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I'm going to preface this rant by saying I doubt I have any recourse, but I feel like my wife and I are were discriminated against either because of our race or because the listing agent did not want to split her commission with our agent. Let me explain.
Wife and I have been looking for a house for over a year (I'm white, she's hispanic). Finally, we attend an open house on Sunday for a brand new house that we love. We have an agent of our own, and she rarely goes with us to anything, but we called her up after the open house and asked her to convey an offer to the listing agent, which she did at 8 pm (OH ended at 3 pm).
The listing agent tells my agent that there's some competition and we should submit a good offer if we want to be considered. We submit a formal offer form for $20K above the asking price and a credit preapproval letter from our mortgage broker on Monday. The agent then calls my mortgage broker and asks for an even more detailed letter and credit check, which he provides to her. We have perfect credit, but there's one small caveat: we currently own a condo which we plan to sell and already have buyers interested in. However, if for some reason we can't sell it before closing on the new house, we need my father, who has perfect credit and no mortgage, to cosign on the loan (otherwise, I'm fine on my own) and my mortgage broker put that in the letter. Either way, I'm very well qualified to pay.
We submitted our offer and didn't hear back so I had my agent call and instructed her to offer yet another $30,000 (the most we could possibly pay) if they were still on the fence. They told her that they weren't interested in passing our new offer along to their client and that our original offer had been rejected for the following reason(s):
1. The seller had accepted an offer from another buyer before the open house and thought it would be "wrong" to consider other offers, no matter what the money was. That would make this a complete bait and switch because they held the open house and made us fill out a form and asked for all kinds of credit info fro us after the open house and they never said the seller had already accepted someone else's offer.
1A. They told my wife a variation on #1, saying that they had accepted an offer right after the open house. Considering that the open house ended at 3 and our relator called their realtor 5 hours later and was told to apply. This makes no sense. You're in such a hurry to accept the first offer that comes in that you can't wait even a few hours to see if others come in? Then you instruct your agent to act as if you're considering all offers and get people to run credit checks and the like?
2. They said that, even though we had perfect credit, we will probably not need our coborrower, and he also has perfect credit that was verified by our mortgage broker, that my father is "not trustworthy" and we're too much of a risk. The mortgage broker even said when he talked to her it sounded like she was looking for a reason not to present us to her client.
The fact that they weren't even interested in passing along our follow-up offer of 30K more to their client reveals their true intentions. Either they don't want to sell to a mixed race family or they don't want to split their commission with my realtor (presumably the winning bidder just went through them). They never even told us if we had the high bid.
Time will tell what happens with this house, but the realtor has no stake in your race/ethnicity unless they are the extremely prejudiced neighbor We didn't know jack about our buyers, and didn't want to, until we saw the sales contract. Turns out our buyers are of an ethnicity not commonly seen in Garden City but no one cared. Also find it hard to believe your agent doesn't want to split the commission as it's rare for an agent to sell their own listings, but if you didn't make it clear at the open house that you were represented, that may have pissed her off.
You'll never prove anything, people show houses after they accept offers all the time. This seller may indeed have had a good offer but not had all the incidentals on those buyers when you submitted yours, and asked for financials from both. And you bid against yourself and may have created a bidding war on the house, and once you were out, all they needed was $1000 more from the other party to go with them. Our buyers outbid their competition by 1,000 - sometimes that's all it takes.
Like I said - see what happens with the house this week and next. And let us know. I know you've been looking for a house for awhile - sorry you lost this one.
Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 20 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,085,392 times
Reputation: 15538
Once the seller has accepted an offer the listing agent should have conveyed that the home was no longer available. Is it possible the seller failed to communicate to their agent what they had done? Only if you could prove that the seller accepted a lower offer because of race could you possibly have grounds. Maybe some of the realtors who post on here will be able to contribute..
Don't give up the NY real estate process is one of the most convoluted experiences there is...
The seller was there at the open house and we met her so she knew our races. What I find unbelievable is the claim that the seller had definitively accepted an offer within 5 hours of the first showing but still had her realtor go through the process of making us jump through hoops even though she had no intention of even considering a higher offer
If I were holding an open house and someone made me an offer during or right after, and other folks said we'll have our realtor call with an offer, I'd give it a few hours. In fact, we've attended other open houses and gotten a call Monday morning from the listing agent saying 'we have a lot of interest in the house. Would you like to make a bid?' Their job should be to get the highest offer not the first. And if it's true that even 5 hours after the OH, the house was sold, then they shouldn't have lied about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by twingles
Time will tell what happens with this house, but the realtor has no stake in your race/ethnicity unless they are the extremely prejudiced neighbor We didn't know jack about our buyers, and didn't want to, until we saw the sales contract. Turns out our buyers are of an ethnicity not commonly seen in Garden City but no one cared. Also find it hard to believe your agent doesn't want to split the commission as it's rare for an agent to sell their own listings, but if you didn't make it clear at the open house that you were represented, that may have pissed her off.
You'll never prove anything, people show houses after they accept offers all the time. This seller may indeed have had a good offer but not had all the incidentals on those buyers when you submitted yours, and asked for financials from both. And you bid against yourself and may have created a bidding war on the house, and once you were out, all they needed was $1000 more from the other party to go with them. Our buyers outbid their competition by 1,000 - sometimes that's all it takes.
Like I said - see what happens with the house this week and next. And let us know. I know you've been looking for a house for awhile - sorry you lost this one.
I think you can have your agent request to present your highest offer to the seller in person or via 3 way phone call with listing agent. This way you know your offer gets presented. The listing agent may not have told the seller that you offered another $30,000 as the listing agent wants to keep the sale "in house". This is against the law. All offers have to be submitted to seller.
The plot thickens. My wife tells me that, when she called the listing agent directly, the listing agent said she would not pass along our higher offer unless the current one, which is not in contract yet, fell through. She also informed my wife that the accepted offer was 40,000 to 50,000 less than what we offered, but that the seller felt "morally obligated" to accept the first offer she got (only 5 hours before we called).
We're gonna give up on our agent. She didn't stand up for us here or elsewhere and she hasn't helped us do anything or even attended open houses with us.
I have to tell you that the listing agent sounds very fishy. No one in their right mind would refuse $50,000 if the other terms were good. You are saying that your credit is good and you are pre-qualified for a loan. Under real estate law, she CANNOT not present your higher offer to her seller.
Here's what I suggest. Send the offer in writing via fax or email and demand that it be presented. Also call the brokerage company head. Tell him what is happening and that you demand recourse. Tell him that you are aware of the law and that she cannot legally not present your offer if the contract has NOT been signed yet.
If this does not work in 24 hours, look up names of owners of the house (via reverse address search) or googling, or I can help you with that - and call owners and inform them what happened. You may even find them on facebook. They may not be aware at all that they have a 30-40K higher offer on the table.....
There are many unethical agents and if you really want the house, fight for it.
First, let's put the "discrimination" aside, since it's unknown if there is any basis for that assumption.
Next, some sellers instruct their listing agents that they not only want all offers to go through said listing agent but also that they do not want to negotiate with anyone - only through their agent. If that is the case, a letter from the sellers should be on file in the listing agent's office to that effect. In that situation, the selling agent can request an "offer acknowledgment" from the listing agent - a document that bears the seller's signature, stating that the seller has seen the offer; there is no obligation on the seller's part to consider it. Should no such letter exist, IMHO it is always helpful (as the agent for the buyer) to present the offer to the homeowner directly, even if only via telephone.
With regard to "availability" of the listing, it is common practice to let agents who call for an appointment know that there is an "accepted offer" (some agents working with buyers won't even bother to show it if they hear that); in some instances, the seller no longer wants further offers and then the comment will be "accepted offer, no more showings". However, this too requires a letter on file from the seller.
I don't know if the listing agent presented your higher offer to the seller (see above "offer acknowledgment form"). You can ask your agent if s/he asked for and received one. Without written instructions not to present further offers, that would be unethical.
And yes, I have had occasional sellers who felt "morally obligated" to honor the verbal implied commitment of the "first accepted offer" even in the face of another, higher, offer. If they communicated that to the listing agent, then having you provide additional financial information was senseless.
On the other hand, sometimes it's not only about the highest offer--occasionally a connection between the two parties is established that supersedes $$$. Buying a house is mostly an emotional decision and often the sellers are emotionally attached to their current home; finding a buyer who shares those feelings about their home can trump a higher offer.
I'm sorry you feel you were given the run around. Hopefully your experience going forward will be a better one!
No one in their right mind would refuse $50,000 if the other terms were good. You are saying that your credit is good and you are pre-qualified for a loan. .
The OP stated that their current home, a condo, is not yet in contract but only has "interested parties". In spite of the fact that the OP has excellent credit and a willing and qualified co-signer, that might make some sellers less inclined to consider the offer when other, less "complicated", offers are on the table.
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