Disingenuous. Duplicitous. Unethical.

These are the three words that come to mind when I think about the whole housing situation we've been in since last Thursday. Well actually, those three words come to mind when I think about the Selling Agent who listed the house we were interested in. I mentioned yesterday that we were close to making an offer on a house. Well it all came to a halt this morning when our realtor informed us that the Seller accepted a "pre-emptive offer" from the very beginning. A pre-emptive offer ... have you ever heard of that??? Our Realtor hadn't. He followed up on this and then later told us that it was a done deal and we had no chance at the property.

To sum it up...

4/17 Tues: House goes on the market.

4/19 Thurs: We meet our Realtor to see the house.

4/20 Fri: We ask our Realtor to get us the Disclosure Packet for the house.

4/21 Sat: There is an Open House for the property, so we drive over there to take a second look. (This is an hour drive away, and with a toddler in tow)

BTW, I have to add that we kept checking back with our Realtor on the disclosures. He was definitely working on it, but the Selling Agent is difficult to reach and her voice mail is full.

4/23 Mon 8:25 AM: Our Realtor informs us that he spoke to the Selling Agent on Sunday, and that she would upload disclosures online on Monday but she hadn't yet done that. The Selling Agent also said they would be looking at offers on Wednesday.

4/23 Mon 2 PM: Our Realtor spoke to the Selling Agent. The Selling Agent is still trying to get the disclosures online, mentioned that interest has been pretty strong but she does not yet have a good feel for how many offers may be coming in.

4/23 Mon 8:07 PM: Our Realtor finally gets the online link to the disclosures. He also mentioned again that they are looking at offers on Wednesday and that so far it looks like about a half dozen or so.

4/24 Tues: We look at the disclosure packet. DH had a long day at work on Monday (late meeting, followed by an escalation which went up to the VP level) so we both had long days and we were both too tired to read through 163 pages of the Disclosure Packet that night. I looked at it during the day on Tuesday while my Mom babysat M, and DH looked at it Tuesday night and called our Realtor to let him know we'd like to look at the house again on Wed and possibly make an offer afterwards.

4/25 Wed 8 AM: Our Realtor calls to inform us that we might not have a chance to make an offer. He has discovered that the Seller has already accepted a pre-emptive offer.

What a waste of our time and effort put into pursuing this house. We could have redirected our time and energies towards one of two other houses we were interested in. So now we've probably lost our chances at one of the two other houses which were real possibilities. (Offers are usually due on Tues for most properties)

I don't understand why the Selling Agent kept saying that they would look at offers on Wednesday when she already knew the Seller had accepted an offer. The Seller accepted the offer before the Sat Open House. The entire point of having an Open House on Sat would be to generate interest and thus more incoming offers. I can understand if an offer has been accepted and they are continuing to show a house, but this Selling Agent should make that clear (which is what other Selling Agents do, btw). The Selling Agent made no mention of the house being "sale pending". And she kept on saying that they'd look at offers on Wednesday. Seems like unprofessional behavior to me.

Am I wrong to have these three words running through my head today?

But now I know. I will be wary of any future houses on the market whose listing agent is Debbie Wilhelm of Coldwell Banker.

BTW, I have nothing against Coldwell Banker. One of my favorite Realtors is Roger Dewes of Coldwell Banker in the mid-peninsula (Burlingame, San Mateo, etc). He is the quintessential real estate agent; we worked with him a few years back when we were looking in the mid-peninsula. Our current realtor, who specializes in the south bay, is pretty good too ... he is sort of a Roger Dewes 20 years younger, lol.

Anyhowz, I still have made no knitting progress but I thought I'd share a photo of the Ariel Hat in progress. You can see the cable band at the bottom -- no, my cables aren't that screwed up, you're looking at the wrong side :-) -- which will be turned up after the hat is finished.

Teatime... I haven't mentioned tea in a while. I'm in a lazy mood today, so it's Yamamotoyama Jasmine tea in a teabag for me today...

.