buyer, sellers, agents, oh my!

Earnest money is kind of a joke. What's the point of putting down money in "good faith" if "good faith" is all subject to agents (and buyers) interpretation? The buyer's and their agent want to say they only "partially" owe it to us. Either they fulfilled their contract obligation or they didn't. And turns out the reason their lending failed is his work visa paper work wasn't approved by them. Been 12 days since they rescinded now. I don't care, I'll drag it out a month, just to make them be inconvenienced by us like we were by them. My hunch is they knew they were going out of the country for a month - liked this house the "best so far" so put a "hold" on it (tied us up for the month) until they got back and decided on something else they liked better.

And then come to find out, our own realtor apparently knew, at least a week - maybe longer -  before the buyer rescinded their offer that their lending fell through! If she had told us this was the case, we would have terminated the sell agreement (I believe we had the right to do so and they would have had 3 days to figure out), so we could have re-listed our house right then. Not a week or more later. I think at this point, I am most mad about this. We had constantly been in contact with her on what was going on with these "absent" buyers. They made the offer, left the country 4 days later for the rest of the month. Waived (rather just ignored) having a formal inspection done. No FHA appraisal ordered. Their lender/agent was trying to get a hold of them so they could sign for the appraisal. We were finally told mid June they got a hold of them and the inspection would be ordered soon. Then nothing. I checked in with our agent to again, 8 days later to ask "where is the FHA inspection".And then again on the 30th of June (the day after he was supposed to be back in country) and then told buyer rescinded.

And my agent knew their lending failed. In her email to me today: "that's how I knew lending failed way before buyer and their agent told us about it."

I don't care if it was hours or days before - she should have told us as soon as she knew this information.

So, she just called me. Who knows whether she's telling me the truth or just trying to back track, but she says she just re-read what she typed me this morning and she didn't communicate what she was trying to say right. She said she had an inkling they were having lending problems, when they switched lenders (two weeks after the offer), lender supposedly told her they were well qualified and she asked for documents of approval. Asked again several days later, still got nothing, and then found out on the 30th they rescinded due to financing. She is saying that she feels 100% sure their agent knew all this 2 weeks before they rescinded offer and didn't tell her/us. Buyers agent is saying she only knew a week before offer was rescinded. Our agent and her boss (again, both these agents work for same company) both say the earnest money should be paid to us.  Either it is or it isn't. Simple as that, really.

So, not feeling overly confident in our realtor right now. I didn't tell her she lied to me, but I did say 3 times "but your email said this, so you can see how we would come to the conclusion you knew it failed and didn't tell us?". The last 2 showings have been a joke and a waste of our time. Saturday's people were here a grand total of 3 1/2 minutes. Spent 1 min 40 sec inside house and went outside, walked by our shed and got in cars and left. We asked for more specific feedback - especially the negative (because my realtor is a total PollyAnna) because if we don't also hear what the negatives are about the house, how do we know what we are up against?  I don't even think today's realtor's clients showed up. She was in the house, standing with the back french doors open and talking on her phone for like 15-20 minutes. There was no one else with her. And then she started turning off lights (we leave lights on in all rooms) and turned off the switch that run the wall outlet for our camera security system! Just leave the house as it was! It's how we know they are gone and ok to go back home.

The realtors response from Saturday's showing was house showed well, but would have showed better without pet odor.  Ok, good to know. Other than I'm not really sure what to do to "fix" that problem. Dogs live here, LOL. So, even if I have the carpets and upholstery shampooed, they still live here. I asked our realtor if it's something she noticed the two times she was here and she said not at all. I asked my DD - since she hasn't really lived here the past almost 2 years, does she notice it when she comes to visit. She said she does not. I even had our good neighbor come over and do a sniff test - so he could tell me how bad it is.. he said he didn't smell anything.  So, guess I can just try to use some carpet deodorizer when vacuuming.  I'm sure a big negative for everyone is the neighbor with the falling apart single wide and all his crap (slumlandlord). If that's why people are saying no, then we need to know that too. But then again, most people probably aren't even honest with a realtor. Like there was one house we looked at last March. You could tell the people didn't take really great care of the house....their dead xmas tree was still out on the deck...and had to walk around dog poop all over the yard while outside. And we didn't really say any of that to the realtor, so I can see how we are most likely not going to get much helpful feedback.

We have a little over 2 weeks left on our agreement with her. Not sure what we'll do after.