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Anthony Lamacchia: You’re listing a property. You get one, two, three offers, however many. You tell a buyer’s agent via text or verbally, “My seller’s going with you. You got it.” You hang up or you stop texting. You go over to the seller, “Hey, here’s the offer. Sign it.” As you’re doing that, another offer comes in higher. [screams] What do you do? This is going on all the time my friends and people are getting angry and it’s not necessary.
Anthony Lamacchia here with course in real estate. As you can tell I’m on my treadmill and I just decided that I want to talk about this right now, so I turned the camera on. My friend, this happens. Very aggravating if you’re the buyer’s agent, if you’re the buyer’s agent and you get a call from a listing agent or a text or an email that says, “We’re going with your offer.” Then all of a sudden, they end up calling you back a half an hour later saying, “Listen, we got a higher offer. My seller wants to take that offer now.” Naturally, you’re going to get aggravated.
Well, I have news for you buyers agents, until your offer is signed you don’t have the property and you should not be telling your buyers that they got it until it’s signed. You should be setting proper expectations, you should be explain to them, “Hey, listen, it sounds like they’re coming in our direction, but until we have it signed, no celebrations. I’ll get back to you soon. I’m working on it.” Period. You leave it at that as a buyer’s agent.
You also want your buyers to know that you’re working it. Don’t be too quick to kick off a celebration because then they’re going to be let down hard later. Now, on the listing side, I have advice for you. Stop telling– No Jay, I’m not on a bike. I’m on a treadmill. Stop telling people that their offer is accepted until your seller has it signed. Stop that. It’s totally okay to say, “Sounds like they’re going in your direction. Looking good for you guys. Looks like you’re getting it.”
Fine, but stop saying you got it until you have it signed because remember, you’ve got an obligation to send your seller the offer regardless of whether it’s higher or lower. I don’t care if the offer is for a dollar, I don’t care if it’s for 10 million on a $1 million property, you have to send that offer to your seller. Whoa, my phone’s about to fall. You have to send it to your seller. You know that and buyers agents, you know they have that obligation.
Why do you get so mad and cause hysteria and lawsuits and unethical and everybody is screaming. I’ve heard about 10 of these in the last three weeks. No reason to scream buyers agents. Until your offer is signed, it’s not yours. Now I know there’s some of you watching right now possibly some attorneys say, “Well, if it is put in email and the agent is acting on behalf of the buyer, then it could be considered legally binding and there has been case law of situations where agents have said it’s accepted and the buyer took them to court and the buyer won.”
I understand there’s been arguments, there’s been legal cases. Most buyers don’t want to go through a court battle to win that. They don’t. They can’t afford it in most cases, they don’t need six, eight months of headaches. Stop with all the hysteria. Listing agents, do better with how you deliver the message when it looks like they’re going with your offer. Buyer’s agents, do better with what you tell your clients until it’s signed. That’s it my friends. My buddy Jay, what’s he saying?
I agree. Just had nine offers on a listing was very careful not to create a problem for myself or the seller. That’s right, because Jay is a top shelf realtor my friends. Have a great day, everybody.