Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Is this allowed?
Long story, sorry. I think my realtor may have done something that is not (or shouldn't be!) allowed, and it potentially has killed a deal on my townhouse.
We have our townhouse listed at 285. We got an offer of 250. We've been negotiating back and forth for a week, now. Yesterday morning, my realtor called me and said, "They are offering 275 and want you to pay the association fees for a year. I'm going to help you with that just to get this deal done, since the holidays are coming and the market is really going to slow down. If you pay half of the year's fees, (about 800 dollars), then I will pay half, and we can move forward." We said yes. She was supposed to call their agent to accept their offer. We expected a contract to sign later that day. Nothing all day.
She just called me and told me that she told the other realtor that she was going to pay half of the year's fees, and he told her she shouldn't do that, that he thought he could get them to accept 6 motnhs only. She told him to do whatever he wanted. No one told me anything. They, in her words, "flew off the handle" and said they were walking away. The other agent then offered the additional six months and told them that they would be paid for by my realtor, not me. They said we were being unreasonable and are still walking away.
I told my realtor that I was upset that our acceptance wasn't conveyed and asked how something other than what we agreed to could be presented. She then tells me that the reason they are walking is because interest rates rose, not because of the association fees. Could be true, I have no idea.
My question is: Can they do that?? Why was our acceptance not conveyed and a counteroffer made, instead? I wanted it to be a happy yay-they-accepted moment, not a contentious counter offer! Who knows - I could be under contract right now if they had done what they were supposed to.
The thing that kills me is that she offered half of the fees to me from the start. Never asked me to pay it. If she had just told me what they wanted, we CERTAINLY would have agreed to it. There's no way I'd let a deal slip away for less than 1000 dollars.
Re: Is this allowed?
It is not uncommon for a REA to offer to pay for something involving a deal to try and get it closed. Your REA conveyed your offer and it sounds like the other agent is the one who really screwed things up by suggesting and then offering to his clients, only six months. I can't comment about the miscommunications between all parties, but it sounds to me like the buyers just wanted an excuse to walk away.
I mean if you and agents were will to come up with the condo fees buyers were requesting, there really is no reason for them to act the way they did unless they decided they just did not want the house. In my experience with DH's real estate transactions, I have never seen a deal fall apart over less than $1000 unless one of the parties wants to bust the deal.
So sorry this happened to you. Hope things can be worked out.
Both of the agents were at fault here, especially the buying agent, but I also think the buyers got cold feet. They started out by making a lowball offer and eventually walked away over something minor, so it's hard to believe they were serious in the first place.
At this point, I would meet with your realtor and have her explain her side of the story one more time. I would be concerned about continuing to work with her, because it sounds like she was too easily pursuaded by the other agent, if not intimidated.
1. The agent should have conveyed the offer the way you stated it. I would consider changing agents.
2. If the buyers flew off the handle over 800 bucks or what not ... then seriously, in the scheme of things - sometimes it is better to not get into a deal with someone like this. If they 'flew off the handle' and walked away over something like this - there is a good chance this deal wasn't going to happen anyway - better to get it over now instead of later.
3. I rather doubt this is about interest rates or the 800 bucks ... more likely they let their emotions start the offer/negotiations and weren't really financially ready.
This. I know it's a bummer to "lose a sale" but you likely dodged a bullet on this one. Even a practically-new house can have more than $800 in repairs come up during inspection, and what would they have done then? It sounds like they were never that serious to begin with, better that you knew early and never lost time marketing to other potential buyers.
DS1 born June 2008 | m/c at 9w March 2011 | DS2 born April 2012