Tamra, it's ok. I wasn't trying to be hostile or anything. It's just a frustating situation, being in my shoes. We basically found a house we really love, in a neighborhood that between the short sales and pending foreclosures- it's SLIM pickins'! haha It's even more frustrating when you have a listing agent who "shops" your offer, and judging by all the kind comments here, I'm guessing that is what happened to us??? Thanks for your and everyone's input. Keep it comin! Thanks Again =)

Tamra,

Jane is a potential BUYER, not an agent. If you look under her name on the profile it shows you that she is not an RE professional.

Jane, my bad! after reading through the posts I realized that you are an agent who put an offer on a property that was denied due to another buyer coming in higher. My suggestion to you is this; If your buyer still wants to purchase the property and the selling agent has told you that another offer has been accepted but nothing is showing in the mls. Rewrite your offer and submit it, by law all offers must be submitted to the seller. There are cases where the asset manager will just reject the offer and move on to negotiate on the other multiple offers. If they are still negotiating re-submitting the offer should automatically put you in the same position as you were before considering some change in the offer verses the initial one. I totally understand your frustration I deal with this daily, re-write and re-submit your offer and perhaps it will change the course that is taking place. Hopefully you will get a counter or another chance to submit highest and best. Tamra

Im sorry I misunderstood you then, so are you the selling agent? I really would like to help here. Tamra

Tamra, I am NOT the buyer, and it was not MY offer that was accepted, so no I do not have anything signed. Thanks =)

Once again, do you have a signed contract from the bank and have you signed their addendum. If you have not signed their addendum, which they all require a buyer to sign, your contract has not been officially excepted.

Jane....

This falls under the MLS rules as to when an agent is to report the property pending. However, if a purchase contract has been signed by the seller our MLS requires us to pend the property.

Banks often shop offers......the info on the status of a property is far less reliable from a bank than it is from a cooperating Realtor.

Ok, I specialize in Reo Properties. The asset manager will decide what the highest and best offer is, then he or she will send it to final approval for signed documents.Then and only then If you have signed documents then it should go into a Pending status, remember that most banks refer their propeties to property management companies who build their portfolio on quick sales and offers which means they want to show the property as Pending asap. The agent and most likely there is one ,has more than likely advertised the reo peroperty on other reo sites and changing the property status on those sites takes time as they cannot manually change it. If it is still active in the local MLS a final, signed contract has not been executed.

Hi Maureen. Thank you for your input. I am HOPING that will be the case with this one too, and if we're lucky we'll get another shot at it in the near future... To all others, I guess you could say that at the time it WAS our best offer, however we like the house enough that we're willing to compete for it now. Keep your fingers crossed and we'll just have to wait and see. I'll keep you all posted. Thanks, i feel so much better now, if nothing else! =)

Jane, your added information makes it something I have seen before. In fact, we had one set of clients who did not get the house in the original bidding, but then the buyer that the bank selected could not close and we stepped in a month later and pulled it together.

Jane-

I think you are right. The bank was shopping your offer, trying to get to something they would agree to. This is a classic strategy in commercial real estate, for which a bank is well versed. But when residential agents see it get used, they are thrown for a loop.

If you really did make your highest and best offer, then all you can do is move on to the next house. The bank has demonstrated it's not high enough for them.

Thank You for all the great input. I WILL keep YOU ALL posted on the situation! It has me on the edge of my seat, TRUST ME! Just to clear things up I thought I should let you know that I'm actually NOt the one who's offer was accepted. The deal is: AFTER submitting THREE offers, the first one was rejected, the second was countered, then we were FINALLY told to submit our BEST offer because there was another competitive one, we were only given until the following morning to sumbit our "best" offer, then were told by the listing agent that the Bank would choose between us and the other, whoever had the best, by the following morning. Well, that morning came and went until finally two or three days later we were told we had been outbid by just a few thousand dollars, and this all happened going on two weeks ago, and the house is still showing as active, thus making me believe there's something not quite right here. i think they were displeased with BOTH offers, and are simply waiting for higher ones to come in.... Thanks for all your input, and i will most certainly keep you all up to date on what's going on... Thanks Again, J.

Some REO asset teams are done by a huge committee who are submitting bids on the same properties. They meet usually at the end of the day (it can be nerve wracking if you are on the East coast and they are on the West). With the larger companies they will not allow the listing agent to post a pending until all contingency are met. That could be anything as making sure the earnest money has cleared all accounts or that you have full approval for your loan.

Then say an asset manager doesn't realize that there is an accepted offer on the said property. He then reduces the listing price then. Some REO companies are totally electronic, members of several boards (of Realtors) and make their own postings and changes. Thankfully, that isn't the case in my area. On the surface, it looks like just a series of miscommunication from the REO department to the listing agent.

Good luck and know that you are dealing with a committee and not an individual. They work banker hours and not on the week end - there is no warm and fuzzy with these guys! Last year my team sold over 135 properties this way and every week I have to educate the consumer on how they work.

Jo Shaner

Jane, when you find something out, let us know. This one is a curiosity.

Well Jane, be Glad it is not a short sale.

Most Buyers balk at the 7 day addendum, or the inspection, however once escrow is opened, " Most " go pending.

If you have signed a contract, and opened escrow, you`re good to go.

As for lowering the price? That`s weird.

Is the price lower than where you offered? If it is your buyers agent should be asking questions.
If it is not offered lower than your offer, then it appears that the listing agent is trying to bring more buyers to the table.

Read all the paper work, and good luck

Patrick

Typically most REO agents may leave the status of the listing active in hopes to bring in a higher offer. Now according to our local ARMLS rules, if there are any offers that are accepted either verbally or written, the listing agent is required to change the status of the listing at minimum to AWC (active with contingency) or pending.

There is rarely anything "normal" about REO transactions. ;-)

They can be nerve wracking for the buyer. Is the accepted offer in writing? If no, then it is very understandable. As others have said, call your agent and find out what is going on.

Good luck!

I'm basically thinking the same things... Thanks for your input! =)

If you made an offer on an REO listing, the bank will tell the REO agent to continue accepting offers until they get one that meets the guideline of what they are willing to accept. If you have been told that your offer is accepted and have received written documentation of this then the offer should reflect pending in MLS. If you have written acceptance and the listing does not reflect "pending" in your local MLS that is normal. You should call the broker of the listing agent to point out that the agent "forgot" to do his/her job. Otherwise you could get outbid and loose the property.

Jane, when an offer is accepted it would be normal for it to be put in pending status. I am in a different state, but I believe that our real estate board requires us to report pending sales within 5 days. Or at least that is what I have been told, but foreclosures seem to play by different rules. This could be because it takes a few days after an offer is accepted to get the sellers signatures. in fact, now that I think about it, I have even seen some banks take up to 2 weeks to sign their documents. By that time you are 1/2 way in the process to close.

I am thinking with the price change, it could be that the price change was submitted to the board and in the mean time an offer came in that was accepted. I know when we send in price changes it could take a little while sometimes even a couple of days to see the price change show up on the multiple listing service.

Of course the best way to figure this out would be to have the agent you are working with talk to the listing agent. Who knows maybe you will luck out and it will be back on the market so that is why it is not pending.

I hope this information helps! Best Wishes to you!