Wow now I see what people were talking about!

[TheDailyMoo]

Been making some lowball albeit not out of bounds offers on certain contracts and I made an offer with a company I haven’t used before and got an admonishing email about how I’m wasting everyone’s time making ridiculous offers and what not. I thought this was only hyperbole when I read others experiences but I was really taken aback by the rudeness of the email. I mean…it’s your job to field offers and then get a nice commission for doing some legwork. What’s the deal? Does this person hate their job or something? Hate the people who buy the contracts and thereby pay their salary? Yeesh. A little professionalism too much to ask for? I’d rather just be ignored with no nasty email.

 

[C.Witch]

Been making some lowball albeit not out of bounds offers on certain contracts and I made an offer with a company I haven’t used before and got an admonishing email about how I’m wasting everyone’s time making ridiculous offers and what not. I thought this was only hyperbole when I read others experiences but I was really taken aback by the rudeness of the email. I mean…it’s your job to field offers and then get a nice commission for doing some legwork. What’s the deal? Does this person hate their job or something? Hate the people who buy the contracts and thereby pay their salary? Yeesh. A little professionalism too much to ask for? I’d rather just be ignored with no nasty email.

Would you really rather be ignored, or would you rather someone let you know that you're not going to be successful with your current strategy?

 

[tom1944]

There are brokers that have multiple contracts for the same resort that have listing prices $30 or more apart per point.

I wonder how they can get upset when a high price contract gets an offer around the amount of the lower priced listing

 

[Sandisw]

Unfortunately, all brokers have to decide how to deal with potential customers and when people walk away with a negative feeling, it certainly could (and probably does) impact that business.

As a reminder, if anyone wants to know who the broker is, the link can be posted without any other reference. If it shows up, great. If not, then no further info can be shared. My guess is it is https://*******.com/

 

[lilsonicfan]

Would you really rather be ignored, or would you rather someone let you know that you're not going to be successful with your current strategy?

I'm not the OP, but I would rather be ignored than lectured, for sure. I was in fact admonished by someone who also told me that my low offer would never be accepted. The contract I ended up buying a few days later was several dollars cheaper than the amount I had offered and was lectured about, so really, I could have done without the lecture.

 

[jo-jo]

I wouldn’t want to be ignored, but an email along the lines of your offer is below the minimum we would consider, vs you’re a jerk and don’t waste our time.

 

[crisi]

I'm not the OP, but I would rather be ignored than lectured, for sure. I was in fact admonished by someone who also told me that my low offer would never be accepted. The contract I ended up buying a few days later was several dollars cheaper than the amount I had offered and was lectured about, so really, I could have done without the lecture.

Ignored means they are going to get bugged repeatedly - "did you get my offer?" "What about this price on this offer?" So while I wouldn't want the lecture, I can understand the response - and as a buyer, would rather know that I'm wasting MY time with this broker when making lowball offers.

This broker would obviously prefer to get his nice commissions with less legwork and bother and doesn't care if s/he doesn't make every sale or get every customer.

 

[Lumpy1106]

If you want professional advice from the broker, how about pick up the phone and call? That's what I did when I bought my contract. If they are not in the business of picking up the phone, maybe you don't want to work with them?

 

[DonMacGregor]

Rudeness really serves no purpose, and simply ignoring you would have saved the broker time and effort for sure.

Having said that, I think when you start off by acknowledging that your offer is "lowball" ("not out of bounds" is even more subjective), then I think it really comes down to just how low the offer was. I'm not saying this is the case here, but there are plenty of posts on the Rejected Offers thread that reek more of people just playing games and trying to get a rise out of someone, rather than a legitimate effort to get the best deal possible. 10%, 20%, even 25% off the listed price seems like good negotiating. Throwing out an offer that's 40%+ below the list is just wasting everyone's time. Making 5 or 6 or 10 similar offers? Well...

Not every lowball offer can be justified with "well, you never know until you ask"? Sure you do. Again, not saying that is the case here, but I'm seeing more and more of these crazy "lowball" offer posts in that thread since ROFR ended, and I can imagine there are more than a few brokers who have heard more than their fair share of ridiculously low offers that were never going to go anywhere.

Still zero reason to be rude. Just ignore and delete, or send a simple boilerplate response and be done with it.

 

[tom1944]

I question whether some of the brokers have any idea about the market.

 

[disneylandtour]

Been making some lowball albeit not out of bounds offers on certain contracts and I made an offer with a company I haven’t used before and got an admonishing email about how I’m wasting everyone’s time making ridiculous offers and what not. I thought this was only hyperbole when I read others experiences but I was really taken aback by the rudeness of the email. I mean…it’s your job to field offers and then get a nice commission for doing some legwork. What’s the deal? Does this person hate their job or something? Hate the people who buy the contracts and thereby pay their salary? Yeesh. A little professionalism too much to ask for? I’d rather just be ignored with no nasty email.

Oh, without mentioning names...I'm still looking around for a small/mid-sized contract for a MK resort. Like 100 points-ish. And there is one broker who, when I see their name on a listing, I won't even contact. I'm guessing that we're all thinking of the same person.

 

[tom1944]

There were 3 BLT contracts listed by the same company.Two of them were roughly equivalent. One was listed at $132 and the other at $163.

Should the agent handling the $163 listing give a snarky reply to an offer of $130?

 

[Stargazer65]

I don't see any reason why they have to be rude, why can't they say:

"Hi, thanks for offer, but I wanted to let you know that the seller won't consider any offers below $XX. Feel free to reach out if you want to change your offer, or let me know if I can help you in any other way"

It takes no more effort to say the above, than to give a snarky answer.

 

[DonMacGregor]

There were 3 BLT contracts listed by the same company.Two of them were roughly equivalent. One was listed at $132 and the other at $163.

Should the agent handling the $163 listing give a snarky reply to an offer of $130?

It depends on what "roughly" means. Plus, if there are two contracts that are, in fact, very similar but priced well apart, then there's likely external pressure from the higher priced seller to keep the list at a certain price. It's not like the broker isn't aware that the two contracts are similar and priced well apart. Their preference is likely not to provide potential buyers with some built-in leverage ("Hey bud, you know you have a contract on your own site that's $31 lower per point."), no matter how shady or inexperienced they might be.

Plus, based on the logic that seems to be implied on many of these threads (that brokers just want the paycheck), the better question to ask is why the broker didn't compel the owner of the lower priced contract to increase their asking price to match the higher priced one, to at least raise the base for negotiation? Better to have both contracts beat down from $163 than one starting off at $132.

 

[TheDailyMoo]

Would you really rather be ignored, or would you rather someone let you know that you're not going to be successful with your current strategy?

Ignored means they are going to get bugged repeatedly - "did you get my offer?" "What about this price on this offer?" So while I wouldn't want the lecture, I can understand the response - and as a buyer, would rather know that I'm wasting MY time with this broker when making lowball offers.

This broker would obviously prefer to get his nice commissions with less legwork and bother and doesn't care if s/he doesn't make every sale or get every customer.

Rudeness really serves no purpose, and simply ignoring you would have saved the broker time and effort for sure.

Having said that, I think when you start off by acknowledging that your offer is "lowball" ("not out of bounds" is even more subjective), then I think it really comes down to just how low the offer was. I'm not saying this is the case here, but there are plenty of posts on the Rejected Offers thread that reek more of people just playing games and trying to get a rise out of someone, rather than a legitimate effort to get the best deal possible. 10%, 20%, even 25% off the listed price seems like good negotiating. Throwing out an offer that's 40%+ below the list is just wasting everyone's time. Making 5 or 6 or 10 similar offers? Well...

Not every lowball offer can be justified with "well, you never know until you ask"? Sure you do. Again, not saying that is the case here, but I'm seeing more and more of these crazy "lowball" offer posts in that thread since ROFR ended, and I can imagine there are more than a few brokers who have heard more than their fair share of ridiculously low offers that were never going to go anywhere.

Still zero reason to be rude. Just ignore and delete, or send a simple boilerplate response and be done with it.

The ignoring part I referenced was a preferred alternative to having a rude reply back. Like mentioned above a simple boilerplate response would be more than sufficient. As for my “lowball” offer it is always within a few dollars of RECENTLY accepted prices on the ROFR page. So no there is no asking for 40% off or anything like that. I’m looking for a deal but not crazy. Would anyone here think that 130 for PVB is asking to be given it for free? Also the way I work and the way I purchased my last contract was by offering and having a counter. So if they countered I would then counter back and so on. The biggest problem from what I experienced is this one particular agent at this company I haven’t worked with till this point. Most of the bigger houses (I assume this isn’t a big outfit) I’ve given what I would think similar offers and always met with courtesy. In fact I just received two emails from two other brokers who couldn’t have been nicer. I’m just surprised an email with such strong and aggressive language can be used by someone in a professional capacity.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Also the way I work and the way I purchased my last contract was by offering and having a counter. So if they countered I would then counter back and so on.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that approach. The issue some people have when negotiating is the idea that, regardless of how many offers and counter-offers are made, the end number is going to be somewhere in the middle. Rather than spending time on 10 back-and-forth exchanges where each party moves $5, a negotiator might say "They want $200, your opening offer is $100, and $150 won't get the deal done, so let's not bother spending several days getting nowhere. It can end up being a self-inflicted gunshot to the foot, but it is how many people look at simple negotiations, and an opening offer CAN telegraph just how far you're willing to move.

 

[tom1944]

It depends on what "roughly" means. Plus, if there are two contracts that are, in fact, very similar but priced well apart, then there's likely external pressure from the higher priced seller to keep the list at a certain price. It's not like the broker isn't aware that the two contracts are similar and priced well apart. Their preference is likely not to provide potential buyers with some built-in leverage ("Hey bud, you know you have a contract on your own site that's $31 lower per point."), no matter how shady or inexperienced they might be.

Plus, based on the logic that seems to be implied on many of these threads (that brokers just want the paycheck), the better question to ask is why the broker didn't compel the owner of the lower priced contract to increase their asking price to match the higher priced one, to at least raise the base for negotiation? Better to have both contracts beat down from $163 than one starting off at $132.

The $132 contract was listed 3 days ago and is off the site as of today. The $163 contract has been listed for 13 months.


Should the agent be snarky if an offer based on the recorded sales is made if that only amounts to an average price of $130?

 

[disneylandtour]

The $132 contract was listed 3 days ago and is off the site as of today. The $163 contract has been listed for 13 months.

I've always wondered what happens to these points on the contracts that are there for months and months and pass through UY? Ideally, they should rent them, but that means that the listing would need to be rewritten.

 

[DonMacGregor]

The $132 contract was listed 3 days ago and is off the site as of today. The $163 contract has been listed for 13 months.


Should the agent be snarky if an offer based on the recorded sales is made if that only amounts to an average price of $130?

I wouldn't say they should be snarky, but I also wouldn't make an offer on the contract to begin with. There's a reason the $163 contract has been sitting for 13 months. There's zero chance that at no point in over a year, there haven't been offers made on the contract closer to market, and obviously rejected. That's a perfect example of the outside pressure I mentioned. The seller clearly has a base they can't or won't move from. Usually it's a loan they have to pay off, but at 13 months of additional payments out of their pocket, it must be something else. That's on the broker. They're inviting their own grief.

Now, how long a broker should keep a listing on their site with a seller that isn't going to move, and having to field who knows how many offers that they know will be rejected, is another question entirely. That's definitely on them, and again no reason to be rude.

 

[disneylandtour]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that approach. The issue some people have when negotiating is the idea that, regardless of how many offers and counter-offers are made, the end number is going to be somewhere in the middle. Rather than spending time on 10 back-and-forth exchanges where each party moves $5, a negotiator might say "They want $200, your opening offer is $100, and $150 won't get the deal done, so let's not bother spending several days getting nowhere. It can end up being a self-inflicted gunshot to the foot, but it is how many people look at simple negotiations, and an opening offer CAN telegraph just how far you're willing to move.

I completely agree that there are some outlandish offers that people make that should be rejected. But with--let's call them Broker X--I once made an offer of $105 per point on a $125 per point contract. Did I expect to get it for $105? No. I expected to be countered with something in the middle. Personally, I feel that an offer 15% to 20% below asking is solidly in the realm of reason, especially when that can be countered. But did I get countered by Broker X? Nope, it was a snippy email about my offer. And again, I'm pretty sure we're all talking about the same person. Many other brokers are super great. In fact most of them are really great. And so there are one, maybe two outliers, same as in any business. But the thing is, word gets out and Broker X--who has a bunch of DVC contracts--gets fewer offers.