What Happened? Slippery or inept RE Agent?

[William Tong]

More a rhetorical question. But a story to remember ... for me at least. We had been following a house in a very nice part of Mt Pleasant for 4-5 months as the price declined from $800,000 to $695,000. Nice dock, funky house, needed $40-50,000 rehab ... suited us well: a buy, rehab, live in project. Well, we had planned to go up to $650,000 so started with an offer of $640,000 but the agent told us it was way too low ... and did not want to present it. We reminded her it was her duty to present written offers. She did and the seller came back with a counter of $690,000, I suspect he was influenced by the agent. We interpreted the counteroffer meant the owner was not anxious to sell at our price, so we told the agent to contact us IF the owner decided to lower the price ..., and that we had an all cash offer funds verifiable now. I have owned 8-9 SFH rentals, have 2 strip malls and am partners in 3 apartments so I have some, though not extensive experience. As expected, 2 weeks later they lowered the price to $675,000. We gathered our cash together to again offer the $640,000 all cash when we realized it had gone under contract immediately. We called the agent and she said she didn't "think" we were serious so didn't call us. I slowly realized she was a real estate agent moron. What agent doesn't want 2 buyers bidding on their listing? OMG. We found out 6 weeks later it sold for $605,000. The moral of the story is the "offer-counteroffer" format with the selling agent sitting in the middle is flawed. This agent lost her client $45,000 and herself around $1,300 ... or maybe more if we got into a bidding situation. We learned that if you put that much time following a property you must stay on top of the seller's agent. She/he may be totally incompetent.