Remember when Matt Lionetti took the stage at Inman Connect?
It turns out, it was the same day a closing was set to take place for Matt’s condo. But things didn’t go quite as planned. We break down all the red flags from his home sale fiasco.
Tune in for the full story on this week’s episode of the Over Ask Podcast.
Under Contract
Matt put his Toronto condo on the market back in February. After getting an offer with a great price, paired with a heartfelt love letter, it went under contract.
Red Flag #1: Recruiting Emails
Right after the contract was signed, the buyer’s agent sent Matt a Zoom link trying to recruit him. And he sent one again the next day. And a few days after that. Matt eventually had to call and tell the agent to stop sending links.
It’s kind of like when solo agents suddenly say they have their own team:
Red Flag #2: Not Talking to Clients
The closing was scheduled to take place on April 19th – the same day Matt was speaking at Inman Connect. On the morning of the 19th, Matt woke up and saw an email from his lawyer stating the buyers needed an extension.
Nothing good comes from extensions.
Obviously, Matt called the agent to ask what was happening. The agent said he hadn’t heard anything about this, and that he hadn’t spoken to the client in a week.
What type of agent just stops talking to their clients?
Red Flag #3: Lying about Pre-Approval
When the agent called back, he told Matt it was an income issue. Great.
After digging a bit more, Matt found out the agent lied about the buyers’ jobs during pre-approval. This might be worse than not having a pre-approval letter.
Red Flag #3: No Follow Through
Obviously, the closing did not take place as scheduled. The next day, Matt set up in a hotel room to film the Over Ask Podcast with James Harris. As soon as the recording went live, Matt saw a notification pop up on his screen from his computer:
“Hey Matt, the buyers are unable to….”
After the episode, he read the rest…the buyers are unable to close. Matt entered a new stage of freak out.
Soon after, the buyer’s agent reached out and said,
“The buyers would be getting a new lender, they just need to push back closing (again) and get an appraisal.”
No problem, right?
Except, the agent did not book the appraisal. Well…after Matt spoke to the appraiser, he learned it was booked, and then canceled. Matt ended up booking his own appraiser and got the job done.
Of course, that wasn’t enough. The buyers needed to extend the closing again. This happened a couple more times, but Matt never received an extension letter and never really learned what the extensions were for.
Red Flag #4: Asking for money
After two weeks, Matt told the agent that if it doesn’t close today, the deal is dead. Somehow, they pulled the deal together. The buyer agent must have felt bad about his performance because he threw in .5% of his commission at closing.
The deal was finally done!
But of course, that’s not the end of it. The day after closing, the agent called Matt and said,
“We did it! Dinner’s on me. Bring the wife.”
Matt wasn’t holding back:
“Don’t call me again. If you see my listing, don’t show it. If you want to recruit people, get good at your job.”
And after all that, the agent still asked for $1,000 back of the .5% commission he threw in at closing so he would be able to pay the lawyer.
Have you worked with an agent like this? How did you respond?
Tune in to the full episode to learn more about how Matt handled this agent, and to find out the Broke Agent’s tips about the new changes to Instagram.
