it's a bit of a long story - but we found a place we loved and put in an offer. the offer was rejected when the landlady found out we have children. this landlady is quite elderly so there was one agent that was talking to her quite a bit - filling her ear with nonsense. i'm not sure if he thought he could market it higher or what... but we were out. we loved the building so much (only 8 units in a great location) we went back there the following day b/c there was a sign posted with a phone number. we called the number and the agent told us about the same
property. we told him our offer had been rejected b/c of the children and he said he'd get back to us. we never heard anything and about 3 weeks later my agent knew we were really set on that place and went and met with the landlady. this same day the agent we called on the phone called and said he could get us a deal if i DIDN'T call my agent. i told him i couldn't do that since she showed me the place along with another agent for the landlord. i told him i was still looking around and would talk to my agent. this same day the landlord agreed to meet me and we got on very well and she then accepted another offer and CASHED our checked and signed an LOI. about 3 days later this other agent told me that he'd told the landlord to renig on our offer b/c i'd gone around him and then basically told me that i'd need to pay him a commission if i wanted the deal to go through. after thinking long and hard we decided he could have the commission and we would pay OUR agent the lost commission since i was spitting mad that some guy i've never even met is holding all the cards on this apt. so this was all resolved on saturday and then monday my husband gets a call from this guy and he says that he's told the landlady to move up the move in date (so we pay 2 more weeks) and then AGAIN alludes to the fact that we could just tear up the original LOI and resign a contract with him and he'll make sure it goes through. my husband basically tells him to go through our agent and 24 hours later we're told that the landlady is returning the money and we out.
it's really maddening... we had a similar thing happen last year over an agent that was waving our check around and eventually landed the full commission with one of his clients and the landlord. he told us that the landlord had 'relatives' moving in. well - we ended up moving into the same complex and believe me those were no relatives. i became friendly with the girl and she told me that he was pushing her and basically said we'd signed, paid and the landlord had agreed to our offer so she'd put an offer in!
anyhow - the kicker of this is... the most recent jerky agent came to our house tonight to return the check and we weren't home and he asked our helper if we were still looking for a place!!!!! crack smoker much?!?!?!??
