patrick.net

Posted at the request of the author.

Hi Patrick,

I just posted the following story in Redfin Bay area forum, you can post it in your website if you see fit.
(If you want to post the article, please make my display name Yellowstone, which is the street name of the house in the story.)
This is actually the second time I encounter the similar "multiple counter" situation, the difference is this time the seller didn't even bother to put down a counter offer, just verbally communicated.

I've been visited your website for at least 2 years, and educate myself along the way about home buying. I've tried traditional agents, dealing with the listing agents myself, and finally Redfin. Although I do not think the middle man is necessary, it seems to be the necessary evil to me at this time.

I hope bidding on a house can be as transparent as bidding on eBay, and I don't understand why a buyer cannot get the full buyer side commission if he represent himself. But in the end, I have to take Bill Gates advice: Life is not fair, get used to it....

Regards,
Yellowstone

This is a house in San Jose zip 95130, small house (1248sf with big lot) fair condition. The house is asking 599000, a bit below market, which has Zestimate of 631000. The offer deadline was set to be on noon Tuesday after the first weekend open house.

A SF Redfin agent respond to our offer request Monday around noon with the disclosures, and gave me an estimate of 635k-655k, and stated the seller's agent is expecting multiple offers so we should bid at the higher end of the range. Although I personally think the house worth about 635k with everything considered, I still went with her advise and bid 650k, just to make everyone happy and to get this home buying thing over with. At the time we submitted the offer, I am reasonably confident that we will win the bid. As a side note, the term is: as is, 7/14 days inspection/financial contingincy with 250k down.

Wednesday morning, I got a message from my agent saying "you and another offer are in the top 2. The sellers would like to offer you an opportunity to stand out from the other offer." She also sggested us to do two things: a letter to seller, and increase price 2.5-5k. And the deadline for this is Wed at noon.

I told my agent I hate the seller playing this trick, and consider this a greedy act. Sensing my unhappiness, my agent explanied that they may not after money, they are probably emotional attached to the house, and want to see who the buyer is, she strongly suggested the letter. Although I did not buy it, I went along with the letter, and wanted my agent to requested a firm response by 2pm. Seller's agent said they cannot make 2pm, and not able to give us an answer about when they would get back to us. "As soon as possible" is all we get.

At this point, I was getting a bit mad, and suddenly the house does not seem attractive to me. My feeling was, the whole process we have been played, there's no negotiation, only we being beating up - go with all they asked, and did not get respectful response. Anyway, I expressed my desire to withdraw our offer, and my agent wanted me to stay calm and professional. At last, I agreed that we'll give them until 5pm to respond, and they did not. At 5pm, 29 hours after the offer deadline, we withdraw our offer, against my agent's advise.

Later, my agent pass this message that the seller's agent wanted her to:

“The sellers received 7 offers and were having a hard time deciding on the one to accept in such a short amount of time. Instead of being greedy and asking for more money, they decided to offer the buyers a chance to ‘stand out’ which they felt was more respectful. Your buyer has proven to us they were not the one to accept and we wish them the best of luck.”

In the end, I was considered to have wrong expectation of the process, which might be true. The black-box bidding is not a fair game to begin with, why should I expect an honest and straight-forward transaction?

Lesson learned: never put on your best offer initially, especially in multiple offer situation, many sellers will probably come back ask for more no matter how good your initial offer is.

Another lesson learned, trust your own analysis and stay firm, if you are an educated buyer. Do not listen to Readfin lead agents, they did not even visited the property and may not even live in the area. I am not sure if anyone ever get any advise against the deal from lead agents, but looks to me "high successful rate" is still top on their agenda.

Overall, though this isn't a pleasant experience for me, dealing with Redfin agents is ok, they are still a bit better than most tranditioal agents, not as pushy.

#housing