I've got a contact I've been e-mailing for two months. He came to town this weekend and I spent two days showing him every community in the area. Pretty late in the evening we go back to my office and I print out a handful of additional listings for him to go over.

He ends up driving around on his own and stops at an open house, which was one of the homes I printed out for him. He tells the agent he is working with me and she says something about leaving me out of the deal. He's a good guy and says "not without Mike"

He left town on Sunday and today calls me to run out, take a few photos of the place for his wife and to make an offer.

I call the listing agent and she tells me there is an offer in but they will wait for my offer before deciding. I give her a verbal for asking price on her answering machine and tell her it will take me a few hours to get the contract together. Before I can get the offer on paper she calls back and says her seller has accepted the original offer.

I'm a little new to RE sales but this smells of cow poop. What are the chances she already had a full priced offer in this market?

I sell enough that I do not need this deal and it will actually cost me more time (which is also money) to go after her, but it sure seems like this woman should rot in hell.

Opinions?

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Coastal Delaware Real Estate Sales
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well she should be ashamed of herself for suggesting the client cut you out of the deal. I'd probably call her broker and ask that s/he talk with the agent about that type of thing. Not to make a big deal out of it, but we are all agents and if she is a realtor she should not be negotiating directly with your client. As a general rule she shouldn't be trying to interfere with your buyer rep contract. That's called tortuous interference I think and it's against law.

All that said, the seller's agent is just like you. They work for their clients and if the client says take this offer that's what she must do regardless of what the seller previously told her. I've had situations similar to this one happen to me with a coop broker's listing and there's not much I can think of that you can do. Just move on has always been the best for me.

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Austin Texas Real Estate | Coldwell Banker Austin | Austin Texas Real Estate

it should be interesting to see if she double-ended the deal.

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Eichler | Marin Real Estate | Marin County MLS

The ramifications of the title of your post might be something to be concerned about too. Whether or not it specifically mentions a particular Realtor.
On to your question. It would be rather hard to prove there was any wrong doing. It may have been the seller's decision not to wait for another offer. A verbal full priced offer doesn't really mean much. There are a lot of other factors besides price that can heavily influence the listing agent and seller's position on the original offer which I'm assuming was a written offer (time of closing, contingencies, financing, etc.). Those are all unknowns with your verbal.
Brush it under the rug and focus your energies on positives. It is not worth the stress of thinking about it any longer than you already have.

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I am a little confused, do you think the listing agent stole your client? Or did the listing agent tell you that they already had a offer, full priced or otherwise, on the table?

The seller has more to consider than just price when evaluating offers. (As-is, Cash, 10 day close, big down payment, etc.)

I don't think that the listing agent or the seller did anything wrong with the seller accepting a written offer. (Unless they stole your client.) Verbal offers don't mean anything in real estate. We hear, "got an offer coming" all day long, it's just air.

A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.

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Randy Watson Texas Real Estate Agent
Mission Realty-San Antonio Real Estate
San Antonio Real Estate

could not have said it better +1

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Sunnyvale Real Estate
Santa Clara Real Estate
Cupertino Real Estate

A bird in the hand. I would never advise a seller to wait for another offer to come in if there was a chance of losing the offer we already had.

The plus side for you is now that your buyers have lost a deal they will be more aggressive with the next one.

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So the majority of you see nothing wrong with trying to work the buyers agent (Me) out of the deal even though the buyer said he was already working with me? That alone is grounds to call up the local board.

I agree that verbal offers aren't worth the paper they are written on but the listing agent had met my client, knew he had an 800+ credit rating, had cash was ready to move ASAP and was offering full price.

In my market 5% - 15% below asking is common and I was offering full price.
I'm guessing she never even presented the offer.

I guess you had to hear her on the phone. I closed 80+ deals this year and have NEVER met a Realtor who was as shady.

Enough said, I'm moving on and will probably end up selling him something nicer and more expensive in the near future.

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Coastal Delaware Real Estate Sales
REHOBOTH BEACH CONDOS | REHOBOTH BEACH REAL ESTATE | REHOBOTH BEACH MOBILE HOMES
* Results not typical. Individual results may vary.

Even hinting that your client should leave you out of the deal is totally shady. However, you still have your client and like you said not worth the time to chase her down.

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Mike Taylor
Indianapolis Real Estate | Carmel Real Estate |My REW Blog

Michael -
I think the others were just trying to say that accepting the other offer was not shady. I think we all agree that hinting they should leave you out the deal is not even kind of acceptable.

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Mike Taylor
Indianapolis Real Estate | Carmel Real Estate |My REW Blog