All Forum Posts by: Wilson Hunter

Under the REALTOR rule of "clear cooperation" a REALTOR must market the listing to the public within 24 hours of marketing it to anyone. If he takes to you about it on Tuesday, he is required to list it publicly by Wednesday.

i think you're upset that you couldn't buy it cheap and your slandering a REALTOR just because he beat you at your game.

To suggest I’m slandering a realtor is laughable. I didn’t even post the dude’s name. I’ll also suggest for a third time that if you read the post you’ll see that the dude offered me a price for his Airbnb and I simply agreed to his price. He’s a professional broker and I’m a random guy with one cabin trying to get a second one. I wasn’t playing any games.

If your job relies at least in part on a public persona on BP you probably want to stop appearing like a scumbag. Good grief.

1 Vote

Where are you seeing better deals in Broken Bow? I’m seeing exact same prices as the Smokies and nowhere near the return. I was also intrigued by Broken Bow a few months ago and couldn’t figure out any advantages for that market over the Smokies.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Bob Galivan:

Every state in the US requires that real estate contracts be in writing in order to be valid. It is unfortunate that you left thinking that you had a verbal agreement, but put yourself in his position: suppose they were your cabins, and you made a verbal deal with someone that drove in with the promise that you'd send a contract later. Thirty minutes later, another guy drives in and offers $10,000 more than your previous buyer did. Would you say, sorry, I just promised another guy I'd sell to him for $10k less than you offered? It's more likely that you'd see the opportunity to make an extra $10k.

Your seller assumed that you would go through on your end, just like you assumed that he'd go through on his. He faced the same risk - what if you got cold feet? What if he did turn down another offer and you got cold feet?

What should have happened is that you and he both should have insisted on a written agreement. If it was not convenient, you could have drawn up a simple written agreement that bound both of you to the sale, with contract docs to be sent within a few days.

You didn't read the post. The seller lied and tried to simultaneously list his property on the MLS while communicating with me that we had a deal. This has nothing to do with contracts in writing, getting cold feet, or anything else. It's an issue of integrity and ethics.

2 Votes

Originally posted by @Nathan Gesner:

Originally posted by @Wilson Hunter:

You didn’t read the story. (1) The realtor is the seller. (2) The “offer” was the price he gave me.

I misunderstood that part.

So now my response is, "Why did you drive away with an unsigned contract?"

If it goes under contract in the next 30 days, it will prove you were offering too little. If it languishes on the market because he's asking too much, he'll call you back.

We were in the process of getting to the contract as I saw him simultaneously list the property on the MLS. He told me he was working up the contract and about to send it to me. I was in the area visiting my own cabin and wasn't actively hunting off market deals. This just happened to come up.

The point of the story has nothing to do with contracts, optimal strategies to land properties, etc. The topic at hand is “it’s messed up to straight up lie to people to make an extra buck in real estate.”

Many people here think anything is fair game as long as it’s legal, including breaking your word on verbal commitments and lying. I am contending that it is unethical behavior, and it’s not something I’d personally engage in.

3 Votes

Originally posted by @Nathan Gesner:

He's a licensed REALTOR. His fiduciary responsibility to the Seller, not to you. He probably told the Seller about your offer and the Seller realized he could probably get more, so they put a higher price on it.

"It's a fair price for both parties..."

If you were that excited to throw an offer before it was even listed, I'm pretty certain you were hoping to get it below market before anyone else got a shot. You were close. You weren't cheated.

You didn’t read the story. (1) The realtor is the seller. (2) The “offer” was the price he gave me.

2 Votes

Originally posted by @Marc Rice:

@Wilson Hunter

If you had a good investor friendly agent he wouldve locked it up on the spot on your behalf. You always need someone representing your best interest.

No he wouldn’t have. If you read the story the point is that the owner never intended to sell it to me at the price he had agreed to. Having an agent helping in this situation wouldn’t have magically helped land the property, but it’s true that I probably would have avoided the deceitful seller tactics.

1 Vote

Originally posted by @David Dachtera:

@Wilson Hunter,

"... off market deal in place with a real estate agent ..."

That's an oxymoron, unless the agent is the owner. Perhaps that's the lesson here: if the owner is an agent / broker, assume it's (about to be) listed.

Another poster suggest that he doesn't blame the guy for trying to get the best price. However, since he'd already spoken with you, I -DO- blame him. As Lt. Worf would say, he "has no honor".

The owner is an agent, yes. In the Smoky Mountain market many/most short term rental agents also own their own cabins, and many of them buy and hold, so I don’t necessarily think the assumption that it is about to be listed is accurate. The Airbnb listing had 64 reviews and had been running for a while.

1 Vote

Originally posted by @Michael K.:

@Wilson Hunter

One thing I have learned while working with clients is people have very different relationships to money. Some people make it a game to get every single cent out of the transaction, some people think 1000 dollars one way or another is a big deal. Other people are not so price sensitive or nit-picky, and just want to save themselves a headache. Point is, you will run into both types, so be on the lookout.

For sure. To be clear, I know that this kind of thing can happen, but the point of my post was an ethical complaint/observation. Based on the responses I can tell people think I’m frustrated because I didn’t get the cabin, but I could care less about the cabin itself. I’ll get one soon. I just don’t like being lied to in a deal.

I get actual enjoyment from doing Smoky Mountain short term rentals that is well beyond the money made. I brought my kids to camp out in our last one for three weeks as we got it ready. My kids learned that people pay us money to stay in an awesome cabin that we worked to set up, and they learned about honest work and exchange of money for real value. I love seeing the positive appreciation from honeymooners making lifelong memories in our Smoky Mountain cabin.

The dude who fleeced me on a deal (same age also with children) will buy Christmas presents for his kids with the delta earned from angle shooting and lying to me in a deal.

2 Votes

Originally posted by @Michael K.:

@Wilson Hunter

If that’s the case then hopefully he gets burned on the decision. Since your post is from today I’m guessing this just happened in the past few days, so the property may still sell at the new asking price.

My bet is that he sells the property somewhere between my price and his asking price and after realtor fees he’ll make exactly what he would have made on my deal.

But let’s say he makes $10k more. Is that worth lying and breaking the deal? The forum votes yes apparently. Or at least the “gold badge vote” goes yes haha.

1 Vote

Originally posted by @Michael K.:

@Bruce Woodruff

Then I guess I can’t expect people from wherever you come from to understand that it would be idiotic to make generalizations about an entire city of people based on a comment made by one individual from that city.

Back to the topic at hand. If I have a verbal agreement to sell a house for 400k and then get an offer for 450k before any papers are signed you better bet that I’m having my client sign the contract for 450k. Can you imagine trying to convince the client otherwise? Obviously if my client wants to keep their word then I would support that decision, but I couldn’t fight them if they wanted to take the higher offer.

Read the posts. This didn’t happen. The listing is currently sitting at 450 with no offers. The dude did not have a random 450 offer suddenly come in on his Airbnb that wasn’t even on the market. He thought he was clever and wanted to see if he could spin a 400k mutual agreement into a few extra grand by lying about his intentions. He wanted 12 to 18 hours to see if he could incite a bidding war from me or FOMO someone else.

0 Votes

All Forum Posts by: Wilson Hunter

Wilson Hunter has started 19 posts and replied 209 times.

Post: Scummy realtor behavior in hot market

Post: Broken Bow Oklahoma STR

Post: Scummy realtor behavior in hot market

Post: Scummy realtor behavior in hot market

Post: Scummy realtor behavior in hot market

Post: Scummy realtor behavior in hot market

Post: Scummy realtor behavior in hot market

Post: Scummy realtor behavior in hot market

Post: Scummy realtor behavior in hot market

Post: Scummy realtor behavior in hot market