On May 10, 12:33�am, "RCE" wrote:
"Tom Francis" wrote in message

...



After an hour of this bull****, I was getting a little annoyed, but
kept cool. Finally, they left and the potential buyer said he'd get
back to me tonight.

I just got off the phone with him - he offered me $600 for the Halman
based on his "surveyor's" report.

I hung up on him.

I hate selling stuff period. *When it comes to boats, I'd rather sell
through a reputable broker and pay him a commission, allowing him to screen
the tire kickers from the serious buyers.

It's not just boats either. *I recently sold a custom built Harley that I
had advertised on Craigslist. *Long story short .... the initial potential
buyer jerked me around with promises for over a month while he tried to
obtain financing to buy it. *This is after I explained to him that it was a
custom build, had been inspected by the MA State Police and issued a MA VIN
number and title, but not all banks would finance custom built bikes without
a manufacturer's assigned VIN. (they can't look the value up in a book) * I
also explained that I had priced the bike at well below it's value to make
it attractive to a cash buyer and provided documentation of the cost to
build to prove it. *He told me he would be paying cash. *He was a director
of something at a large food supply company in CT ... a typical
self-important yuppie. *After a month of delays .... important job meetings,
sick mother-in-law, etc. *he emailed that he was ready to do the deal and
would call me the next day. *I said fine. *Never heard from him again.
(Learned my lesson .... next time a deposit will be required).

Then .... Mrs. E. *had purchased a set of OEM rims and winter tires for the
'06 BMW 750il that she had for a short period of time. *She paid about $3600
for the set, never used them, and ended up trading the car for a Z4si. * I
got tired *(pun intended) of storing them, tried unsuccessfully to sell them
back to the dealer and finally listed them on Craigslist for $500 *just to
get rid of them. * I had guys wanting to try them on other BMW series cars,
but they wanted the option of getting their money back if they didn't fit.
(give me a break!) * Then, a guy with a new seven series BMW called and
wanted them. *He couldn't believe I only wanted 500 bucks for them and
showed up to buy them. *He inspected them, looked at me and said, *"Will you
take $450?"

I guess everyone has to negotiate, regardless of the price. *I hesitated for
a second, then said "fine" and helped him load them in his truck.

Eisboch


I just aborted a deal with a guy who wanted to buy three rentals down
in Tacoma. He made an unsolicited offer, but his timing was pretty
good as we have decided to relocate some of our RE investments. The
group he was interested in was comprised of some single family homes
we bought about 30 years ago and have been rentals ever since. We
thought we would need to do some remodeling and upgrading to attract
"retail" or owner-occupier buyers, and this fellow was offering prices
that we felt were pretty close to what we would net if we spent the
fixup money and listed them through a realtor. We made him a "package"
price on the three, on an as-is basis. He reserved the right to
"inspect" the properties, and we assigned individual prices on each
house in the package to draw up three earnest money agreements.

Following his inspection, we renegotiated the price on one of the
three as there was legitmately some additional damage we weren't aware
of.

When it was time to close, we discovered that he couldn't perform. He
had managed to "flip" his position on one of the earnest money
agreements, and despite his assurances that he was buying these houses
to fix up and hold as rentals we learned that he had been desperately
trying to flip his positions on all three since the beginning.
(Apparently we made a "better" deal and he made a "worse" deal than
either of us realized).

He insisted that we were obligated to close on the one property he was
in a position to buy. I told him to take a walk, since the price of
that property reflected his agreement to buy three houses and by
purchasing only one house he was breaching the scope of our overall
agreement. He said he would take me to court to force me to comply,
but backed off when I didn't crumble under the threat. I also told him
I was pretty sure that he would lose, although it would be up to the
judge to decide, and that it would cost him more to sue me than he had
probably made by flipping his position on an old rental.

Moral of the story; it doesn't matter what is being sold or how many
dollars are invovled, some sellers and some buyers are simply going to
be dishonest. It's not news of any kind that some people will lie,
cheat, steal, insult, and generally behave in an abusive manner if
they think they can wrangle a dime's worth of advantage in the
process. The humorous aspect of my situation with these old houses in
Tacoma is that the buyer kept assuring me that he would have no
problem paying cash, that his family had recently returned from an
extended overseas mission trip for his church, yada, yada, yada. I
should have smelled a rat. :-)