Buyer Beware: A Maine Realtor Pulled a Real Bush League Move

I've mentioned for the last few months that I've been on the hunt for either a condo, townhouse, or single-family home in Maine. Constantly jetting all over York County and Cumberland County for showings, open houses, or even just cruising by homes with for sale signs in the front yard to shoot my shot.

And it's been an absolute uphill, losing battle.

I've chronicled how I put what was said to be an aggressive offer in on a condo in Saco that was perfect for me and lost out and even mentioned how I was sincerely starting to question my decision to try and buy property in Maine and wondered if I should just stick with a 90-minute commute to the station and suck it up.

And I thought the burnout of constantly going to showings and open houses while putting in offers and getting rejection after rejection was going to be the worst of it.

I was wrong. Because what this Maine realtor did, unprovoked -- easily the worst experience I've had in house hunting.

Let me preface this with saying that I'm not in the business to ruin anyone else's reputation or cost them any business, so if you're looking for the dirt on who this realtor is, you'll be disappointed because I'm not naming them. Partially because of what I just said about ruining reputations, but mostly because I don't even remember who it was. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.

But a day after looking at a property -- a condo that I really, really liked and was perfect for me and my pup Remy that I put an offer in on -- the seller of said property had an open house. Their deadline plan was to have the seller's agent go over offers with the seller right after the open house concluded. Hours later, while I happened to be at lunch with my father, I received a text from my realtor saying the seller's agent reached out and said they had pretty much decided on my offer, but wanted to wait until the set response deadline of Tuesday.

Just a run it back -- the seller's agent, with no pushing from my side, reached out to my realtor and basically said that my offer was going to be accepted. After 13 offers -- 13 OFFERS -- my seemingly endless search was finally going to end. I had never been so excited to get through a week and start a work week in my life.

Then Tuesday morning came. And I received a text from my realtor that I wasn't expecting.

"Good morning, I have bad news. The seller's agent reached out to me and said that they ended up going with a different offer. The listing broker apologized profusely."

It's one thing to have an offer rejected -- at the time, I had been rejected 12 other times, so it would've just been another notch on the rejection belt. But for the seller's agent to reach out to my realtor under their own accord to tell my agent that I was basically going to have my offer accepted, only to be told a few days later "OOPS LOLZ JK" -- that one burned.

And honestly, I have no ill will toward the seller's agent. At the end of the day, the decision is up to the seller, and if the seller's agent didn't care, I don't believe they would have passed the "profusely apologizing" message along to me through my realtor. But, it does bring up a hell of a lesson for both buyers and agents -- don't pass information along until it's concretely decided, and don't get your hopes up until it's officially a done deal.

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending, which you'll find out about soon...