S
sortastock
Member
Hey guys, I'm a first time home buyer and I think I'm getting jerked around by a realtor! I need some help.
There's a bit of a story behind this one. I just took an awesome job in a small town (<4000 people). My employer is letting me stay in a home on the company property for 3 months as part of my compensation package.
We're starting the third month on Monday, so now my wife and I are looking to buy a home in town- (we'd like to rent, but it apprarently it's not really an option here). There are two realty companies in the town. We started with company A, and we were referred to a lender and got preapproved. As it turns out, we weren't happy with company A, so we switched to company B. They showed us a bunch of properties, FINALLY we found one we like.
Here's the first hitch: as we found out, our realtor at company B is married to our loan officer at the lending company. Now I understand that it's illegal for our loan officer to share any of our information with his wife, but I'm also realistic and understand that we're in a small town, and, they're freakin MARRIED.
Back to the house: we found the house we like, decided to put in an offer.
As it turns out, there was already an offer on the house, and she's the agent working on that contract. She told us there have been a few counter offers going back and forth between the two parties, and the seller has the offer sitting on the table, and is contemplating whether or not he should accept. I suspect that the offer is pretty low otherwise he would have signed it long ago.
I'm pretty sure our realtor is friends with the seller- she knows a lot about him, and has him on speed dial, and they talk like good friends. The realtor called the seller, told him to expect another offer. That night we called the realtor, told her what our offer is. It was within 4% of the asking price. She said not good enough, call me back with something better. We called her back and brought it to within 2.5% of asking price, thinking, yahoo, bought a house, little more than we wanted to spend on it, but no big deal. She was to email me the offer letter to sign. She never did. Instead, she's telling us she called the seller, and he wants more. Odd, we thought... I asked her if she could just submit a signed offer to him with a $500 earnest deposit. She said no, we're just going to talk through it. Umm... that's not right, we thought... so I told her I'd call her back and we can talk more about it.
My concern is that she's buddies with the seller, so she has a vested interest in jacking the price on two different levels now... On top of that, I think she knows what we make. We're qualified for about twice what the house is worth, and I think she knows that. And on top of THAT, we're first time home buyers from out of state, perfect opportunity for her to help a buddy out, and pad her commission check a little.
So I've got a couple options to move forward:
Keep playing her "nothing in writing" game
Talk to her boss about what's going on
Just go talk with the seller and see what the hell is going on.
Get another agent to help us out...
Any other ideas?
There's a bit of a story behind this one. I just took an awesome job in a small town (<4000 people). My employer is letting me stay in a home on the company property for 3 months as part of my compensation package.
We're starting the third month on Monday, so now my wife and I are looking to buy a home in town- (we'd like to rent, but it apprarently it's not really an option here). There are two realty companies in the town. We started with company A, and we were referred to a lender and got preapproved. As it turns out, we weren't happy with company A, so we switched to company B. They showed us a bunch of properties, FINALLY we found one we like.
Here's the first hitch: as we found out, our realtor at company B is married to our loan officer at the lending company. Now I understand that it's illegal for our loan officer to share any of our information with his wife, but I'm also realistic and understand that we're in a small town, and, they're freakin MARRIED.
Back to the house: we found the house we like, decided to put in an offer.
As it turns out, there was already an offer on the house, and she's the agent working on that contract. She told us there have been a few counter offers going back and forth between the two parties, and the seller has the offer sitting on the table, and is contemplating whether or not he should accept. I suspect that the offer is pretty low otherwise he would have signed it long ago.
I'm pretty sure our realtor is friends with the seller- she knows a lot about him, and has him on speed dial, and they talk like good friends. The realtor called the seller, told him to expect another offer. That night we called the realtor, told her what our offer is. It was within 4% of the asking price. She said not good enough, call me back with something better. We called her back and brought it to within 2.5% of asking price, thinking, yahoo, bought a house, little more than we wanted to spend on it, but no big deal. She was to email me the offer letter to sign. She never did. Instead, she's telling us she called the seller, and he wants more. Odd, we thought... I asked her if she could just submit a signed offer to him with a $500 earnest deposit. She said no, we're just going to talk through it. Umm... that's not right, we thought... so I told her I'd call her back and we can talk more about it.
My concern is that she's buddies with the seller, so she has a vested interest in jacking the price on two different levels now... On top of that, I think she knows what we make. We're qualified for about twice what the house is worth, and I think she knows that. And on top of THAT, we're first time home buyers from out of state, perfect opportunity for her to help a buddy out, and pad her commission check a little.
So I've got a couple options to move forward:
Keep playing her "nothing in writing" game
Talk to her boss about what's going on
Just go talk with the seller and see what the hell is going on.
Get another agent to help us out...
Any other ideas?
