This reminds me a bit of the process getting into my current house.
House #1. We found a house in a town on the train lines into the city that we liked. We had made a verbal offer with our broker in the brokers in the seller decided that we would have a meeting together and fill out a formal written offer. My wife and I arrived a little early so we decided to drive by the house which was located on a steep hill. To our surprise, the property next to us had been subdivided send a new house was going up that in the sub-decided lot covered virtually the whole lot. The owner/builder had gotten around the two story limitation by making the “basement“ 10 feet high. So wedged up against my lot I had a 30 foot monstrosity being framed out. Additionally the new house was on the uphill side of us on a fairly steep hill. The effect of it would have been like living next to a drive-in movie screen. I looked at my wife and said I’m not even sure we’ll get enough sunlight to grow grass. We decided that we no longer wanted the property.
We went to meeting and told everyone we had just driving by the property. They immediately all got concerned looks on their faces. I said that we weren’t interested in the property anymore. The buyer says to me “look tell me a dollar amount that you would make you interested. I said there isn’t one and I wished the seller well and walked out. He looked like he was going to be sick. I probably would’ve felt a little more badly for him if it wasn’t for the fact he did not disclose that the adjoining lot was subdivided and that he has opposed the application for the zoning waivers for building of the new house on it.
House #2. We had been in the middle of a back-and-forth negotiation on a House that we liked where are you go to the called up and said that the seller has decided to end the negotiations. I asked her “so there’s no deal? No possibility for negotiation?” and she said there was not.
I hung up the phone and called the seller and who are confirmed that she terminated negotiations because she felt like we were too far apart. I said that I completely understood and then I just wanted to tell her how much we enjoyed meeting her and wish her the very best of luck selling the property. She seemed a little taken aback. I told her that I also wanted to say it’s not that we didn’t think the house was lovely and worth what she was asking, it was just that we were young couple and at the top of our budget. I mentioned again that I knew that property had been on the market for a while so they really wished her the best of luck and I hope she found a buyer soon. By the end of the call the negotiation was re-opened.
My broker called me up in a panic and said “you can’t talk to the seller, only I can talk to the seller.” I pointed out to her that I can talk to whomever I wanted and that until I did that the deal has fallen through. I told her not to worry that I was still keeping her as my broker, but she should just get out of the way and let me close the deal.
The seller came down and we went up but we were still a little far apart. The listing realtor called me and asked me if there was anything they could do. I said yes the seller has come down and I have come up, but the only one who’s holding fast is you. If you really want to make the sale reduce your commission, which they did.
Fast forward to the closing. Everyone was sitting around the table when the broker who had agreed to the reduced commission got up and said “there’s been some talk about reducing commission, on principal I’m not going to do that.” I said “Jim, I understand, I’m a man of principle myself. I see you have a calculator in front of you. Just so we all understand the math, can you do a quick computation for me?“ He said absolutely. I thanked him and said “can you take 6% and multiply it times zero, because on principal I won’t do business with someone who doesn’t keep their word.” You could’ve heard a pin drop in the room. I said that I’m sorry that Jim wasted everyone’s time you and got up to leave. Jim said “ wait a minute, wait a minute, we can figure something out after we close.“ I said “well actually we can’t Jim since we’ve already established that you aren’t a man of your word, but what we can do is you can write me a check right now, in the amount that I tell you, and as long as you’re willing to do that I am willing to go forward in deference to everyone else in the room.” I came up with a new number that exceeded what he would’ve had to give me had we kept the original deal. As he went to write the check his hands were shaking so badly he had to excuse himself and run out in the hallway to be able to do it.
I’ve been living here for almost 40 years now and have socialized with both of the listing realtor and my realtor, but never the broker, oddly enough.
Bottom line is, if you’ve got a good listing, brokers will rush to list it and to sell it as long as you were using local agents. If, however, you use an out-of-town agent, the locals will never take anyone to look at it.
