A Real Estate Scam

Good afternoon, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service has advised its member agents that it is illegal to list a property for less than what a seller is willing to sell the property for. This is what happens. a listing broker and a seller agree to list a $300,000. home for $250,000. As all good buyer's agents do that have investors looking for good deals, they will check several times a day to see what good deals have just come on the market. They call their buyers and tell them that a home just came on the market two hours ago, and looks like a good deal. What happens is 5 or 6 offers are written with in a couple of days on this good deal. The listing agent will try to wait a couple of more days to get as many offers as he can. Buyers and buyer's agents become frustrated at the delay of not hearing back on their offer. Some buyers at this point have offered full price and even more. How amazing to see this in a buyers market. Now some of the offers that came in are called back, and the buyer's agent is asked to contact their buyer to see if they can get them to offer more. This starts a bidding war that many times leaves a lot of people frustrated. This is happening so often that this practice has been ruled to be illegal. Here is a way to beat the scam. When a listing comes on the system that is too good to be true. I have called my investor within a few hours of the listing being placed. We look at the house and write up an offer at full price that I as the buyer's agent present to the seller in person with the listing agent. The offer has no contingencies for financing, inspections, etc. It is a cash deal with closing in 1 week. I have been able to force the seller to sell in one deal. In the other deal the seller would not sell for the price he listed the property, and said that the real estate agent told him to list the property for less than he was willing to sell. That listing agent lost his licence. I do not advise anyone to try to beat the scam, unless they have many years experience in buying and selling real estate. In 32 years in this wonderful real-estate business I have seen it all. - Carl