Are you the girl who continues to text the guy that dumped you, well after he said “Please don’t contact me again?”

Last week, a colleague told me a story about a buyer and an agent who absolutely refused to acknowledge that a property they were interested in had sold to somebody else, it was about to close, and there was nothing they could do about it.

This is an utterly bizarre story, but it goes to show you just how clueless and uninformed some people can be…

Would it be cheezy if I quoted Kenny Rogers here?

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run

I think we can take away from this that sometimes, maybe, just maybe, you have to take circumstances as they are.

Whether you’ve won, lost, tied, or were never in the game, you have to see what’s going on in front of you, and act accordingly.

Last week, my colleague received two offers on a property he had for sale – and the property had previously been sold twice, with the conditional deal falling through both times.

There was no hold-back on offers, and it wasn’t the most incredible and unique offering on the planet, but garnered multiple offers nonetheless.

He told both buyer agents, “Bring your best – it’s a one shot deal,” and encouraged them to show up with a best and final offer, as there was no reason to go back and forth.

It’s commendable, given that this wasn’t your typical “list and hold-back offers” situation.  The property had been on the market for months, and had already been sold twice before.

Both offers came in, and one was conditional, and one wasn’t.

The interesting point is this: the conditional offer was higher than the unconditional offer by about $20,000.

Let’s throw out numbers here, and suggest that the property got a conditional offer of $900,000, and an unconditional offer of $880,000.

Since the property had already been sold twice, and it had fallen through both times, the seller elected to take the money and run, and he chose the unconditional offer of $880,000.

Agree, or disagree.  Perhaps we’d all have different reasoning, but if it were me, advising my client, I’d tell him or her to take the unconditional offer, after everything that had previously happened.

The next day, the “losing agent,” and we’ll call him that for simplicity’s sake, called my colleague to grovel, and said he “wanted another chance.”

At this point, a deposit cheque had already been cashed by our brokerage, not to mention the fact that a legally binding, unconditional agreement, had already been signed by the buyer and the seller.

My colleague told the losing agent, “Sorry, but it’s over.”

Oh, it was far from over.  In fact, it was just the beginning…

The losing agent continued to pester my colleague, calling him at least twice a day for three days, and even faxing him an updated, improved offer (still conditional), even though the property had already been marked as “sold firm” on MLS, and it was scheduled to close in a mere ten days.

My colleague finally told the losing agent to “get lost,” and that’s when the losing agent chose another strategy: he went and knocked on the door of the seller’s house.

Is this legal?  No, but as I’ve said before on this blog, only a small fraction of RECO complaints ever get heard, let alone seen through to some sort of resolution.

The seller complained to my colleague, who told our manager to deal with it.

Our manager spoke to the losing agent, and told him not to contact the seller directly, as this contravened the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act, and was clearly interference with a competitor’s client.

Over?

Not even close.

With the losing agent out of the picture, the buyer took it upon himself to contact the seller, and tell him that he wanted to “open up another round of bidding.”

By now, several days had passed, the seller was ready to close on the deal, and my colleague was already working on other listings.

The losing buyer started to pester our manager, and told him, “My agent tells me that you can open this thing up for another round of bidding, and that’s what I want to do.”

The genius added, “If you don’t open this up for bid once again, then I’ll file a RECO complaint, and I’ll sue you in a court of law.”

Yes, this really happened.

“I’ll sue you” are probably the three most over-exaggerated words in the English language, and the threat is the least-likely to ever be followed-through upon.

I hate when people act big, stand tall, and make threats with no backing.

Maybe it’s the son-of-a-lawyer in me, but I know how few disagreements, squabbles, and unresolved issues are actually taken to a lawyer’s office, let alone how many see a courtroom, or go to judgment.

Any time somebody says, “I’ll sue you,” you can pretty much guarantee that they won’t.

But the losing buyer didn’t back down.  He continued to contact the seller, my colleague – the listing agent, and our office manager.  He continued to make empty threats to sue all three of them, and demanded that his “improved and revised offer” be considered.

There was no reasoning with him.  My manager told asked him, “Considering this property fell through twice on conditional agreements, can you see why the seller took less money for a firm deal?”

It was like talking to a wall.  The buyer wasn’t going to listen.

But the best – the absolute best, was the line he provided at the end, during the last conversation, when he told my manager, “We are taking you to RECO, make no mistake.  My agent only does two deals a year, so he has a LOT of time on his hands!”

Amazing.

And now it all makes total sense!

A part-time agent (or a really bad one who only does two deals per year…), who has no clue what he’s doing, might actually tell his client, “They can open this up for another round of bidding,” when in fact, they can’t.

I encountered this situation earlier this year when I had a house listed for sale, which received three offers.

We had an offer of $720,000, with a deposit cheque, and it was unconditional.  So we accepted it, signed the papers, and filed them with our respective offices, sent copies tot he lawyers, and cashed the cheque.  The next day, the agent who had offered $705,000 on the property, called me and said, “Good news, my client is willing to pay $730,000 for the house.”

Come again?

More than 24 hours had passed since we signed on the dotted line with somebody else, and although hindsight can be REALLY helpful in real estate (ie. you can always sit on the sidelines in multiple offers, while buyers are guessing at the sale price, and then find out the sale price, and say, “I would have paid more”), and yet this buyer agent thought he could somehow come back to the table; a table which had been folded up already.

I felt like I was talking to a child, and maybe explaining why mommy and daddy don’t love each other anymore.  “You do realize that we dealt with offers yesterday at 10am, and it’s now 5pm the following day, and this is long, long overwith, right?”

He told me, “If you really want to accept my offer of $730,000, you know you can do it.”

There was absolutely no logic in that sentence.

Words like “legally binding agreement” come to mind.

I sarcastically asked him, “So do you suggest that I go and ask the buyer to sign a mutual release so I can accept your offer?”  He replied, “If that’s the way you think its best, then I’ll leave it to you.”

I hadn’t heard of this guy, so I had no problem giving him an education as follows:

“Have you ever gone out to dinner, seen what everybody ordered as their entrée, watched everybody finish their meal, and then ask somebody if you could eat theirs?  I mean – after they had eaten their meal, as in – it’s in their stomach.  The bowl of pasta is empty, and yet you’re asking them if you can have it.  Well buddy, there’s only two ways you can get at that pasta, and neither is going to be appetizing…”

That’s the best way I could describe what he was asking, and the conversation pretty much ended there.

Sometimes, I’m absolutely shocked at the inexperience of people we deal with on a day-to-day basis, as well as the lack of logic and reasoning that goes into their actions and thought process.  These two examples go well beyond desperation, and into a bizzaro world where nothing makes sense.

I would say, “You can’t blame a guy for trying,” except that you can when it’s this far-fetched.

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Anyways, have a great long weekend, everybody!

I assume many people are taking Monday off, or working a half-day, but I’ll still put up a blog for those of you who are killing time and staring at the clock.  Then it’s back to business on Wednesday!