Quote:
Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby
If that class action ends up being legit I'll enter it. My house up north was listed on the MLS by a licensed agent of a known Broker in the area. Almost two weeks after he accepted the contract, we still didn't have a for sale sign on our front lawn. He said he'd hire a professional to come and take pictures - but he took them all with his cell phone and posted them on the listing - which showed up on the listing websites almost a week after he accepted the contract.
We had a buyer within the first few months, but after a month of going back and forth with them, we found out they were getting a VA mortgage and our home wasn't a qualifying home due to a couple of repairs needed that are on the disqualifying list. We knew this when we put the house up for sale, and the house was listed "AS IS". Our agent knew the buyer was getting a mortgage, and didn't ask what kind - so we didn't know the buyer wasn't ALLOWED to buy the house until 3 weeks before closing.
Another buyer was all set to sign but wanted a whole bunch of repairs. Even though the listing said AS IS. Our agent pushed us to do the repairs, or lower the price to accommodate the costs of repairs to the buyer. Even though - he knew that we had listed the home AS IS and had already lowered our selling price once so far.
A third buyer put a deposit down - a non-refundable deposit. Then he got a divorce, and backed out of the contract. He demanded his deposit back. Our agent urged us to just go ahead and give it back, because the buyer's lawyer would just stick us in court indefinitely and we wouldn't be allowed to sell the house while there was still a deposit on it in escrow.
So of course we trusted him, and gave the non-refundable deposit back.
Meanwhile, we were using up our life insurance money to pay the mortgage because hubby's department had been closed down a year before, and we had only my part-time minimum wage income to pay the bills.
I ended up taking better pictures of the rooms and features of the house. Hubby did cosmetic work on it. I also rewrote the listing description because our agent couldn't write a complete sentence to save his life.
So WE did most of the work. And our agent took his commission. Almost a year after we put it on the market, it sold, and we couldn't afford to live in a block and stucco or wood frame construction home as we had wanted to, because we had to reduce the price even more. That agent took over $8000 from us. But we did most of the work.
So yeah if there's a chance I can get some of that back, you bet I will.
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First sorry you had such a crappy listing agent. But nothing you mentioned has to do with buyers agents and commissions.
But I will mention that my realtor also often has to explain the VA or FHA restrictions. She’s had sellers agents that didn’t even know the mortgage limits are different depending on the area. But that’s why she’s a top agent and many agents don’t do well at all.
Regarding the lawsuit and competition, it’s true that there may be more competition if buyers pay their agent directly. But the fact it hasn’t been done that way doesn’t make it fraudulent. I don’t see how people would have financial recourse for something they signed in the contract. The only financial recourse I could see is if a buyers agent stated there was no cost to the seller for his commission. That wouldn’t be entirely accurate.