By Mike Bodeen · 27 August 2018
I’m not perfect. Never have been. Never will be, including professionally. I make mistakes. My lovely, patient, and often long-suffering wife Karen knows this better than anyone.
I am also seldom inclined to speak ill of fellow professionals. As my wise parents and their generation, would often say, “If you can’t say something nice about someone, best not to say anything at all.”
Uh, sorry dad and mom. My defense? These “professionals” were not professional. Not by a long-shot!
I cannot remember a transaction where the buyer’s agent, the buyer’s lender, and the buyer’s agent’s choice of title companies seemed to conspire to pull off one of the most incompetently performed residential transaction’s I’ve ever been a part of. This says something considering I’ve been a real estate professional for over four decades.
All individuals and companies will not be named. All individuals and companies will never be a part of any future real estate transaction I’ll be a part of. The good news is that the deal closed.
I won’t go into great detail as I may physically damage my keyboard by pounding on the keys. In short, three months ago, Jonathan and I listed a Phoenix home where our seller completed everything we suggested to get the home in show ready shape, which included painting the interior, landscaping clean-up, interior and exterior repairs, etc. The seller, who was employed with the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, then moved out to the east coast to take a position in Vermont. Her dad, also a friend and client, continued to work diligently to oversee repairs on the now vacant home.
The home priced in the 200-250K range had over a dozen home showings the first week. In one week, we received a good offer from a buyer. That’s the good news. It went downhill from there!
For all intense and purposes, the real estate agent, who was related to the owner of a small and unfamiliar real estate company she worked for, miraculously disappeared from the deal after the escrow was opened. Houdini would be impressed.
The lender from an also unknown mortgage company was listed as the sales manager of the firm. He also disappeared and would only verbally speak with me when after the deal began heading south.
The title company, a large national firm is well known and has always provided excellent service when I’ve been a part of a transaction with them in the past, though they’re not my number one choice for title companies. This particular escrow officer was the Branch manager and a senior escrow officer. I wish she would have disappeared as well for the course of the escrow. Her lack of follow-up and answers to our questions was stunningly unprofessional.
“He received what seemed to be an excessive mortgage rate AND paid higher than normal closing costs, all the while not receiving quality representation.”
This escrow officer/Manager left for a week to do vacation during a critical period of time in the escrow. This was indeed a break for us. The gal who filled in for her came from a different branch and was wonderfully and professionally competent and understood excellent communication between professionals. She was the exception to this experience. When the original escrow officer returned from vacation, the nightmares returned.
I felt sorry for their buyer who was left out in the dark themselves. He received what seemed to be an excessive mortgage rate AND paid higher than normal closing costs, all the while not receiving quality representation. Oh, and in case you’re not aware, the higher a mortgage rate the buyer agrees to, the higher the fees the mortgage broker’s company gets. And to realize this lender may have received a large additional premium for this loan origination, adds indignation to this sad trifecta equation.
The mistake the buyer made? In the immortal words of the elder Crusader in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:
Mike Bodeen