Tying to inflate your commmission? How about ‘No’?
I’m not sure if this fits here, but a friend suggested that you all might get a laugh out of this.
About 22 years ago I was buying an old farmhouse and land that had been on the market for 2 years.
I liked what I saw, knew there was going to be a ton of work to make it habitable, but I was willing to put the time and money into it.
Contacted their agent and everything was going swimmingly.
48 hours from exchanging contracts and what do you know? A new buyer has offered £30k over my offer, but the sellers like me, so if I can go £5k above that, the agent is sure I will be able to get the house.
Now my parents were many things, but they did not bring me up to be a fool, and I was well aware that I was being played and he was trying to inflate his commission.
I simply told the estate agent to advise the sellers to take the increased bid and to make it easier, I was withdrawing my offer immediately. I was willing to take the financial loss of all the surveys, etc. because I don’t like being screwed over by anyone.
I wish I was a fly on the wall to see how that conversation went…
By chance, I saw the sellers in town about 3 months later and they said that they hoped that I was recovering from my illness that had forced me to withdraw from the sale.
Yes, that was genuinely the story the Estate Agent had come up with.
Now, I could have nodded and smiled, but I decided to tell them the truth instead. That their estate agent had tried to squeeze me for an additional £35k and that because of his actions, the property was still for sale.
Long story short, we had a chat and they were still willing to sell to me and since I had all the paperwork, surveys, etc. ready to go, they could pull the property from the market, & we could just get solicitors to do their bit and conduct it as a private sale.
So that’s what we did.
I got my house, the sellers got a fair price, and the agent didn’t get a penny.
Was it Petty? Yes.
Was it worth it? Absolutely.
