revisiting those embarrassing agents and their hot deal

it did sell, off another 20%
About a year ago I hit (in this case, really hit) agents who puffed, prognosticated, provoked and perplexed me and buyer clients of mine who had the misfortune of visiting these folks at an open house. (February 23, 2009, what’s wrong with these people? agents who speak out of their …) I can now report that The Loft in question has closed, and is one of the many, many Manhattan loft transactions added to my Master List since my kidney-induced Fall sabbatical. I am not going to further identify this loft because I really went off on these agents and (deservedly or not) it would be unprofessional of me to identify them publicly.

As I reported last February:

Three times we were told that the seller is "ready to sell" and has had an offer on the table, which the seller told the agent ("in a phone call today", dramatically enough) the seller would accept unless someone else stepped up "today."

I updated that post a month later to reflect (a) no offer had been announced as accepted and no contract signed, and (b) that the price had come down 8%, but still had  a ways to go to get to the level of that in-the-pocket-offer that was to have been accepted unless someone bid TODAY.

The darn thing had another price drop a month later (down 14% from the February asking price; 35% from the original ask) and closed nearly 20% off the February asking price and 40% from the original ask. I don’t think that in-the-pocket-offer took 5 months to negotiate, so my guess is that the buyer is a different personfrom the in-the-pocket-offer.

I have to wonder if the seller has any idea of how poorly his/her interests were served by these agents. If s/he had been paying any kind of attention, the nearly 40% discount from original asking price to clearing price provides a hint, but the mis-pricing is only a small part of the disservice. But these folks got paid, at the end of the day, and will live to abuse other buyers, sellers and agents.

It is a cold, cruel world.

© Sandy Mattingly 2010