This morning’s email brought the following from a local Realtor:
Meet the latest in shady practices – the short sale come-on tease. These are listings that are advertised as short sales but…aren’t….really.
I represented some buyers who wanted to make an offer on a so-called shorts, but was told, after many dodgy evasions of my questions about the lender, the process, etc. that they didn’t really want to sell short. Needless to say, my client’s response was “nothing like truth in advertising, eh?” and she is so disgusted she wants to file for bait and switch, fraud, etc.
Is this a new Realtor trick designed to attract attention to a listing? Sort of like Tiffany putting a sign on the window “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE -EVERYTHING MUST GO” and when you get to the register, you are told, “whoops, full price”
I’ve been aware of this practice for some time, and of its flip side – the failure to disclose in a listing that it’s a short sale.
Are buyers and Realtors seeing more of this lately?