Recently while driving down my street I saw something interesting. A house that had been for sale for some time at $425,000 had a “sold” sign on it. That was moderately interesting, but what I found far more interesting was that it had a new sign advertising the price now as $475,000!
I was quite stunned at this. After all, when the property was first listed it started out at $450,000 and slowly made it to $425,000 during several months on the market. I looked up the property on the MLS and it was pending inspection. Who the heck puts up a sold sign when the house still hasn’t gone through the inspection!
Sure enough, the home failed inspection and went back on the market. The sign now states $425,000.
While there exists the chance that there were multiple offers on the property, the more likely case (especially given this agent has a poor reputation) is that the agent deliberately misrepresented the sold price in order to attract more listings.
I considered taking a picture of the sign and send it to the MLS, but did not have the chance before the home went on the market. However, what would have really happened here? From looking at the list of MLS fines, at the most he would have received a fine for $100 or $200. More likely he would have just received a warning.
It is no wonder people distrust agents when this is all that can happen to you for deliberately trying to mislead people! Going through the list of MLS fines is quite comical, because in many cases these fines are for completely unethical and in some cases illegal behavior. While I can see someone accidentally including a disallowed phrase such as “walking distance to Microsoft” (assumes the buyer can walk), I cannot see someone accidentally listing a home as twice the size that it actually is.
If an agent repeatedly does these things, he or she should no longer be allowed to practice real estate. Even with lawyers this is the case. If a lawyer is found to have practiced unethically, he or she can be barred from practicing law in that state. While technically this is possible with real estate, in practice it is rarely carried out.
Until we start weeding out the bad apples, public trust in real estate agents will continue to be at an all time low.
