Agent playing both sides?

[SiValleySteph]

I'm pretty irritated right now.
We're trying to buy a house and it's seeming increasingly clear that something is not on the up & up. We found this house at an open house on Sunday. Our agent was not with us. Another couple was there that was very interested. From listening to the questions they were asking the seller's agent (SA), it seemed like they did not have the agent. (Asking how you write an offer, etc.) The SA told us at the open house that they would be taking offers on Wednesday. Starting on Sunday afternoon, our agent tried to get in touch with the SA. She was able to let the seller know we would view the house Monday afternoon, but was unable to reach the SA. We say the house Monday and wanted to put in an offer. The SA still did not return calls and did not answer her cell/office number. On Tuesday afternoon, our agent went to the SA's broker, the SA's house and finally went to the property and spoke to the seller to let her know that we have been trying to reach her agent and put in an offer. The seller was very surprised. It was only AFTER that that the SA finally called our agent and denied having any knowledge of our agent trying to reach her. Our agent offered to bring the phone records. :p She then told our agent that they were taking offers today and she was expecting 6 offers. (Yeah right. Think she would have called us back in that case!) Our agent presented our offer at 1:30pm with an 8pm deadline for a response. The SA promised a call by 5pm. We still haven't heard anything (it's almost 10pm). WTH?

We are all thinking that the SA is also representing that other couple interested in the house and wants them to buy it so they can get double commissisons, so she's trying to buy time to get them qualified or whatever. It's so frustrating! We're not on an even playing ground. Ugh.

Is this ethical? I mean, the agent could offer a discount to the seller if she represents the buyer, right? So if we had the same offer, they would choose the other buyer for the discount? Or the agent could bump up the other couple's offer by shaving a bit off her commission and still come out ahead?

Any thoughts on strategy? It seems like they're not even going to give us a chance to counter... We did offer over asking, BTW.

Anyways, it looks like we'll probably have to let it go. Man, I'm dissapointed! :(

Also, DH is now wondering if it's always better to use the seller's agent because then the seller's agent will try harder to get your offer accepted ???

[Ummm]

i think whether dual-agency is allowed is different from state-to-state?

sorry i don't have any strategies - good luck!!!!

[gokatgo]

Yes, the seller's agent often comes out ahead by representing both buyer and seller, but no, you do not want to use a seller's agent IMO. You want someone who is (at least theoretically) representing your interests alone for negotiation, etc.

Your situation seems like an example where dual agency doesn't work well for the seller either - I would be highly irritated at my agent if I was that seller.

[lee60657]

SiValley - First off, I am not in the real estate business, but I wanted to pop in and agree with goto that you should not use the seller's agent, b/c she won't have your best interest in mind - she will be WAY more concerned with her commissions when it comes time to negotiate. I definitely think that they are playing games with you and it sounds as if the seller may not even be aware of it. As a seller, I would probably not like having my agent represent the buyer of the property as well for the same reasons I said above. In a situation like that, though it may technically be legal, it seems that there is a conflict of interest.

Anyway, I really hope it works out for your family - I am in this process now - we close in 2 weeks - so I know how stressful and frustrating it can be. I also have to say that the market is NUTS where you live! I read all these posts about people making initial offers over the asking price - that is SO different from where I live! Please update us.....

[diam124]

I agree - you definitely do not want to use the seller's agent. We had friends who did that (they didn't know any better) and they got screwed.

[boilermaker]

I agree that this situation does not sound professional in the least. The SA is prob trying to earn a double comission, which helps only herself, not anyone else, including the buyers in this case.

I'm kind of passive agressive, so I would be tempted to go tot he house and leave a note for the current owners. At least if you have to pass on the house, you could get some satisfaction from making the sellers pissed at their agent. :)

[RobynScott]

I'm in agreement with boilermaker. Something is not on the up and up here - I would want to be in touch with the seller to be sure he/she even knows that you made an offer - her agent is obligated (I believe) to present it to her, but you never know. I would probably also get in touch with the SA's broker to let him/her know that you think something is not on the up and up.

Good luck - I'm sorry the SA's is being such a pain!

[SiValleySteph]

Thanks guys!

The seller was present for the offer presentation, so she is aware of it. But we have no idea what the SA may have told her after that. Our offer expired after 8PM last night and we go no call.

It just makes me so angry! I'm sure the seller would be upset, too, if she knew what was going on. She was very surprised to hear on Tues that we hadn't been able to get a hold of her agent.

Thanks for the advice about not using the seller's agent. We don't want to and we have an agent we like & trust, but we were just kind of "thinking out loud" if that would help get us a house we wanted.

We're pretty much resigned to not getting the house. They still have not called us to formally reject our offer, so they are stringing us along a bit. It is expired now, so if they come back to us, I'm tempted to go back to list price. :p

ETA - Here, if you have more than one offer above listing price, you usually counter all those offers. So at the very least we were expecting a counter offer!

[jajacobsen]

I think if teh SA was ignoring your agent/offer in order to get double commission from another, unrepresented buyer, then she has violated hher fiduciary duty to teh seller, and this is against the law. She may be just inside the law because she was dodging your agent. But she should be reported.

[LRL]

Steph- I am so sorry you are having issues. I really think that the agent sounds shady and is not representing the sellers as he is contracted to. I think the sellers may not know a lot about the selling process, and are relying on their less than adequate realtor to take care of everything. I would seriously consider getting in touch with the sellers again. I would bet that they knew nothing about the expiration time of your offer. (Yikes, it's stories like this where the sellers sue the realtor-)

Definitely do not go with the sellers agent. They represent the sellers interest, and you will not get unbiased opinion about the home, condition, value, etc.

You never know, maybe you will hear from the sellers.

[Toonces]

I think if teh SA was ignoring your agent/offer in order to get double commission from another, unrepresented buyer, then she has violated hher fiduciary duty to teh seller, and this is against the law. She may be just inside the law because she was dodging your agent. But she should be reported.

BIG ditto to that.

We're under contract for a house and have dual agency. Our agent is actually cutting us a deal on the commission for when our current house sells. We have no concerns. We could have potentially been in an above list price bidding war (there was another offer on the table), but that didn't happened. Just wanted to chime in b/c dual agency isn't always a bad thing.

I hope things work out for you!

[SiValleySteph]

Our agent faxed in a request for response, or something like that, so hopefully we will at least hear something!!

We're having a heat wave now and the new house doesn't have AC, so at least that will make it easier to swallow losing the house... :)

Depending on the outcome, we do plan on reporting the SA. Did I mention she lives in the neighborhood where this house is? Makes everything a bit akward.

[SiValleySteph]

We didn't get the house. :( We only know this because my husband went over and talked to the sellers. Our agent asked the SA's brokerage if she could talk to the seller and they said no, so DH went. We found out that they accepted an offer for the same price we had with no contengiences. We had 5 days, which was what the SA told us they wanted. (We presented our offer first, BTW.) Their agent did not recommend countering apparently, which was dumb, because we probably would have been willing to up our bid. Countering when you have multiple offers over asking is pretty much customary here. The no contengencies could really come back to hurt them because they did no roof or pool or radiant heat inspection. It's a big risk on both the sellers and the buyers. Anyways, we're moving on. But we will be trying to file some sort of complaint.

I'm pretty dissapointed. :(

(ETA - The seller said they had other offers as well, but not as high I guess.)

[PinkMartini]

Awww sorry to hear that Steph :( I'm sure something better will come along - and hopefully with A/C :D

[jajacobsen]

I'm really sorry to hear this.

[richgal]

Sorry, Stephanie. :(
We also lost out on a house last year in the exact same fashion -- the accepted an offer for the same price as ours, but with 0 contingencies. We also did not receive a counter-offer, but I was not surprised... We've never gotten a counter offer on any offers we've made in the past (and we have always offered over asking). I stand by the statement I made earlier this week: it's NUTS out there!!! (Oh, and that seller's agent is a complete idiot. Sorry you had to deal with that.)
Good luck to you! I am sure you will find something even more perfect for you before too long...

[SiValleySteph]

I'm so sad! I loved that house. It was an Eichler atrium mid-century modern.
:(

Oh well. It's possible the seller genuinely just wanted to accept the offer and be done and there wasn't anything shady going on, but it just seems so suspicious with the SA avoiding our calls all week.

[SiValleySteph]

the accepted an offer for the same price as ours, but with 0 contingencies. We also did not receive a counter-offer, but I was not surprised...

Hmmm. Maybe that's not so unusal then. I don't think we would have gone with no contingencies since they didn't do all the inspections. Just too risky!

[ejs]

When we bought our current house and have put in offers on others since then, we've always put no contingencies. Yes, it's risky, but we know that's what sellers prefer.

SiValleySteph, keep checking out Sunnyvale. Eichlers are always going on the market there.

[SiValleySteph]

ejs, Did you find that the sellers have generally already done inspections? Other houses we looked at had all the inspections done, so no contengencies wouldn't have been such a problem. This one was missing quite a few that could have concealed major problems. We'll see for next time!

(Plus the SA told us they wanted 5 days contengencies, so that's what we put in...)

[ejs]

ejs, Did you find that the sellers have generally already done inspections? Other houses we looked at had all the inspections done, so no contengencies wouldn't have been such a problem. This one was missing quite a few that could have concealed major problems. We'll see for next time!

(Plus the SA told us they wanted 5 days contengencies, so that's what we put in...)
Most of the time they had. But my DH also did a lot of crawling around looking at things. We also really trust our realtor, so she would give us good input.

I know how much it sucks to lose a house you love. We waaaay overbid on the perfect Someone else waaaaay overbid our offer. The sellers liked us and our story more so they said the house was ours if we matched the other bid. But we just couldn't justify doing that.

[LRL]

So sorry Steph! I am with you though, I still don't think that the SA was telling the seller the whole story.

[laura]

Yuck, that really sucks. FWIW, our situation was extremely similar to yours (ie. shady) but the SA counseled them to counter everyone (there were 6 offers, ours was 2nd highest, with better terms), so they did. We countered back and [it is said] we got the house by $500 - it's all so crazy. (We also did a 5 day contingency for termite inspection since they did not provide that.) In our situation the SA did also represent another couple presenting an offer, and our realtor said unfortunately in that situation (in this area), it really comes down to the ethics of the agent. She said in their office, if you are in that situation, you have a superior sit with you through every step of the process to double-check your work and any inkling of impropriety, but that this SA basically said "oh, I'm trustworthy" or something like that - uh huh. In the end I think the only way we got it is that the couple represented by the SA didn't have enough funding to support outbidding us. At least that is my guess.

Hopefully this means you haven't found your perfect house yet - but I can commisserate. We let a place that was really cute pass us by and while I love our place, I still think about that other place!

[Lucy Van Pelt]

Hey there Steph! We live in an Eichler style home - I guess it's kind of an Eichler knock off. Be warned - these homes get damn hot in the summer!! I'm not sure if they are all the same, but ours has no insulation in the ceiling. Combine that with the tar and gravel roof and no air conditioning and it's a recipe for misery on the hotter days of the year. If I was house shopping right now, there's no way I would consider another home in this style...unless it had central air. DH broke down and bought a room a/c a few weeks ago. It's ok...but still very warm inside. It's pretty bad when I want to be in Sac where the temp gets in the 100+ temps all summer because I can escape the heat...but all the homes have a/c.

[richgal]

Just thought of something else. In the past when we've made offers, one of the sheets we had to sign was about what happens when the same agency (doesn't have to be the same agent, but can be) represents both the buyer and the seller. I cannot remember for the life of me what it actually said, but for future reference, you can probably ask your realtor about it. It's a single sheet. We signed one with our old agent who worked for Coldwell Banker when we bought our townhouse, and also with our new agent who was working at Referral Realty at the time we wrote offers for a new house. She now works at Alain Pinel, but we haven't made any offers since she moved offices, but I'm pretty sure they have the same deal. If I remember, I'll look it up when I get home. I probably have copies from the offer we made when we bought our current house (all the ones we didn't get went directly into the shredder in a state of disgust as soon as we find out we didn't get the house. I'm sure you know the feeling.)

FWIW, I think you did the right thing with this house... Eichlers are known for having hidden problems. If they didn't have a thorough report from a reputable inspector, I really think you did the right thing by giving yourself an out. But I'm still sorry it didn't work out for you. :(

[SiValleySteph]

Well, we're going to put an offer in on another house this week. With AC. I like this one more. :p DH liked the last one more. We shall see...

Oh the excitment! (Translate: STRESS) :D

We knew the Eichler would have problems with heating/cooling and that was a major drawback. Sad to say you can't get a perfect house around here unless you have maybe 1.5x our budget (2x even, maybe).