All Forum Posts by: Joseph Chan

@Russell Brazil it is possible that there were offers.  But here is the time sequence. I put in my offer on Monday and the time I saw the seller the second time was Friday.  He still not heard about my offer.  Doesn't the selling agent have a duty to present the offer in a timely fashion (it only takes a call)?  Then the following Monday we were told our offer was rejected.  Did another offer come in? Yes it's possible from Friday to Monday another offer came in.  The selling agent likely used the same line, or stalled and used our bid to get a higher offer.  This is a very hot market in NJ and agents know that for good properties, that if they wait they will likely get an offer near or above asking.  I just find it very hard to believe that there were 4 offers near asking one day (first Monday) after the price dropped (no offers in 2 months) , and that a week later the seller had not heard about one offer when I asked him directly.  Could it be possible that the selling agent was holding all these offers for over a week?  Yes but why?  Like you said, he wants the property to get sold and he has the home owner's phone number.

@Carolina E. You can always put an escalating clause where you will pay $X dollars higher than highest bid subject to a ceiling price.  However, this also doesn't prevent shady brokers from producing phantom bids from mystery buyers.  Usually you can ask to see the next highest bid in this case.  If you have this doc you could always contact the person making the offer to see if they are a real person with a real bid.

I was recently searching for an investment property.  I came across a very nice 3 family that was updated.  The owner had listed with an agent and had no real offers for over 2 months. They had lowered the price by $40k.  We immediately put in an offer.  The selling agent immediately told us that there were "4 offers near asking" and to come with best and last.  I immediately thought that this is highly unlikely since we saw the house one day after the price reduction and put our bid in immediately following.  Since as most of you know, it is fairly tough to prove that a selling agent is lying.  Since this agent owned his own agency, he also was the owner calling the shots with no large organization having oversight.  I requested with my broker to see the house again.  The first time we had seen the property the owner had been there and showed us the house (The selling agent was too lazy to show the property).  I hoped this would be the case the second time around, and it was.  My agent and I asked the owner if he had been shown our offer and if he was considering any other offers. Not only had he not been shown our offer, he was not aware of any other offers.   So all unscrupulous agents you have been put on notice. It's not that hard to find out if you are lying.  We could have easily also dropped by unannounced if clever agents are thinking that the buyers will never meet the sellers.  Now unfortunately, since all communication was verbal there is not that much recourse to report this agent, but it did save me thousands of dollars in extra costs.  In the end, we were outbid by another investor, but I was happy not to have to overbid on the property.  I hate this classic ploy by listing agents to drive up prices for their clients and commissions for themselves.  Unfortunately,with the exception of the buyer, all parties including both agents' economic incentives are to not report this deception.  If you sense either agent is lying, feel free to use this method to call BS.