’t play. I just dunt wanna.

If there are real offers on the table fine, but if there are none, selling agents should not mislead. Why drive away buyers? In a market like this, buyers will be less patient with things like that and will walk, because they can. And after all the words I have written on this thread, this was the point of my original tome of a post.

Apologies for my diarea of the keyboard.

[raptorduck]

SDR and others, thanks for your insights.

First off, I don’t want to imply that all RE agents are crooked etc. Lawyers and stock brokers get picked on, but most are honest. I don’t know that any RE agents are crooked.

But perhaps because I have toured so many houses and considered offers more than the average # of times, I have seen a few “outliers.” Most of my friends who buy houses tour 2, 3, or even 4 and buy one. They don’t tour hundreds. Both my agents have told me I am “not” the average buyer. The average buyer does not tour over 100 homes before they buy. I am the same with cars and women. That is just me.

The first time I bought a house 7 yrs ago, I toured 60+ homes and made 17 written offers in a major seller’s market. Towards the end, before I bought my house, I had an experience that opened my eyes to the problem with my assumption that all selling and buying agents play fair and honestly.

I wanted to put in a bid on a house I liked. The selling agent was not very nice nor cooperative, but we, and over a dozen other people, put in our bids. I did not get the house. After the sale, my agent found out that the selling agent also represented the buyer. Now it was a closed/blind/sealed bidding situation, or whatever it is called, so we did not know how to place our bid to ensure that we got it. But of course the selling agent knew everybody’s bid. So one buyer had an agent who knew everybody else’s bid and the other dozen or so folks were playing blind. When escrow closed the house sold for exactly $50k more than my own bid. Go figure.

To show you how green I was as a first time buyer, and ignorant/clueless, the house I bought was staged. I did not realize that. I had never heard of staging before. Staging really works people. Look at me.

Anyway, that “dual agency relationship” opened my eyes to my ignorance and assumptions on fair play. So this time around, I started a little more mindful that things I or my agent are being told by selling agents may be not quite true. Whether we call it negotiation tactics or dishonesty does not matter. As SDR says “so what.” I am informed enough now to be looking out for such things. I think particulalry in a market like this, where RE agents need to pay their own mortgages, there is more pressure to sell and do whatever it takes to generate interest. My view is that the ways these agents I described went about it had the opposite impact they desired.

SDR. It is not that I am being emotional by walking away if I detect any other third party interest and are not willing to get into a bidding war. In this market, I don’t have to. In fact, this time, I have taken my emotions out of the equation. I have written my “10 commandments of home buying” and no matter how much I love a house, I am sticking to them. That way, I don’t get caught up in my own blind emotions and think rationally in an emotional situation with the help of a rule book.

The first time I bought, every house had multiple bids and if you did not write an above asking non-contingency cash offer with 3 months free rent back from the get go, you were out of luck. This was early 2000 in the bay area. In some markets, like Los Altos (which I gave up on back then), many homes had 30 bids and a few were selling for twice asking. I had no choice, but to either compete for a home, or rent and sit it out. People here would have said rent, and they would have been right. 4 yrs later, the market had dropped quite a bit and I was under water in my San Jose house I paid $100k over asking for to get. I am back above water now, even in this market, but would have been better off buying stocks (wait, that is not true, I would have lost even more on that one, I bought just before the stock crash . . . I mean correction).

In this market I just don’t have to compete. I think you touched on this. Of the homes I “considered” an offer on, I really only loved 2 (the electronics one and the stretch one). In those cases, no matter how much I loved them, I was turned off by the selling agent’s comments. The first was outright bad conduct IMHO. The second, well she told my agent they had that all cash no contingency offer richchex just referred to earlier. To be honest, on that particular house, I could not afford to compete even if I wanted to. It was at the absolute top of my range at low asking. But I like to think I would have still walked. Why get into a bidding war in a buyer’s market? Seller’s market sure, but buyer’s market?

Of course, as you indicated SDR, if I like the house I should not let a rule get in my way. You are right. But only 2 fit that bill so far, not the others I listed. That one house with 10 offers was not going to be my house. It was going to be an investment. It was tiny and not what I was looking for. It was for sale 3 doors from one I was looking at. We walked over saw the price and immediately started talking offer. The sole one I actually wrote an offer on was a tear down on a magnificant lot/neighborhood.

Either way, I think I will take your advice and write an offer if I like the house enough. If another higher offer comes in (whether true or not) I don’t have to respond by upping mine. I can just (i) say to the selling agent “please consider mine a back up offer” or (ii) withdraw and tell the agent “please call my agent if it falls out of escrow.” But I will not compete. Not in this market.

Have you ever noticed on eBay with multiple auctions of the same exact item? One has 15 bids and another that closes just 1 hr later for the same item has 0 bids. People feel that if there is competition for something, it must be worth the extra price to get it. I am the guy who waits the extra hr and puts in 1 bid and pays the lower price for the same item.

Ok, homes are not identical (well unless you live in my neighborhood of 5 interiors, 4 exteriors, and 4 exterior colors). But with 200+ homes for sale in RSF, I have enough choices to ensure I don’t pay more than I should.

I did find my dream house down there, but it was that last one and even with her, I refused to play outside my self induced comfort zone. Indeed what you described is exactly what I observed. The house was on the market 4 months the first time I decided I wanted to write an offer. No offers had come in. When we said we wanted to write one, suddenly there was a cash offer. We walked and 2 more months went by. What happened to that other offer, it never went into escrow. So we were going to try again. Again, suddenly 2 offers were comming in that day. Again we walked. Again those other two never materialized. Just weeks later my agent took another client through that house as a favor for another agent and boom, no offers pending. Now, it seems to have actually sold.

Yes, on that one, I should have just written my offer and let it sit. Next time, if I find that dream house, I will take your good advice SDR and write a formal offer. Anything short of that dream house, however, as soon as I detect the game, I won’t play. I just dunt wanna.

If there are real offers on the table fine, but if there are none, selling agents should not mislead. Why drive away buyers? In a market like this, buyers will be less patient with things like that and will walk, because they can. And after all the words I have written on this thread, this was the point of my original tome of a post.

Apologies for my diarea of the keyboard.

[NotCranky]

At the risk of being rude, Raptorduck, I am going to say there are a few things that don’t make sense for me with the things you have posted.

First you say you want to do it right this time but you are shopping now. Yes, you can be more in the drivers seat now than when you were buying the first time but the road isn’t safe.

Now you have mentioned a few times the possibility of “stretching”. This confuses me. Why would anyone who didn’t have to stretch do so? I can see a poor person stretching to get into the most humble house they could afford. Why would some one with your kind of budget choose to stretch?

Stretching and buying in this market is a bad combo IMHO.
Stretching to buy a house sounds so 2005.

[NotCranky]

At the risk of being rude, Raptorduck, I am going to say there are a few things that don’t make sense for me with the things you have posted.

First you say you want to do it right this time but you are shopping now. Yes, you can be more in the drivers seat now than when you were buying the first time but the road isn’t safe.

Now you have mentioned a few times the possibility of “stretching”. This confuses me. Why would anyone who didn’t have to stretch do so? I can see a poor person stretching to get into the most humble house they could afford. Why would some one with your kind of budget choose to stretch?

Stretching and buying in this market is a bad combo IMHO.
Stretching to buy a house sounds so 2005.

[raptorduck]

Rustico, you are absoultely right, are not being rude, and thank you for your candor. I am not perfect, but am perfectly capable of making stupid decisions on purpose. I was just being honest about that one knowing one of you might see the inconsistancy with my “official strategy.”

I also suspect I am bipolar. I have a very logical side, but also a very emotional one. Hence my need for rules and lists and lots of sampling before I bite. It dunt always work.

That house tugged on my emotional side. My budget kept me from getting into trouble. To be fair, I think the house was fairly priced in this market, on its low end anyway, well almost fairly anyway.

I do promise to post my ultimate decision when the time comes (well into next year I suspect), whether a good choice or a bad one. I am not afraid of mockery. It ensures I don’t get remotely full of myself.

[raptorduck]

Rustico, you are absoultely right, are not being rude, and thank you for your candor. I am not perfect, but am perfectly capable of making stupid decisions on purpose. I was just being honest about that one knowing one of you might see the inconsistancy with my “official strategy.”

I also suspect I am bipolar. I have a very logical side, but also a very emotional one. Hence my need for rules and lists and lots of sampling before I bite. It dunt always work.

That house tugged on my emotional side. My budget kept me from getting into trouble. To be fair, I think the house was fairly priced in this market, on its low end anyway, well almost fairly anyway.

I do promise to post my ultimate decision when the time comes (well into next year I suspect), whether a good choice or a bad one. I am not afraid of mockery. It ensures I don’t get remotely full of myself.

[Navydoc]

I agree with Rustico on this one (I hope he still doesn’t hate me for the gun thread). Has anyone here ever been house-poor? Let me tell you, it’s the worst feeling EVER. You literally perseverate constantly on how you’re going to make each payment, whether it be mortgage of electricity or food. Its sucks the life out of you. I intend never to feel that way again, which is why I havn’t bought in this market. I certainly would have had to stretch to afford what I want.

Raptorduck, your analogy to EBAY is spot on. I recently caught someone shill bidding on an item I really wanted. I bid on like the 3rd day of a 7 day auction, and wouldn’t you know it? 30 min before the auction closed I was outbid! Better hurry up and bid again! I had a price in mind I was willing to pay, bid up to that, when I still didn’t get it I found another one with a buy-it-now option for my max price, so I bought that one instead. Got a message 10 min after the auction closed stating “congratulations, the high bidder is unable to complete the transaction, you can have it for your last bid!” I ignored it, 10 min after that I received a message that the sale had been cancelled due to shill bidding.

In this housing market you are describing the equivalent of shill bidding. the secret to not getting burned is have an idea what you’re willing to pay, and don’t go over it. It is after all, your money. I realize removing emotion from a home purchase can be difficult, but trust me, you really don’t want to overextend, especially if you’re doing it because of some jerk Realtor/seller.

[Navydoc]

I agree with Rustico on this one (I hope he still doesn’t hate me for the gun thread). Has anyone here ever been house-poor? Let me tell you, it’s the worst feeling EVER. You literally perseverate constantly on how you’re going to make each payment, whether it be mortgage of electricity or food. Its sucks the life out of you. I intend never to feel that way again, which is why I havn’t bought in this market. I certainly would have had to stretch to afford what I want.

Raptorduck, your analogy to EBAY is spot on. I recently caught someone shill bidding on an item I really wanted. I bid on like the 3rd day of a 7 day auction, and wouldn’t you know it? 30 min before the auction closed I was outbid! Better hurry up and bid again! I had a price in mind I was willing to pay, bid up to that, when I still didn’t get it I found another one with a buy-it-now option for my max price, so I bought that one instead. Got a message 10 min after the auction closed stating “congratulations, the high bidder is unable to complete the transaction, you can have it for your last bid!” I ignored it, 10 min after that I received a message that the sale had been cancelled due to shill bidding.

In this housing market you are describing the equivalent of shill bidding. the secret to not getting burned is have an idea what you’re willing to pay, and don’t go over it. It is after all, your money. I realize removing emotion from a home purchase can be difficult, but trust me, you really don’t want to overextend, especially if you’re doing it because of some jerk Realtor/seller.

[EconProf]

BobS
Raptorduck, regarding your frustrations with seller’s agents, here’s a suggestion that maybe could have thwarted some of their games. Perhaps you should insist that your written offer be presented in person to seller by your agent, with his/her agent present, of course. Could claim (rightfully) that any questions, add’l info., etc. could be cleared up more quickly that way.
Realtors out there, what do you think?

[Author]

Posts