Facebook post: First time homebuyers Fraud alert/advice needed

[JackSeal]

Sharing our(me and my wife) experience as first time home buyer(Seattle WA area):
It is very important to work with Trustworthy real estate agent. Being first time home buyers we are usually new to every document and we rely on our agent that they will explain each and every document to us. So we did, and started working with AgentA in late December. On Jan 9, we liked one house and decided to put an early offer, AgentA prepared 180 pages offer  to sign. AgentA didn’t give us much time to read, AgentA did brief walk through and explained that this offer will expire today. We checked overall and proceeded. Offer didnt go through so we assumed that all 180 pages of offer have expired, trusted AgentA and we moved on. We also put one more offer through this agent which didnt go through. After some time(within 2 weeks) we found out that AgentA is little pushy, keep sending texts, VMs all the time during our work and pushing us for the houses we do not like, pushing us for the areas we do not want, even pushing us to sell stocks to put higher down payment(40%). We had a pre-approval letter from a Bank with 10% down, AgentA was not at all willing to work with our choice of bank and also forcing us to take loan from their suggested bank(which was giving higher rate of interest and expecting 20% down). Because of all these reasons we decided not to pursue with AgentA and we politely texted AgentA multiple times that “consider us off the market, we are not looking to buy house, as we are not liking houses within our budget and houses we like are going over our budget”. After sometime we came across a company with AgentB which helped us in putting better offer and we closed house in mid-feb with AgentB. AgentA got to know that we have purchased an house from different agent. Now AgentA is coming behind us by showing us that we had a Buyer Ageny exclusive agreement(explained below) with AgentA and we as buyers have to pay 3% to AgentA.

How did AgentA made us sign Buyer agency exclusive agreement:
We also don’t know. AgentA has played with us by putting Buyer exclusive agreement in the early offer we put on 9th Jan (which AgentA explained is just firms work, nothing to worry about while reviewing offer). AgentA sent 180 pages documents at last minute for early offer and didn’t give us much time to read documents by saying we are getting late to present early offer. As offer didn’t work and expired so we forgot about these documents where AgentA has placed the demon cleverly and made us sign without informing us and now AgentA is expecting 3% commission for the house which is not purchased through AgentA.

Buyers Agency exclusive agreement:
Agreement says if buyer is purchasing house in WA boundaries in next 4 months, buyer will have to pay 3% to AgentA and firm.
Even it has a clause which says if we are purchasing theough AgentA and seller is paying less than 3% to buyer’s agent, buyers will have to complete it to 3%.
It also has a clause saying winner party will get all the court and attorney fee from losing party if this case goes to court.

Points to think
- If we would have been told or read about this agreement, we could have easily get it terminated once we signed up with AgentB.
- If AgentA intentions were right, why didnt AgentA explained us and make us sign this agreement separately, instead of hiding this in 180 pages and misguiding us. Or AgentA could have informed us later that we are under agreement now.
- Everyone knows that seller pays to the buyer’s agent, why AgentA has this clause in agreement that buyers will also pay if seller is paying less than 3% to buyer.

We agree that we did a solid mistake by not reading every page in the offer agreement and blindly trusting our realtor.
With the help of this post, we want to educate every first time home buyer that please choose your realtor carefully and read every doc before or after signing.

3% is lot of money after buying a house in this market, thinking about worst case is putting a lot of pressure on our mental health right now.

If anyone has faced this before or have any idea how to come out of this situation/agreement or what are our options now, we will be very thankful for the help.
Any kind of legal help/suggestion is welcome.

[kittaya]

This is fact... Real estate Chala cheyyachuu... Ilantivi

[Galactus]

Agent agreement usually untundi like you can not go with other agent ani in many cases , its normal

but the 3% commission coming from buyer is very weird as seller usually pays both seller and buyer agents..

also read everything in the documents they send, atleast once kooda chadavakunda velthe ila aye chances untayi..

fomo valla people not thinking twice before making offers...sad reality of current market...

[anna_gari_maata]

It's buyers mistake, they gotto pay the price

[rmJU72]

Usually the RE agents are affiliated to parent agency like Keller Williams, Windermere, etc.

If you were indeed misled into signing something without telling you what it is, check with AgentB if we can contact the parent agency of Agent A and complain abt this agent

If AgentB says less chance of this succeeding, then perhaps going to a lawyer is the best option.

Usually FTE employers also offer a legal plan

Edited March 28, 2022 by rmJU72
additional info

[Thokkalee]

Anduke desi realtors are the best.. you don’t have to sign an exclusive agreement with the realtor… 

manollu Redfin realtors ni baga abuse chesthunnaru for taking appointments to see houses..

[Spartan]

1 hour ago, Thokkalee said:

Anduke desi realtors are the best.. you don’t have to sign an exclusive agreement with the realtor… 

manollu Redfin realtors ni baga abuse chesthunnaru for taking appointments to see houses..

agreed.