Worst Broker Experience Ever
Wondering if I have any recourse for dealing with what happened in a recent home purchase. We were dealing with the owner of RE company who was helping us – the buyers I’ll call him Agent A. One of his associates was the listing agent on this property – I’ll call him Agent B. We…
Wondering if I have any recourse for dealing with what happened in a recent home purchase. We were dealing with the owner of RE company who was helping us – the buyers I’ll call him Agent A. One of his associates was the listing agent on this property – I’ll call him Agent B.
We scheduled an appointment to see the property with Agent A, he showed up 30 minutes late. We scheduled a second viewing of the property with A and he was 25 minutes late. We told him at the end of the walk-thru that we wanted to make an offer and what we were offering. He told us he thought there was maybe another offer coming in but he would ask Agent B and call or text us back within the hour and he would also send over the offer form late that evening. He did neither. I called Agent A the following day asking when he was going to send over the offering paperwork so we could our offer in and he said he would send it by noon. He still did not send it. I called him again at 2:00 pm and left him a rather terse message. We finally got the offering paperwork by about 9:00 pm – almost 24 hours after we were expecting it. We filled it out, sent it back and he did not present our offer to the sellers for 3 days. Ironically, the same day as Agent B brought another offer to the sellers for more than what we offered but they ended up not having the financing. We asked Agent A to send over the signed counter and we would sign and send it back – that took 2 days and about 5 phone calls on our part to actually receive the paperwork. We spoke with the agent over the phone about the timing of the paperwork and he said that there was no one else interested in the property and that they would change the status on their website to pending sale. We had an appointment to sign the paperwork with the broker this morning and he called us last night to say that out of the blue, another offer came in for over the asking price and the owners would go with this offer unless we offered more money. Agent A said that this new interested party emailed Agent B on Thursday evening with the offer without speaking with Agent B before doing so. Who, in this market, offers over the asking price? Obviously, Agent A, dragged his feet and did not inform us of the other offer coming because he wanted more money for the property. Since he owns the company, he’s going to get a kick back from the sale anyway.
Sorry for the long description but am I able to file a complaint anywhere about this so he doesn’t do this to someone else? If so, where?
Actually, that kind of behaviour is slimy — the others are just plain illegal, if the agent has any knowledge of these things. And, in terms of schools districts, you should always check with the Department of Education to verify the school district, as the boundaries have been known to change: http://maps.nycboe.net/.
VHR – that’s awful. I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve gone through the same thing as we have.
How did you respond when the other deal fell through and they called you back?
OP here – would you believe that we just got a call saying that this other deal fell through and now they want us to sign the offer? What to do.
JTB – I love your slime scale – very funny.
sorry you got jerked around, but I really don’t see how that ranks up there with slimy broker behavior, not by brooklyn standards at least. They didn’t even tell you any material lies. Showing up late is just lazy and inconsiderate, not really slimy. it was just a stall tactic, to try to get the best bid, and it looks like the buyer was real and it worked. I’d pretty much expect him to do that if I were selling a place.
Slimy is lying about what school district a building is in, or what kind of construction is coming in in the lot next door, or covering up info about the condition of the coop or the building, or lying about the percent sold in a condo, or talking up amenities that really don’t have a chance of coming in, like water taxis.
JTB Slime Score: 2.5 out of a possible 10.
There are definitiely a lot of fly-by-night brokers out there, and, unfortunately, NY is really the wild wild west as far as RE practices are concerned. I have two suggestions: 1. Always deal with a REBNY-member firm (all of the big agencies are REBNY and many of the smaller ones too — check to be sure). That way you will have an additional recourse for your complaints if things go wrong. Supposedly, REBNY members are held to a higher standard than others — not saying things don’t ever go wrong, but at least you have some protection. Unfortunately, the smaller, non-REBNY agencies are more present in less expensive neighborhoods. 2. When you do make an offer, say that it expires within 24 or 48 hours — that way if they don’t get back to you, you’ll know there’s a problem and won’t waste time worrying about getting an answer.
But again, the listing agency (not just the listing broker) works for the seller, so neither A nor B was working for you. The only way to do this would be to go with an agent of one company to see the listing of another.
Finally, you may consider yourself lucky — who knows what other horrors would have arisen on the road to closing. Good luck with your search.
I know – it’s Mike Corley. He’s a total dirt ball. The guy works on his own schedule and expects you to deal with it. Amazed he’s still in business the way he works. Hopefully this will discourage people from working with him or anyone else in his firm.
The same thing has happened to us twice this summer. We already have had the contract and then another contract goes out to the new higher bidder. Both houses are still for sale since the other higher bidder never signed the contract. Then the sellers have come crying back to us. We had already moved on from both houses. We don’t understand why the sellers would take such a gamble. We even told the sellers of the second house that we would walk away if they considered another offer after accepting ours. I’m not sure if it’s the sellers who are doing this on their own or if it is the real estate brokers who are making this mess.It seems to be the brokers. It’s so hard to actually buy a house now. Hoepfully we will finally get a signed contract now with our 3rd contract.
Stuy…it would be a real service to point out what people may be in for with a slimy broker like that.
If they come back to you because the other “offers” have fallen through play real hard ball.
AND, at that point find a way to tell the seller what has been going on. Even if you need to slip something in their mailbox.
OP here – my husband says its bad karma for me to actually name him here but here’s a clue – when you go to his website, call his cell phone or office, all of the recordings say “Thank you for calling (blank) Realty, where the BEST experience in real estate starts now.” Oh, the irony.
I think we are just going to move on and look for something else at this point – on principal alone, we won’t up our offer. It was so disappointing because it took us one year to find a place where we liked both the block and the house.
Thank you everyone. I do feel better.