Listing agent playing mind games....

[joy1979]

On or about June 20th I submitted an offer on a beautiful home that my finance and I fell completely in love with. It's an REO property that was listed for 78,800. I put in an offer for 78K plus 6% closing. Well the next day I was informed I'd need to obtain a pre-approval from the bank which owns the property. No problem I went ahead and did the application over the phone with the loan officer and was approved. Next thing I hear from my realtor that the home is off the market due to "title issues". I was very concerned with this since I've never gone through this process and didn't really know what to expect. My agent reached out to the listing agent's office, but really couldn't get any solid information just that they would contact her when the home was free from legal issues. On Wednesday my agent reached out to the listing agents office again and got a response that they don't see the home coming back on the market anytime soon and would strongly urge me to move on, however if something changed they're office would indeed contact my realtor. Needless to say I was  very disappointed but had no other choice but to consider other homes. Well yesterday my fiance was doing research and saw that the property was not only back on the market but listed at 74,900! I immediately got on the phone with my agent to explain our new findings. She in turn sent the listing agent an e-mail inquiring about the home and my offer. We haven't received a response yet.

At this point I'm totally confused. Why wouldn't  they not accept my offer instead of listing it again for a lower amount? Does this make sense to anyone? What can we do to move this process along? Is this even legal?  I'm really confused....

[Anonymous]

This has happen to me before. I put in an offer on a home (Bank Owned) for $119k on Friday, looked at the listing on Monday and the price was 109K. I called my agent right away, asked what was up, they have a higher offer on the table. Fast forward I did not get the property, the crazy thing is the home has been under contract since 4/8/2011 but has not sold. I did some digging and found out it has title problems.

What I found out is the reason they do this with the price is to create a bidding war, in hopes they can get more. This happens especially on bank owned properties.

Beside the price issue be very carefully with homes that don’t have care title, because depending on what the problem is it can turn into a nightmare.

[Jazzzy]

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@joy1979 wrote:

On or about June 20th I submitted an offer on a beautiful home that my finance and I fell completely in love with. It's an REO property that was listed for 78,800. I put in an offer for 78K plus 6% closing. Well the next day I was informed I'd need to obtain a pre-approval from the bank which owns the property. No problem I went ahead and did the application over the phone with the loan officer and was approved. Next thing I hear from my realtor that the home is off the market due to "title issues". I was very concerned with this since I've never gone through this process and didn't really know what to expect. My agent reached out to the listing agent's office, but really couldn't get any solid information just that they would contact her when the home was free from legal issues. On Wednesday my agent reached out to the listing agents office again and got a response that they don't see the home coming back on the market anytime soon and would strongly urge me to move on, however if something changed they're office would indeed contact my realtor. Needless to say I was  very disappointed but had no other choice but to consider other homes. Well yesterday my fiance was doing research and saw that the property was not only back on the market but listed at 74,900! I immediately got on the phone with my agent to explain our new findings. She in turn sent the listing agent an e-mail inquiring about the home and my offer. We haven't received a response yet.

At this point I'm totally confused. Why wouldn't  they not accept my offer instead of listing it again for a lower amount? Does this make sense to anyone? What can we do to move this process along? Is this even legal?  I'm really confused....

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Yes, the bank owns the property. They don't have to sell it to anyone they choose not to, and they don't have to give a reason. They don't even have go give a counter offer...no seller has to.

Both parties are bound only when you have a written agreement signed by both parties...not before.

I know it's frustrating, but it can be part of the experience of buying a bank-owned property. Another part of the frustration is that the left-hand banker often doesn't know what the right-hand banker is doing or has said. Conflicting answers can be the norm.

This is when a competent real estate agent can make all the difference. It takes a persistent agent to work through some of this. Also, when you even look at another house, your agent has lost a lot of reason to go back and work on the 1st property. They often take the path of least resistance.