Cutting out a realtor??

[Chris Christianson]

We have a house on the market in Minneapolis. We got a cash offer from a young guy who is being financed by his father. The father is on the hook out east somewhere for a condo he purchased his kid and it's now underwater so he's gunshy. Prior to making us an offer he hired an appraiser who lowballed the value of our property so we didn't accept the offer.

Now he's back, he's raised his cash offer by 15k which is still a bit shy of what we'd need. He then said that he'd let his realtor go and that he didn't sign any contract with him any way so we'd save that $7500 commission. He also want's to slide us an additional $5k without his father knowing to get this deal done. We're a fsbo listing so we don't have any representation ourselves. Probably won't do this again.

$27,500 up from the original offer and the numbers are now workable but I don't like the arrangement. Contract or not, this feels unethical to me. I don't think I would have any interest in the offer without first contacting the original realtor and getting his feedback. I'm also a little unsure about the 5k after closing portion of this offer. I'm treating this as a no-brainer both legally and ethically but I'm interested in feedback.