Things are looking up!

I submitted two contracts that were accepted last week. One was for two acres of land in a really nice, ritzy part of town. I had been working with the buyers for a couple of weeks. We had written the contract about three weeks ago but there was already a contract on it so our contract became a back up contract.

We kept looking and found a beautiful half acre lot in the same area. It was across the street from a scenic lake. The buyer decided to submit an offer.

Back at the office, I called the listing agent to make sure the lot was still available. This is what he said :

'Yes it is available. Are you writing an offer?'

Yes, I am', I answered.

'Ok, after you write the offer, call me. I have something to go over with you.'

Ok, something's up with this guy. I wrote the contract and called him. It seems that two months from now, there will be a $2,000 charge for a sewer line the city is putting in and wanted to tell me the seller will not pay for it.

Ok. Not good. This guy didn't have that information on the listing, nor did he tell me before we wrote the contract. Are you seeing the problem here? That's called failure to disclose information and ought to cost this guy his license.

So, the next day I inform my buyers and they are ok with it, as long as I make sure that the $2000 quoted is the actual price. I then spend days trying to hunt down the correct person at the Company putting in the sewer lines, the whole time being pressured by the other listing agent to get my buyers to sign the contract contingent on the price being $2000. I refuse to do it, because by this time, I think the agent is shadier than a Politician trying to get your vote ( I might as well have said a bald face liar, huh?).

The agent faxes me a document from the sewer line company that was sent to everyone in the neighborhood, outlining the cost of the installation. Remember, this is a document the listing agent, who told me it was only going to be $2000, sent to me, to prove his point. The document, in black and white, gave the individual cost as being around $10,000.

About an hour later, I get a call from the guy in charge of the sewer line installation. He informs me that the cost per owner on this street will be somewhere between $7,000 to $10,000.

Soon after I get off the phone with him, the listing agent calls me back asking me if I had read the document he sent me. I pointed out to him that the fax he sent me proved that he was wrong. He got a bit mad and asked me to read it with him. He starts reading the exact same lines I had just read to him, which I tell him. He continues to read it and reads this to me:

individual cost for sewer line installation, four thousand.....Oh....Uhhhhhh.....Hmmhh.....You....You are right.....'

He then tells me that paper is not correct. I tell him it is the paper he faxed to me and that I had just gotten off the phone with the lead guy in charge with installing the line who told me that the charge would be at least $7,000.

Get this, the listing agent tells me to not believe that guy, he is just a suit. I should believe him, the listing agent.

I ask him why should I believe him when the info he sent me proved him wrong and the guy that would actually know the cost also said it would be far more than $2,000. Not to mention that as a listing agent he didn't disclose the line was going in and the buyer would be responsible for it.

He got very quiet. I told him my buyer would not buy that lot from him due to his actions and hung up. (I had just gotten off the phone with my buyer, where I had told him I had gotten a call on the first contract, which we could now get since the first buyer had pulled out of the original contract on the two acres and he had said, let's get the two acres.)

The moral of the story is to ask questions, not only in Real Estate, but any business. There are crooks out there that are out to make money, however they can. I'm glad I ran into this guy to see how some agents act. All the guy is doing is spiting himself, he is probably losing a lot of return business as soon as his buyers take a look around and realize he screwed them.

  ¶ 5:40 PM