Real Estate Agents Ethics
We are in the process of negotiating a Brownstone in Bedstuy and the process recently came to a standstill. I’m getting a really sketchy vibe because of some of the things that have happened. It should be noted that the agent is acting as a dual agent (which is our own fault i guess).. The first thing was the fact that there were a bunch of things that showed up in the inspection that the RE Agent should have known about due to a previous inspection last year. Mainly about 80 grand in additional renovation costs. Then there were all sorts of renovation costs that he disputed, not because they weren’t valid, but because they would be able to be put off for a year or two. Examples are a 30 y.o. steam boiler that was providing both heat and hot water, plumbing, etc. Then when we put in a revised offer, he contacted our mortgage broker directly to ask him to run the loan at 10k higher, “just to show us that it would only constitute $50 more a month. The last straw was that we made an offer with a sellers concession, which he presented to the seller by tacking the concession on to our offer, making the offer about 35 grand more, despite numerous emails outlining this. Any one of these could be seen as an honest mistake, but the house has been on the market for a year and the RE agent seems a bit desperate to get it done with already. The last sticking point on the concession seems extra underhanded as it appears that he was hoping we wouldnt notice until we were in contract. Is this normal for NY real estate agents? Am I being sensitive? The kicker was that after all of this, he emails me to ask if he can send the inspection report we paid for on to another buyer. WTF?
