does this sound a bit fishy... or does it happen?

[2CheekyMonkeys]

we are currently negotiating the price of sale for a house. this has been going on for almost 3 weeks, due to the vendors being overseas in different time zones and there are three of them who all have to agree. anyway, we initially offered 10 grand less than asking price, then 5 grand less, then 2 grand less. this one particular vendor is being stubborn and is inisisting on asking price (while the other 2 are negotiable he is not). anyway, the agent today told us that he is sick of it and if we can offer an extra thousand he will pay the other thousand to make it up to asking price just so he can close the deal today.

1) where is he gonna get the money from? out of his own pocket?
2) would we have to pay him back (from what he says it doesnt sound like it)
3) does this happen often?
4) why wouldnt he just tell us go for full price or its a no sale and then move on to the next people who might like to buy it?

[Aimz]

It's a tough market out there and real estate agents are struggling. Sounds like he might be doing you a good deal and $1000 wouldn't be much to him when he is getting a whopping big commission from the sale. It's probably worth his while to pay the $1000 if it means it's a done deal.

Probably best to clarify it with him - ask him all of those questions!

[Arimeh]

Mate, I can quite honestly tell you that in the 4 years that I've been in conveyancing - I've NEVER seen this, or heard this happen.

I wouldn't recommend it. Remember, agents want sales for their commission. They don't want to sell you the house because they like you. (sorry its harsh - but its true)

[~Raven~]

Sounds a bit odd to me! Maybe the vendor has said if he gets the asking price they will pay him a bonus

[-becky-]

hey! My husband is in real estate and knows this scenario well... i will be back online in half an hour and will answer your question

[2CheekyMonkeys]

awesome, thanks becky, i would love to hear what your DH has to say about it all.

i called a solicitor/conveyancer and she suggested that we get it in writing from the agent to us saying that it is a non-repayable deposit, or basically that he is paying it and we wont have to. do you reckon that sounds alright?

[Lulu]

You are in fact paying the full asking price when you didn't want to , that 1k will come out of his commission and he gets the sale........

You are being rorted, but not too much - you have to be more firm when it comes to what you are willing to pay. There is no way I would wait that long for an offer to be accepted etc. Either they want the money or not, there will be plenty more houses to buy.

[RhiChiChi]

I agree with Lulu, we put in one offer and one offer only as that was our best offer and it happened to get accepted.
I would tell the RE agent if he wants it sold, then he can put in the whole $2k, and that the last offer was your best offer and leave it at that. Sounds like you aren't competing against anyone else - they don't have any other serious buyers, otherwise why would he keep coming back to you and pushing you for more money?

[2CheekyMonkeys]

well apparantly they cant take any other offers until they have either decided to or not to go with us.? thats what he told us anyway.

to tell you the truth we can afford the asking price, but really dont want to pay it if we dont have to.

we are first home buyers so the whole thing has been pretty daunting! LOL it seems that we somehow snagged a very complicated one for our first go!

[~clover~]

Hun, my mum & dad just sold their house & they had one person hang on for months negotiating.
Eventually he refused to budge & so they dropped their price. It was around 20000 less than they wanted, but in the end they also wanted a sale.
I think stay where you are. Maybe tell them to take it or leave it. I've never heard of a RE doing that & I really don't think it'd be for your benefit if you agreed.
It sounds like they have noone else interested. Goodluck

[Lulu]

that sounds weird - usually they tell you there are 2 other couples who are putting in offers too.

Keep looking around, I don't like the sound of the RE agent. I got rid of one I didn't like because I didn't like the greasy bugger. I still bought the house at the price I was willing to pay....

[Macca79]

My way of looking at is 'What is $2 K when you are dealing with prices that are over $100 K?'. I say go with what you have put in and if this one bloke doesn't like it it's his problem. I mean if he is one of 3 people his cut would only be what, $666 there abouts (not much to get worked up over. It sounds a bit dodge to me, go with your gut instinct I say. Just make sure all structures are built to code and they have the paper work to prove. We once got jibbed with a veranda that wasn't to code and the fine was HUGE!!!!!

[-becky-]

Hi Hollo, Sorry, had to go pick up my son from daycare, I was already running late... lol

There is actually nothing unusual about this situation at all. At the end of the day the answer is simple, your agent does not want to risk losing $10,000 of commission. He is prepared to sacrifice $1000 of his own money to get things happening. It seems obvious that the seller is a difficult client, so he just wants to close the deal, get it all over with and get paid!! My husband himself has done this before. If all parties are happy with the agreement, threre is nothing fishy about it.

You will not have to pay back the money. He is offering to put it in, to close the deal...

i wouldnt say it happens often, just when an agent really wants to get something sold... lol

And he probably doesnt want to risk telling you, its full price or nothgin because he doesnt want to lose you guys. He wants it to happen!

If you have any more questions, my husband is home so feel free to PM me with questions... lol. More thna happy to help! Hope it all works out for you!!!

[2CheekyMonkeys]

macca, the thing is they are getting an unequal split of the money so i am presuming that this one guy is getting least amount in the cut so he wants to get maximum money in his own pocket. plus "apparantly" they have already lowered it by 30 000 cause there wasnt any interest in it a while ago. who knows what to believe though.

thanks becky, i have pm'ed you! :-)

[-becky-]

OS how did you go Hollo???

Are you the proud owners of your first home???

[cindyb]

We had the same thing happen with our place, the owners were not budging on 305k and we were not willing to hit 300k cos the stamp duty etc goes up at that stage. We put in an offer of 295 and the RE came back to us saying that the owners were willing to come down to 300 and could we do that, we told her we could come up to 297 and that was it (we had approval for 380k) and so she said she would throw in the other 3k and call it a deal - the house had been on the market for months and she wanted to get rid of it, nobody had taken a second look at it as it was so filthy and gross thanks to the people renting it.
Whis all meant we got a bargain, she got a sale, the owners got rid of the house and all the neighbours in the crt could finalyl get rid of the grotty tennants! WIN WIN situation!

[Phteven]

In this economic climate you should be able to get a house for much less that the asking price. It's easy to get emotional and think that this is the perfect home and you have to have it but there are other perfect homes out there. It kind of sounds like the vendors think they can jerk you around because you're first home buyers.

If I were you I would call the agent and say that you have rethought and you are withdrawing your offer. Once you show that you're prepared to walk away you are bargaining from a stronger position. Go and look at a few other homes ask the realtors what offer the vendors would be prepared to take and then when the agent from the first place gets back to you (he will) you will be able to demonstrate that you have other options. If you re-offer a lower figure at that point you'll be more likely to get it.

[Shalou]

well apparantly they cant take any other offers until they have either decided to or not to go with us.? thats what he told us anyway.

Hi, I used to work in real estate too and unless things have changed in the last few years, the agent has a legal obligation to submit all offers to the seller from all buyers until the seller is in receipt of a signed contract and a deposit has been paid on the contract price. I have heard of agents making up the difference as I too have dropped my commission to get a sale but I've always had to put all offers to the seller, though they don't have to offer inspections unless the owners are really wanting other offers. It makes me think that there aren't any other interested people in this property and they are trying to make you pay top $$$ anyway. To be honest unless you really really love this property and are willing to pay for it, I'd walk away. It's a buyers market at the moment. Agents always mark up what a property is actually worth so if someone wants/needs $300,000 for a property it will be marketed at around $310 - 320,000 because hardly anyone offers what people are asking. When we buy our investment properties we only go as high as $5 - 10,000 less than what the agents asking and we make sure the owners/agents know that it's our final price and if it's not accepted we walk away and keep looking. You'd be amazed how many agents ring you back in a few days to say that the owners have reconsidered and now willing to accept the lower offer. Never pay full price unless you absolutely have to, while there are some great agents out there at the end of the day the more money a property sells for, a higher pay check they receive and if a property doesn't sell at all, they don't get paid at all for all the time they've spent doing opens and marketing the property unless they are on a wage and not commission based but most agents these days are commission based. I know from personal experience that sometimes you have to bend over backwards to close a sale otherwise you don't get paid and that can be quite tough when it's quiet on the market.