How Crazy People Try (but fail) To Buy A Condo
So the condo is both for sale and for rent at the moment. We only have 3 weeks to go before we leave and as such we've got to be open to whatever options we have. Yesterday we were informed that we had an offer to rent. The thing about a rental is that unless the guy wants to bargain you down on the price, there are no sign-backs and negotiation. It's a done-deal. We knew then that the condo would be handled by midnight.
But just to be assholes (and to see how serious they were) we sent a message to the crazy real estate agent from before (see the blog post below). The message was simply that we were getting an offer, and we'd accept it, so if your buyers are serious bring in a clean offer before our deadline or else we're done.
And so the saga continued. It's hard to describe exactly how much of a crazy, whiney, annoying shit this agent was. But you don't have love the guy, just his money. By way of background it is important to know a few things about this wack-job. He has never, ever been on time. He has never, ever respected a deadline (which are crucial to negotiations) and he has never, ever been honest.
So inside of that little context we sent our message. Of course he asked to meet our agent at 5pm. He was late, and didn't have an offer ready. Well, at least we knew he was operating consistently. He promised an offer, soon, any minute now. And an hour later it came. It was not 'clean' i.e. devoid of conditions, and it was not the amount we wanted. However, it was close, and the only condition was that he see a particular document that details the financial health of the condo corp. So we said fair enough, we'd go for it, but he had fucked up something that needed to be re-signed and the cheque for the deposit was not certified, and was drawn on a out of province bank. So we sent it back asking that to be fixed, and accepting conditional upon a certified cheque.
They came back late (i.e. AFTER the deadline) and now wanted it conditional upon financing, and wanted the buyer's trashy girlfriend to see it one more time. I won't give you the details of the conversations, but it got so far as our agent was yelling at the agent telling him he was a crook and storming out!
so at 8.45pm he finallly finished making out that offer, and handed it to us, initially asking us if we could have it back by 9pm. What an absolute dimwit and an asshole. We told him we'd let him know by midnight. At that point I think what i said was "Anthony, it's 8.45! we have not had our fucking dinner yet, so no, you can't have it back in 15 minutes, we need to think about it, go away and we'll call you!"
In the end we felt that they had inserted just enough conditions to allow them to back out later, when we'd lost our renter and were now minutes from going to HK, and (they hoped) desperate enough to take whatever shit they offered.
And, rather than play that silly shit, we just sent it back at 10pm and said that either they give us the proper offer with no conditions, or they could fuck off. Midnight came and went with no reply, so we faxed over our rental acceptance, and that was that.
- or was it? -
12.40, the agent emails our agent:
"Thank you,I will be taking my client to get a financial approval tomorrow. Once I have it, I'll give you a clean fresh offer without any conditions so we can wrap it up faster.
Except that our unit was no longer on the FUCKING MARKET because he had (as usual) let the goddam deadline sail right by.
This is by far the most bizarre experience ever. It's not merely a case of a bad agent, or a crooked agent, or a stupid agent. It's all those combined with unethical nasty buyers. Completely weird.
Well now it is over. Instead we have a nice guy renting our place for a year or more.
Now, anyone want our car?