How do people like this make a living in real estate? Part 1 of 2
Jason Crouch
I got a call from my business partner Frank yesterday, and he relayed a story to me that I thought would be worth sharing here. I decided not to add images as I don't want to distract from the facts here.
He has been working with a buyer in a new development in Austin, and it turns out that the price range was a bit too high for him to qualify for the mortgage. Our mortgage broker wrote a letter to that effect and Frank passed it along to one of the sales agents working there at the subdivision.
The financing addendum that was used on this contract was very straightforward. It indicates that our buyer had 15 days to notify the seller/builder if he were unable to obtain financing approval. If this notification is received, the addendum states that the builder will refund the earnest money deposit. In this case, they only required $1000 to hold the lot.
Obviously, Frank sent the letter in plenty of time and the buyer truly could not obtain financing, so it sounds pretty clear, right?
WRONG.
He spoke with the salesperson, and she acted hesitant, stating that they "would check" with the developer to see if he would be willing to release the deposit back to our buyer.
UH-OH.
Frank told her that there had already been a lot of tension throughout the deal, and that it would be best if they simply released the money since we had covered all of our bases and there was nothing to debate. Incidentally, the tension that he referred to came from one of the salespeople, who made racial slurs about our client, who is from the Middle East. He told Frank, "Don't ever bring that s** of a b**** out here again" following a long meeting with the buyer. He also asked Frank where his client was from, and after he answered, the guy said, "It figures. I can't stand working with those people."
At any rate, Frank and the lady agent had a civil conversation, so he was really surprised when he later received a conference call from the agent AND the owner of her company, whom I will refer to as TIM (Temperamental Idiot Man).
So, TIM was absolutely irate with Frank on the phone, and he was claiming that his agent "felt threatened" by Frank about the earnest money. WHAT?!? We have no idea what made her feel this way, if that is indeed true. Here is an excerpt from their phone conversation (obviously not verbatim, but close):
TIM: My agent feels threatened. You don't threaten a woman! Do you know who I am?! I know everything that happens in this town!! I will destroy you. I will destroy your company and I will destroy this mortgage company! If I find out that they are getting financing on another deal with that lender, I will sue them for fraud!
Frank: Man, calm down. Look - I'm just an old Texas boy. If you are going to threaten me, maybe we should meet and you can look me in the face. Who knows? You might even like me. Maybe we could be friends.
Author's note: The above is actually part of what happened (i.e. not embellishing or joking here). If you knew Frank, you would know that he really said that, with no small amount of sarcasm in his voice. Also, with regard to TIM's original question, I don't know who this guy is because he is nobody to me.
Here is PART TWO of this post:
How do people like this make a living in real estate - Part 2 of 2
Thanks for reading!
