Thread: what to do? opinions please...

i'm currently in an interesting pickle with a realtor. i found a property here in tempe on zillow. it was a short sale. i contacted the sellers agent, she met me at the property, i liked it, and we signed a contract. i've been through literally a dozen plus real estate contracts in the last year in my attempt to buy an reo or short sale. i'd been getting rejected a lot and having signed so many contracts i'd become complacent. the realtor seemed very nice and she complimented my savvy numerous times. we didn't look at the contract in detail. i skimmed through it all and because i'd done this so many times i quickly reviewed the key points of the short sale agreement, inspection period, earnest deposit, etc. it was to my satisfaction. all got signed and initialed and we parted ways.

fast forward about a month and a half. i'd found an reo property (on my own) and i wanted to make an offer. i contacted the sellers agent again, we met at the property, and i submitted an offer. the short sale i'd signed a month earlier was taking forever, as short sales do, and i knew that i could back out any time for any reason as per the short sale addendum. because of this i made an offer on this second property. it was accepted.

i contacted that first agent (from the short sale above) and things got complicated. apparently i had signed a buyer broker agreement with her. i had no idea. i would never have signed one had i seen it. i know what a buyer broker agreement is but i've never seen one. no real estate agent has ever made me sign one. she insisted that i "not worry" about it and demanded that i give her my new agent's name/number so that she could "get paid". i couldn't believe she was doing this, frankly. i read over the agreement and since she had provided none of the services required i realized that the seller of this reo property could refuse to pay her. i told her that i was the one in breach, and that i would "work it out" with her if i closed on the property.

anyway, the deal closed. she's been emailing me insisting that i pay her. i can sympathize, to some degree, with her plight. she wants to get paid for the effort she put out on the short sale property. but that effort isn't much. she drove to meet me twice, perhaps maybe a total of 20 miles round trip, and prepared one contract. before i quit my job i was in sales. i know what it's like to put effort into a client and net nothing. it happens a lot. you just play the numbers. she said that in 10 years she's never had to "enforce" her buyer broker agreement. frankly, i can't believe she's doing this.

to make things even more complicated, shes insisting on 3%, which in the case of this property is 777 dollars (25,900 purchase price). but the agent who helped me buy the house, (who's a saint by the way) took only a 1.5% commission from the seller of which she gave me 100 at closing as a gift. this woman did literally none of the work involved and is insisting on getting over twice the commission.

i appealed to her as a human being. i explained that i spent my life savings on this house (literally. i cashed out my 401k when i left my job and i'm now a returning student working on a teaching credential.) i told her that after paying for this house i have about 10,000 dollars left to my name. the house is gutted and unlivable. it needs about 7,000 dollars to get it livable again and i owe 2,000 to the irs this year because i cashed out that 401k. that doesn't leave me with much money, at all, to live on. my next student loan disbursement isn't until august. i planned on working at a bar on weekends for food money. i'm not rich and i'm not privaliged. i honestly feel as if i'm being robbed here.

i was COMPLETELY unaware i had a buyer broker agreement with her. i honestly think she slipped it in on me. had i known i was in such an agreement i never, ever would have gone behind her back to buy this property. i had no reason to! she wasn't unpleasant.

in any case. i'm not looking for legal advice. i can get that for free from asu, thankfully.

here are my questions...

1.) do you think what this realtor is doing is ethical?
2.) what power does she have to collect this 777 dollars?
3.) am i wrong to fight her?
4.) i offered to settle with her for 1% which is basically what the realtor who helped me close on the house was paid for her time. i told her that's what she would have been paid anyway. is that unreasonable?
5.) is she legally required to explain to me what i'm signing. if she "snuck" the document in without explanation doesn't that mean something, legally?
6.) have any of you ever been in this situation? what did you do?

thanks guys.

- tim

ps - i would like to reiterate that had i been aware of the buyer broker that i would have obviously just used her. i never would have knowingly created this situation for myself. i honestly had nothing against the woman.