Question:
“I made a decent offer on a condo and didn’t even get a counter offer to see if I’d go up. They just accepted another offer. Is that ethical?”
Answer:
It’s most likely ethical.
There are some cases where the seller’s agent ignores other offers so he can get his own offer accepted and make both sides of the commission. In fact, sometimes they don’t even tell the owner about the other offers.
That IS both unethical and illegal—illegal because the agent has a legal duty to present all non-frivolous offers to the seller.
However, most of the time that an offer isn’t responded to is completely above board: the seller gets a better offer and decides to accept it, rather than counter lesser offers.
One could make the argument that the seller should counter all offers because a buyer may just be starting low but willing to pay much more.
On the flipside, one can make the argument that you’re risking losing a home you want to another buyer if you don’t make a good offer to start with.
