The first sounds like the buyers agent was partially at fault not inquiring about the buyers funds and your agent was at fault for not showing the house again without a concrete offer in place.

The second was partially your agents fault for not insisting on earnest money with the offer and partially your fault for accepting the offer without earnest money.

You have had dumb luck. Sorry.

When we bought our present house with cash we didn't have to show proof of funds to our agent because he knew us for years, but we did have to show proof of funds and put down earnest money. when we made the offer Also the offer stipulated how long we had to acquire the inspection. I think we had a week to get the inspection.

If you could get out of your contract with your agent I would. At least insist on a new seasoned agent with the same real estate company.

@functionthenlook - thank you. To clarify: in NY State the signed and countersigned offer is preliminary, then the lawyers work up the actual contract and the earnest money is submitted along with the contract. So we accepted the cash offer(s), then our lawyer drafted the contract(s) and sent it to the buyers' attorney(s) for them to sign. All of this is normal procedure in NYS. What was not normal was that the buyers then dragged their feet and then backed out.

Also, I don't think that our agent technically stopped showing the house. It was never listed as "pending" and she said she only had a few inquiries in the interim and no one actually came to see it (it's a rural area so the market is slower than in other places)...

The weird thing is, she's got years in the field, everyone knows her, and everyone we've asked from locals to attorneys raves about her!

I'm wondering what other people's experience is with agents. Did your agent communicate with you after every showing and let you know buyer's feedback? We always have to ask ours for updates.

And the fact that in both cases, we had to push her to find out what was going on with these buyers (and thus get them to say that they were backing out) is concerning. I feel like if we hadn't done that, who knows how long it would have taken?

I guess I'm just starting to wonder if she's too preoccupied with other sales and not really being aggressive enough with ours, or putting the effort in, assuming the sales were done deals? Or if there's anything she could have done differently to prevent us wasting so much time?

Also just wondering how common this sort of thing is because it's very discouraging! Is this a freak thing???

Our state is different. The buyer signs the offer contract puts down the earnest money and then it is sent to the sellers agent whom presents it to the seller to either accept the offer or decline the offer . If the seller accepts the offer they sign it. Once both sign it is binding. There is no back and forth. It is all handled by the agents. No lawyers. The contract is signed by both parties and binding usually within hours. (Sometimes if the buyer is low balling or has weird conditions the buyers agent will call the sellers agent to verbally give the offer for pre consideration before wasting the time with paper work that would be rejected by the seller anyway. By law all offers have to be given to the seller for consideration even the ridiculous ones).

Your kind of in a tough spot. Once a house sits on a market for awhile it is harder to sell. People tend to think something is wrong with it. Are you able to remove it from the market for a few months and then relist? If not the buyers will be more active with spring coming. They want to move in nice weather and before their children have to start a new school.

It sounds like your agents hands are tied by NY law. I would tell her sternly you are very unhappy about what happened twice before and you don't want no repeats. Maybe she will be more diligent.

Thanks again, @functionthenlook. It gets even worse: Spring is *not* the active time here, because this is a ski area and ski season is the busy time, when skiers are looking for vacation homes. Spring, after the season ends, is dead, then picks up again slowly in the Fall. So if we don't sell in the next week or so, we've lost a year. :-(

Oh my, that does make a difference. I can see why your area is slow. It is buyer specific and not their primary home. I hope you sell soon. The economy is good presently and people have disposable cash right now for a vacation property. Who knows what the economy is going to be like in the fall. Good luck I hope you sell soon.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful responses! :-)

Is there any other activities in the area than skiing? Such as a lake or creek, golf, hiking trails or hunting. Maybe stage in the home 's storage area or garage some article associated with that activity. Fishing rods, golf clubs, etc. Then buyers will be more prone to view the home as something they could use year round than just in the winter.

I have often wondered just how the lawyer-lobby has managed to keep real estate selling expensive and complicated, with "many a slip 'tween the cup and the lip". In most of the midwest (no personal knowledge of other parts of the country other than this area and the NYC tri-state area, we do as functionthenlook says. Every realtor uses a boiler plate contract from done by the local realtor's association. One is under contract when both parties have signed the offer/acceptance. Of course, it is often subject to inspection, but some properties sell "as is". Earnest money must be put up with the offer (usually at least $1000) and within a day or two of the offer being accepted (via signing the bid contract), an additional amount must be put down as well.

This is far less expensive than involving lawyers, takes a very short period of time, and while a buyer can try to back out, he will at least lose his money if he does. It also protects the buyer as the seller cannot come back and say (prior to the lawyers getting the contracts ready and their being signed - often a glacial-paced process) that he has a higher offer and either meet it or the deal's off. That happened to my son twice in CT.

So perhaps within NY State it is just Greene County (and possibly others) that uses lawyers? Although I'd swear that this was the case in Western NY too.

You've got some real amateurs in this transaction and I would pull out. Absolutely, you need a Bank Letter indicating the cash is on hand submitted with any cash offer! Ridiculous. If the other agent doesn't know, your agent should surely know. Inspections are to be scheduled immediately and the earnest money deposit must be with the Purchase Agreement (or within hours).

I had a circus like that when I sold my parents' house. I finally had to just ram it through myself, by conducting all parts of the transaction, and I got it done but it was stressful trying to keep everyone on track and doing their jobs.

My agent was on a cruise during the closing and had done almost nothing during the transaction. She had someone show up to collect the check though, while I conducted the closing. Never again. I rarely use agents now (except if in a distance situation) but you can bet I cut them loose at the first sign of nonsense.

All of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut conduct their real estate transactions through attorneys for both the buyer and seller. We have moved multiple times in the last 35 years and have bought and sold in those 3 states in addition to other parts of the country. The only issues we ran into when selling were in those states where attorney's were involved. The process is too long and drawn out and gives buyers a chance to act on any "buyer's remorse" they may feel as the purchase agreement is not binding until signed- which sometimes takes weeks to accomplish.

I've bought and sold homes in 5 states, including New York State. Without a doubt, New York is the hardest to deal with because of the way the property goes to contract. Lawyers slow the process down, make trouble and cost more money. But, they have a lobby in Albany and this is the way you have to proceed.

I've also fired a agent in New York for failing to control access to my property and not dealing with the situation. I understand your frustration. The agent I fired was a good agent, but the situation was spiraling out of control. The new agent dealt with the situation, changed the marketing effort and brought me a real buyer within two weeks.

I do believe that the set up in New York encourages poor behavior by buyers and excessive delays. Luci had the double whammy of selling a property in an area where the sales are mostly discretionary. Buyer's don't need this property, they just want it. That makes for some flighty behavior. And, it takes longer to sell.

She is correct to ask the question, but I think in this case the agent ran into bad luck. The agent cannot get the contract expedited if the buyer's attorney doesn't get off their backside and present the contract. Remember, the seller's attorney has to review, edit and return it to the buyer's attorney before it can be signed. This is just to put it under contract. We haven't gotten to the closing table, yet.

You ran into bad luck. You need to instruct the agent to present all offers to you, but they need to vet the buyer. The property has not been removed from the market, so you haven't been harmed. There has not been an inspection because you never got that far. It's not as if there is a known negative condition.

The way I sold my property was to show the house myself. I told the buyer's agent that there was a pending offer but no signed contract. That if these people wanted this house to pay me $1,000 over asking and it would be their house. It was sweet to tell the other pain in the backside buyer to hit the road. I was tired of their games.

Here is what I would do. Examine the listing in the multi-listing service for errors, bad pictures and make sure the listing language is appropriate. Check the online listings and make sure they look great. And, tell your agent to be aggressive in vetting the buyer. Tell the agent that you need more status communication from her in the future. What you have gotten to date is insufficient. Towards the end of the listing agreement, reassess your agents activity and effectiveness. You may want to change. At this point, give her the benefit of the doubt.

Agree with homechef's analysis above.

I had a recent transaction that involved a 1031 exchange out of NYS and the attorney's involved did their level best to string out the closing on the sale of the NYS property. They managed to delay months beyond the original closing date - and 1031 exchanges are time sensitive. I have never seen such disorganization and lack of follow through in my entire 40+ year real estate career. Eventually the property closed and we were able to timely close on the exchange properties. But the lesson I learned is to stay on top of the attorney's every day if you have a NYS sale.

And stay on top of your agent. I agree 100% with homechef59.

Edit: In my area (S FL) a cash offer has to have POF (proof of funds) supplied with the offer in order to be taken seriously. IMO your agent failed her duty by not collecting the POF at the time of the original offer. Fortunately, she didn't take it off the market while you were fiddling with a buyer that didn't have the stated resources. (PS - I think their excuse was bogus - JMHO).

And we also have a form contract that is executed by the parties (buyer and seller) without involving an attorney. Having said that, it is perfectly fine to have the offer subject to an attorney review. But our attorney's here wouldn't be in business 6 months if they delayed the review and response like the NYS attorney's did on the above referenced transaction.

Thank you, Linda117117. We are using an experienced Real Estate attorney. Also, all of the contracts had time limits. But apparently that doesn't mean much, since we have no leverage at that point. We can cancel the offer, but that would only be hurting ourselves in the absence of any other offers. Thankfully, the listing never showed as "pending" on the MLS in either case. But I do not think our RE agent was marketing our home during that time, or marketing it aggressively enough - I think she thought "Two cash offers - what could go wrong?" The reason I say that is that there were 0 showings while these offers were pending -- but now that these fell through and she knows we're unhappy, suddenly we have 3 showings in the next few days. The listing looks great and it's a hot property and apparently priced right - but it still needs someone pushing it. She also apparently didn't keep on top of the buyers' agents every day. Hopefully she learned her lesson and is going to find us a buyer in the next few weeks and vet them well. Otherwise, because this is a ski vacation home area and the market pretty much dies in spring, we'll probably have to take it off the market until fall. In that case, we may switch agents, but we did ask several people in the area, including the RE attorney, and they all spoke highly of her. She's very successful, owns her own firm, has trained many of the RE agents in the area, and also builds and sells homes. Frankly, in this case, I think she got too busy with her other properties and just assumed it was a done deal. Will probably give her another chance.

I would never enter into a contract involving hundreds of thousands of dollars without an attorney to safeguard and protect solely MY interests. Everyone else is compromised regardless of "professional" codes. Agents need the houses sold in order to get paid.

I've used lawyers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. It is the usual procedure. I also used a lawyer to buy a house in Florida. Definitely not the usual procedure. And I was able to have the lawyer act for me at the closing, which is included in the scope of duties of an attorney.

Not sure about that. RE attorneys aren't interest-free either since it's in their interest to close as many deals as quickly as possible. And they sure didn't protect us in NY state. We've bought and sold homes in both NY and FL and the only homes we've had problems with were in NY. In some counties there is no disclosure. We had to replace the entire heating system on one house - $21,000. Lawyer didn't help us there (and yes we had it inspected but it was summer so there was a limit to how much they could test).