Selling house to tenants - real estate agent disappeared

[Christian Luong]

Hi all

I found myself in an interesting situation:

Background:

- Rental property (SFH) is located in Northern Virginia and tenants are interested to buy.

- I get representation from my property manager as a real estate agent in Feb 2020 (signed agreement expiring Dec 2020). Commission is set to 3% because buyer is already found

- tenants agreed on purchasing the house as is ($30K worth of repair: roof, wood) for around $435K. Est house price is $460K at that time

Situation:

As of March 2020, there is no news from the real estate agent. I learned from second sources that she has had a serious surgery and she is recovering in a nursing home. I tried to contact her daughter but no answer . House is now estimated at around $500K.

Since a large portion of the groundwork from the real estate agent have been done (finding buyer and negotiating a price), how would you move forward? I still have an agreement signed with her expiring in Dec 2020

Thanks

[Patti Robertson]

@Christian Luong - The agent must have a broker. It’s the way real estate works. Send me her name and I’ll look it up for you. Do you have a copy of the purchase agreement?  Do you have a listing agreement with be agent?  Do you have the buyers contact info?  There is no reason you can’t move forward with or without the agent but my guess is you will still owe the commission. If it has taken this long, chances are, your tenant didn’t qualify for the loan and you don’t really have a viable sale.