Aguayo & Huebener - bidding process
Has anyone been asked to make a blind “best & final” without any info on coop financials?? A&H claims that info would be provided to our lawyer post accepted offer. They are also pushing very hard for a specific mortgage broker – this is very suspect to me. We have an up-front broker that we…
Has anyone been asked to make a blind “best & final” without any info on coop financials??
A&H claims that info would be provided to our lawyer post accepted offer. They are also pushing very hard for a specific mortgage broker – this is very suspect to me. We have an up-front broker that we trust but A&H are almost insisting on their recommended broker saying the seller would feel uncomfortable with anyone else! (Of course, they deny any self-interest in the transaction.)
A&H was discussed last week regarding the Carroll St apartment listed at $799 – rumor being that it generated a bidding war – is this the realty company’s modus operandi – are they reputable?
We also used Norman Calvo for both a coop morgage and then later a home equity. He was recommended by another realtor. We were not the easiest to get a morgage for (freelance). He was professional and conservative. He was extremely helpful and we got a great rate at the time. Just because they are used to working together, or more likely, he has gotten a number of morgages in the building and knows what they require, does not mean he is shady.
I thnk it’s a very big deal being told to use a specific motgage broker by a seller’s agent.
A less-than-ethical mortgage broker is in a position to share any amount of financial background on folks submitting offers with the real estate broker – potentially gauging their ability (and therefore sometimes, willingness) to increase offers.
Not in a million years would I agree to this. I don’t know if it’s illegal, but it’s obviously unethical.
A&H just handled the sale of my house and did a great job. They conducted the bidding in conjunction with my lawyer and it worked out fine.
All offers have contingencies. In this case, you make your offer contingent on seeing the financials and approving them. I’ve bought one coop and one condo and never saw the financials until after I made my bid and had it accepted. Otherwise they have to provide financials to perhaps a dozen people and it can be messy.
As for the mortgage broker, what’s the problem using theirs to get a letter. You are under no obligation to use that broker for your mortgage
Some real estate agents get kick backs from mortgage brokers–I would stay out of this situation. They’ll end up teaming up to try to squeeze as much money out of you as possible. There’s no reason the seller should care who your mortgage broker is!
Bought a co-op many years ago. Didn’t see the financials BUT most definitely got the basics in writing before entering into the offer process. Else I don’t see how you could do the math –
Size of reserve fund, any recent assessments, any future assesments scheduled, whether everyone’s current on maint. and if there’s any large projects in the pipeline. Broker and seller were happy to provide. . . . but this was years ago when buyers still had to be courted 😉
In 2003 we looked at a Clinton Hill co-op that was exclusively listed with A&H. We asked about financials and were told we couldn’t see them until we made an offer. The broker didn’t want to tell us much; she wanted us to provide all our info before she would provide any.
We made an offer, and then were told that someone had offered more than the asking price, and we had two days to beat that offer. We got such a bad feeling from the broker’s behavior that we declined.
She called back the next day to say that better offer had fallen through and we still had a chance. Too late; we had already bid on a different place. It was a great apartment, and with a different broker, we might have bought it.
we offered first on our condo, then saw the financials. An offer letter isn’t binding. What is the big deal? If the financial’s suck, pull your offer.
We had a bad experience with A&H when we were looking at co-ops a while back. They had a couple of listings and the agent we were dealing with refused to show us one of them since she said she thought it was “out of your price range”, despite the fact we had a pre-approval letter for far more than the price of the apartment we wanted to see. We finally got her to show us the place, made a bid on it, and she called us back to tell us the price was now $10k higher. When I told her that was incorrect and that I was looking at A&H’s website and the apartment was listed there for the lower price, she said “no it isn’t.” Duh. We couldn’t walk away from her fast enough– if she was playing games like this so early in the process, who knows how much worse it might have gotten once we had a contract. Interestingly, she was very forthcoming with the financials, so that was no problem. I personally would not sign a contract w/out first viewing a building’s financials, unless the contract contains contingencies, as stated by the posters above. Also, I would never do business with A&H again. They seemed pretty unscrupulous to me.
At the Washington I was told by the A&H broker that we would have to get preapproved separately by their recommended mortgage broker (who if I recall was someone’s mother-in-law) but that we were free to not use them for the mortgage. Still, a bit annoying.