I have a cash buyer ready, willing & able. We have scoured MLS, ads and signs for months looking for a vacant lot to meet his needs. His cash is $65K. Most lots were higher $80-$120K. Some MLS listings have gone for drastic price reductions but it seems the agents somehow always have an offer in, then when the thing closes it seems the listing agent always has a double end deal.

I have been getting very frustrated by the tactics of these starving agents. So finally one cuts her price from $135K to $65K. I call her the day she dropped the price and she says she already has a cash buyer. I say I have a full price cash buyer for $65K and we can close quickly. Then next day she puts it pending. I watch it for two weeks and it closes. Of course she also represents the buyer and the sale price was $30K. My buyer is livid.
What would your next move be?

NOTHING!

You have to understand when the listing agents are listing these low price properties the commission is minimal. Often time they under market them to try and sell themselves first.

If you control the listing you control the sale.

I just wouldn't work with that buyer. The odds are low of finding the property but the time involved is high.

It's like someone might have cash of 50k looking for a house in a certain area. They look for a year and when one comes available 1,000 other buyers are looking for the same thing. So when I work with a buyer I look at available inventory compared to what the buyer wants to determine odds of it happening.

Now I would look like that for my own investments but my margins and payoff would be way better than a commission on the purchase.

As far as the 30k you can't prove it 100 percent and the time wasted trying to you could find more deals.

I understand your frustration, that is indeed an all to common problem here in So Cal. Yes you can prove the resulting sale price (providing it's posted in the MLS), unfortunately, short of bringing the other agent up on a grievance at the board, there is not much you can do at this point. One thing we've started doing is submitting the offer immediately and insisting that it be signed by the seller if it's rejected, that way you increase the chances that the seller actually saw it. Of course, unethical agents will remain unethical no matter what, and in those cases, you have no assurance that the rejection initial is real, but I do think it causes the agent to think twice. Sure would look funny if you have a rejection signed by the "seller" for twice the amount they accepted. Anyway, our local boards are the venue for dealing with a breach of the Code of Ethics. Good Luck on that.

At best you could possibly get the listing agent in trouble with the Board or the seller if there was no contract in place at the time you submitted, or tried to submit your offer. But the buyer probably bought in good faith, so you probably cannot undo the deal.

Try offering 65K to the person who just bought the lot. Maybe they'd take the instant 35K profit.

First, I would not just toss this client. If you have an automated MLS search running for them, the right lots are going to come around and you are not losing anything by keeping that client informed of what comes on the market.

To get around this myself, I simply ask to present my offers myself. This trend of just tossing your offer to the other agent via fax is relatively new. Back when I got started in 1988, it would not have even occurred to us to let someone else present our offer.

You will find that many agents push back on this. In your case, I am guessing it will always happen. Just be firm and insist that since you crafted the offer, your in the best position to present it clearly and address any issues that might be brought up.

Good Luck,
R

My idea so far is to program the MLS for Agent searches and do a background check on the agent first. If I find they are a double ender I won't even call them. Let their history be their record.

My next idea is to write a letter to the former seller and let them know how much money got left on the table.

Then I think I will contact that new buyer like caveman suggested and offer them double their money.

This has really been a good lesson for me. I learned a lot about double-ender agents, their tricks & ways. I found this agent has her listings on over 15 free classifieds websites. I only knew about 4 before. She puts her listings on MLS at a high (probably seller happy price) but advertises at ridiculous low prices.

I still have my buyer and he has decided to upgrade out of this cheap land game since we haven't been able to get an offer in to over 6 agents. So now he went from $65K max price to $280K so much better for me.

I haven't heard back on my letters to the seller and the buyer. I am thinking next of writing to everyone of her current listings with a copy of her MLS stats and copies of her online ads vs. her MLS listing.

I'd go to my local MLS board/association. Don't badmouth the agent to her clients, let the board handle it.

I believe this happens a lot in my area as well, especially with all these REO properties on the market. I think many of the REO listing agents try to double end their listings before trying to sell to everyone else. There is one REO team in my area that has over 30 people on the team. The problem with this is that most of the people on the team are competing licensed agents. So if my buyer writes an offer on one of their listings and I call to check on the status of my offer, I am usually talking to another agent! That means that they have access to all offers being written on every house! With that much information about 400+ listings, there could be many unethical things that can happen. I think it is pretty obvious.

Since you didn't actually write an offer and send it to the listing agent, I don't think you would have anything to fall back on. You should have submitted the offer regardless, then waited to see what happens. If the same result, complain to the board.

Instead of just calling the listing agent, why didn't you have your buyer submit a written offer? Without actually submitting an offer, I don't think you have a real complaint.

Doesn't matter if you submit an offer to a double-ender, no one ever sees it. The best advice was the one about making offers in person only in this case the seller was a 3 hr drive away. Submitting offers in the case of REO's & Short sales forget it, the sellers don't even know what is going on anyway.

I had another buyer call on an REO sign and the listing agent said he would only show it to him if he didn't have an agent.

I stay in there and play the game with the double-enders anyway. I feel like eventually they may get an approval and all their buyers will have disappeared. You can't carry your own torch all the time and come out the winner every time.

I submitted an offer on a Shortsale. I admit it was a low offer. The LA emailed me and said the Bank responded to an offer with the following "Offer is being rejected. If the buyer can resubmit at 160K that will cover our net". So my buyer my client resubmitted for 160K. Funny thing was the tone and friendlyness of the email was rare for her.

I gave it a week or so and called her to check on the status and she had no idea what I was talking about. Turns out she forwarded that email to me accidently, it was met for one of her clients. She was after both sides of the deal.

My client was cooling on the property anyways. 160K plus 50K+ in rehab, they were not looking forward to the rehab process. So the agent was told they had 24 Hours to accept the offer or we were withdrawing.

She called me a week later begging to get my client to resubmit and promised that it would work out. It was fun to tell her that they were all ready under contract for another property and if it did not work out, we'd make a run at another property, not hers.

Months later that house is still on the market. You can only play dirty for so long before it bites you in butt.

If you are referring to a different listing agent, the refusal might not be from a desire to double-end a deal, it may be that the listing agent believes a buyer's agent is obligated to serve the needs of the client -- which includes showing property. There are way too many agents in this business who tell clients: go out and look at homes, call the listing agents to show them to you, when you find something you like, call me and I will write up the offer.

To answer your question directly, my next move would be to tell my buyer to not be shy, don't worry about list prices, and let's go write some offers to catch the next one BEFORE the seller drops their price for everyone else to see!

Who's to say that she didn't have a buyer already lined up to pay 30K and the offer materialized as soon as the seller dropped the price... I often have buyers waiting in the wings on a price reduction. It doesn't mean I won't submit your offer... but if my buyer and seller agree on a price before your offer gets to me, then it's a moot issue.

I think you need to understand that you're dealing with a low-ball buyer (the guy who "wants a deal") and you're going to have to do more work with that buyer than you would otherwise have to do.

When that property was listed at $135,000...why didn't you and your buyer write up an offer for $65K at that point? Chances are the seller would have taken it (after all, he took $30k, right?) - or at least told his agent to call you and see if your buyer was still interested before they reduced the price. Go find another property (even if it's over priced) and if your buyer likes it, WRITE THE OFFER!

Be pro-active - don't wait for the seller to drop their price, find the good properties, write the offer your buyer is willing to write, and see what happens! Nobody's going to yell at you for coming in at market value on an overpriced listing. Worst case scenario, the seller yells at the listing agent who turns around and says "i'm sorry mr. buyer's agent, the seller isn't interested in that offer at this point" and you relay that to your buyer and move on to another property.

If you don't make the effort and put the offer out there, you never know what a seller will accept. (hint - what a seller says they would accept tends to change when there's cash on the table in front of them).

Just my .02

Based on what you wrote, I don't think you have any case at all to bring to the ethics board...but I probably don't know the whole story, either.

I guess I should clear that up. Three of the lots we tried to buy but missed for different reasons sold in the $60-$65K range. The market value was around the $65K mark that is why we made the offer.

I haven't heard back yet from any party on that deal. My buyer is hot to spend $350K now on a house so it will probably work out better for me.

My new MLS search for agent experience is working out great. If the agent has a history of double-end deals I call saying I am a buyer calling on the sign and I don't have an agent. Sure do get return calls real fast that way, I also get good insight on what I need to offer to get the property. Making Lemonade out of these Lemons.

I'm sure these shady deals go on all the time. I don't understand why the seller would drop the price from 125k to 30k, sounds pretty absurb. That alone might be a warning sign to stay away, your buyer might have actually saved himself 30k if there was some serious issues with the lot.

_____________________________________

www.ForeclosureLook.com

I'm confused... Here in Oklahoma, it's not legal to advertise a property for any more or any less than the listing price. It's not a free-for-all which is what you guys are making it sound like... Am I reading it incorrectly?

RebelBroker has a nice idea but here on Long Island, our Board has declared that all it takes is to have a note hand written from the homeowner (which again you can't really verify the hand writing unless something goes really wrong and you end up in court or something) stating that they want all offers going through the LA and that's it... You can get this letter at anytime so most agents get something signed as part of their listing package and you (as a selling or buyers agent) will never have a shot at contacting the homeowner and if you do, you're in a load of trouble...

Dan Ortiz ABR CRS CREOS (Hablo Espanol)
Licensed Broker/Owner
Manor Gate Real Estate of NY Inc

"If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait till you hire an amateur" Red Adair

[quote=OklaHome]I'm confused... Here in Oklahoma, it's not legal to advertise a property for any more or any less than the listing price. It's not a free-for-all which is what you guys are making it sound like... Am I reading it incorrectly? [/quote]

Here in NY it is not legal for you to advertise any price that isn't in line with what's on your MLS listing and if you make ANY price changes you must have a signed form by the seller before you can do anything and it must be on the MLS listing first...

Dan Ortiz ABR CRS CREOS (Hablo Espanol)
Licensed Broker/Owner
Manor Gate Real Estate of NY Inc

"If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait till you hire an amateur" Red Adair