smelly selling agents

In househunting news, I had a place sold out from under me before I could take another look at it and decide to make an offer, and I got a look at a rotten basement in another place, since the tenant upstairs was (according to the sleazy-seeming agent) refusing to let people view the rest of the house, despite 24 hours notice given.

I walked into the basement and they hadn't even bothered to remove the old car seat, or sweep up the dirt all over the carpet, or fix anything. Walls covered in mold all along the foundation and it looked like someone had done a deep inspection for rot- with a sledgehammer. The south wall of house was rotten through from outside to the inner drywall, you could see through the holes bashed in the bathroom wall. Worse than the place I live in now and there was no telling what horrors were hidden.

The price for this prize? $438,000. Oh, and you had to bid against the listing agent, who clearly wasn't making any attempts to make the place look better, since he had a bid in himself. Bet he was offering less than $438,000. I'm still thinking about going to the real estate board with this one.

My score so far:

1. house in good neighbourhood- 2 appointments to view, stood up by listing agent both times, resident not home and when did come home, refused to let me in. house got re-listed for $20,000 more and then taken off the market.

2. good house, right price, wrong neighbourhood. if i am to live with no car, i need to be near the train. it sold quickly, anyways

3. 3 open houses in one day: 1 was awful and old and small and dirty with massive renos required, one was a horrid renovation, where the owner followed me around, trying to discourage me from looking too closely at the spray covering the ceiling tiles and other hidden evidence of water intrusions. i could hardly stand in the basement suite and I am average height. third house was nice, but actually listed at about $100,000 less than it could fetch- they were auctioning it off that tuesday, but if the reserve was met, the auction would never happen and you needed a $10,000 bank draft to join the game.

4. nice place, right location, but too expensive, considering the need for about $15,000 in basement suite renos. i thought about bidding low anyways, but the listing agent discouraged this, saying price was firm. then it got re-listed at $25,000 less and sold at midnight the day before I had my second viewing.

5. "come look at my wonderful listing for a rotten basement that looks like a former crack den and bid against me and a bunch of other realtors without having seen the entire place. did i mention my offer is being considered tonight, so don't expect to be able to make an appointment to view at a later date". i smell property flipping conspiracy.