Realtor Lied - Ethics Question

[Sandy Brown]

We wanted to put in an offer to buy a condo which was just put back on the market after a buyers financing fell through.  Our realtor spoke with the sellers realtor and the sellers realtor said that no offer will be accepted unless it is equal to what the last potential buyer offered, or higher.  Our realtor asked what the last buyers purchase offer was and the sellers realtor said it was $85,000.  We spoke with our realtor and agreed that we would go ahead and match that offer. Our Purchase agreement was submitted and accepted. Just got the closing packet to review from the title company...and they messed up.  All documents were fine, EXCEPT...the title company accidentally put in the previous buyers purchase agreement instead of ours!  AND...we saw the price that the previous buyer offered was LESS than what the sellers realtor told our realtor.  The offer was for $84,500.  BUSTED! So, she lied about what the previous offer was and bumped up the price by $500.  We feel that the sellers agent misled us and was not honest!  We were really ticked off! We had our realtor tell her we saw the purchase agreement from the previous buyer which was sent to us by mistake within the closing documents we were going to review from the title company, and the sellers realtor acknowledged that the offer was less than what she told us, but said she "made a mistake by quoting us the higher price because she was busy".  We told her that we felt she misrepresented the facts and that the extra $500 should come out of her commission and paid to us because she misled us.  We feel she purposefully lied and told us the higher amount.  She then stormed away and said she has to ask her broker about paying us the $500 out of her commission.  Her broker called our agent while we were all together and began ranting about how we already signed the deal and agreed to the price and she wasn't going to give us any commission or any payment at all to compensate for the $500.   Any suggestions on what to do about the fact that she lied about what the previous buyers offer was?

[Russell Brazil]

Completely absurd youd be upset over this. I never speak in terms of prices down to the hundreds of dollars. In fact I often dont even speak as specifically as to the thousand. I usually speak in terms of the closest $10,000 amount. Further, you can out in an offer at any amount you want and see if its accepted. Even further, that listing agents job is to get the highest price possible for their client. Their job is to work against your best interest, and in the best interest of the person paying them. And even further, price isnt the only thing that makes up the offer. Terms are. For instance a VA loan nets less to a seller than a conventional loan and so on and so on.

My suggestion is if you are upset over $500, you shouldnt be buying real estate. I hate to sound harsh, but you need to get in touch more with how this all works.