[Porsche-O-Phile]

(continued from my original post)



Here's the contentious part:

This property was originally listed at $290,000 plus 4% by the seller towards closing costs. According to the MLS listing, it had sat on the market for 83+ days at that price. Fine. No biggie. The reason it was (as John put it) supposedly the "deal of a lifetime", was because the seller (who is an agent himself, it turns out - we'll get to that) had decided to drop his price to $260,000 and pay 3% to cover closing costs. John tells us that this is because the seller (who we shall call "Ivan") is originally from Russia and wants to sell the property quickly in order to move back there with his family (when we looked at the property there were a few clues substantiating this story including some "CCCP" relics, some posters and photos, a couple of books written in Russian, etc.) "Okay", I'm thinking, "this really is a good situation - below market value, decent place with a lot of features we like, desperate seller. Good". I put together an offer that's aggressive, but not (IMO) "lowball" for $253,500, seller pays closing costs, seller pays property taxes through the end of 2007 and 1/2 of the condo HOA fees for the first year, and all appliances are included (he's moving to Russia, presumably without refrigerators and electric ranges in tow, right?) I realize (and expect) this will be countered on one or more of those points.

Yesterday, I get a call from John, saying that in fact our offer had been countered and that this guy Ivan had two other offers, so we better decide what to do quickly ("pushy salesman mode" again). I explain patiently for what must be the fifty-gazillionth time on the phone with him that there's no urgency here, if the property goes to someone else, it goes to someone else and it's not meant to be and ultimately I don't care. Undaunted, he summarizes the seller (Ivan's) "counter-offer":

$280,000 (note that this is $20,000 MORE than the listing price)
$5,000 towards closing costs (big red flag - I'll explain)
No appliances (some of the stuff is supposedly going to his son, who is now mysteriously not going to Russia but remaining in the U.S.A.)
No payment of property tax beyond the closing date (no biggie, I expected this but threw it in to see if we could get it)
No assistance with HOA fees (again, a "wish list" item and not a deal-breaker).

A bit bemused by this, I explain to John that Ivan can keep his counter-offer and we're not interested. I say this no less than a dozen times, but John keeps hounding and hounding and hounding, explaining that "it's still below his original listing price by $10,000!". I can feel my blood pressure rising as he persists with the salesman schit. Finally, unable to tolerate it any more, I take the phone call outside and start yelling - "I'm not interested at that price - what part of 'no' do you have a problem understanding?" Finally he "gets it". You can almost see the lightbulb flicker on. Or seems to. I tell him that out of fairness to my wife, I'll call her, tell her what he just told me regarding the counter-offer and see if she has anything to add other than "go pound sand", which I predict the reaction will be (like mine was). Fine. Call ends. I walk back inside, eager to get back to work.

I call my wife, who's off at lunch with a friend and not likely to answer her phone. Whatever. I leave a message and that's that. I figure I'll hear from her when I hear from her - no biggie. We'll discuss it then. As I'm getting back to working, I think about this some more and start to get a bit more and more annoyed by this "counter-offer" tactic. I know that Ivan is an agent (while we were being shown his place, I noticed a stack of business cards on his counter, so I snagged one when John wasn't looking, just in case I wanted to go directly to the seller). I also questioned whether John and Ivan knew one another (they both work in the residential real estate market in Long Beach - it can't be all that big of a world, can it?) while we were reading all the disclosure information doing the paperwork for our offer. John cut that discussion off right then and there, along with my question about whether Ivan might be low-listing his price since he doesn't have to pay a realtor a commission, since he's acting as his own listing agent. . .



My question to you guys (and gals) out there with more experience in these matters than I is whether or not there's been any professional misconduct here - either on the part of Ivan or John. I can't PROVE collusion here, nor can I prove these two guys even know each other. They work for different companies and may very well not. However, I most certainly CAN prove that the listed price was $260,000 and was countered by a price higher than that - with many more caveats and conditions. I can prove that the original listing mentioned "3%" towards costs and that the counter was $5,000, with the seller choosing the title and escrow service. (caution: conspiracy theory) My suspicion is since Ivan was an agent, he could work out a deal with a title and/or escrow company to hike up their price for services so that the closing costs would have been much higher than $5,000 (putting us on the hook for the difference), and then kicking back a percentage to him. I can't prove it, but I have a feeling that's certainly not unbelievable. I suspect that this $260,000 listing price was simply to get "foot traffic", multiple offers and (hopefully, from Ivan's point of view) a bidding war in a down-turning market. While I can on one hand respect the tactic, on another, it smacks of "bait-and-switch", which to my knowledge is illegal and may place his agent's license at risk (I'm checking).

Advice? (Obviously we're not buying this place and I'm "firing" John today and finding someone else).