Trying to Sell First Rental House and Buyer Ghosted

[Rachel Fairweather]

We are trying to sell a rental house we bought in 2019. I have a friend who is an agent, so she agreed to list for 1% as long as we handled the showings. We had a contract with a buyer that fell through after they did a further inspection and lowered their initial offer by $11.5k. After that house fell out, I had another buyer call, but I struggled to get him to provide a written offer. We did get a written offer once he hired our realtor as his buyer's agent. However, when it came to proof of funds, he provided a picture of cash. Unbeknownst to me, my realtor kept it from me that he hadn't actually put down earnest money, and he was well past the three days so we said we were canceling the contract. He responded immediately and said he would get it done last week, but of course, that never happened.

I guess I'm asking two things. The original contract was signed in early November, but the buyer didn't want to close until late December. As a concession, the buyer offered an additional $2k for the inconvenience. Of course, with no earnest money, that doesn't help me now. Is this some sort of weird scam or are there buyers out there that are doing this for kicks?

My second question is, can we legally hold our realtor or her broker liable since she kept it from us?

If you were in this situation (or have been before), what would you do?

[Marcus Auerbach]

So many red flags. Probably a noobie wholesaler. I had a feeling where this was going when you started with friend/agent for 1% if you handle the showings... there is nothing to handle, showings are done by the buyers agent! So you got what you paid for and now you are looking to hold someone liable. Has your friend sold a property before? I would not be shocked if this is number one or two.

Selling a low priced rental property is generally surprisingly hard. It's a lot less work for an agent to sell a 400k home than a sub 200k home. The probability of a sub 200k deal not making it to the closing table is high, I'd like to say somewhere around 50%. Deals fall apart at inspection is #1, or buyers get cold feet, loose their job, financing does not work out etc. 

Frankly, even normal comission on a sub 200k listing does not cover the cost of doing business. That's why wholesalers exist: they are not limited to 3% (of a small base), they can just call it 10k even on a 50k listing, which would be 20%..