Stop the Ride – I Need to Get Off!
WOW! I’m completely overwhelmed this morning (hence my late blog entry). When our neighbor found out that we were selling the condo, she and her husband expressed interest in buying it. They thought they might want to break down the wall and create a 2,400+ square foot, 3 (full) bathroom condo. The wife said she and her husband would think about it further (probably crunch some numbers) and then get back to us.
This morning, she called back and said they are VERY interested and that they wanted to come by tonight to talk with us further. She even said she’s quite sure her husband would make an offer tonight.
Not 10 minutes later, I got a call from the broker saying that she also found 3 potential buyers (that have already looked at the unit and are planning to make offers today/tomorrow). Now we have a dilemma. We haven’t (yet) signed a listing agreement with the broker (which was their fault for not presenting it to us before). The broker said she can’t provide me with the three offers until we sign the agreement to use her firm exclusively (which is standard practice). However, if we sign the agreement, we’ll have to pay a commission even if our neighbors buy the place (even though the broker wasn’t involved in that sale).
So now, do we sign the agreement and hope the 3 offers are good? Or do we go with our neighbors and save $21,000 in commission charges? What I’ve done is told our neighbor to get back to us ASAP this morning/afternoon before I sign anything. She’s paged her husband and is hoping to get back to me when he’s out of his meeting. Then, I guess we’ll decide whether to sign the agreement or not. OY!
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Well, I’ve not delved into the murky world of real estate yet, but I’d guess that a bird in the hand is worth $21,000 in the pocket, eh?
DEFINITELY skip the realtor!!! If the three are interested in the property they will be interested tomorrow as well as tonite. This COULD be a ploy to get you to sign the agreement, and the offers may not exist. Perhaps the agent realized her screw up….
go with the neighbors’.
go with the neighbors for now and hedge your bets. and get a lawyer, just in case.
I vote the neighbors, unless you can think of some compelling legal-type reason why it would be a real extra burden to sell it yourselves. Realtors are so vulture-like, and I can’t believe you’d even have to sign an exclusivity agreement at all. Doesn’t signing with them sort of take some of the incentive out for them to work as hard for you as they might if there were competition with other realtors?
The condos for sale next door to my house are this week being advertized at $10K less than they were last week. I’d take a good offer from your neighbors, skip the realtor and their fees and stupid exclusivity arrangements, and expect good karma for helping your neighbors out, too. Definitely make sure though that if the neighbors want it, they do indeed come through with written, binding commitment to buy it soon. And someone might need to make sure that they can, indeed, do the remodeling that they want to do.