Story From the Trenches: When the Numbers Don’t Add Up

This past weekend, I put in an offer for a buyer. We wrote it with an escalation clause and a clear deadline. A few hours later, the listing agent called.

“No other offers,” they said. “But the seller wants your client’s max escalation price and fewer days for inspection.”

That raised a red flag. Without competing offers, an escalation clause shouldn’t even come into play. Still, my buyer agreed to nudge the offer up a bit, just to keep the conversation going.

Then came the second call. This time the agent pushed harder: “That’s not enough. Look, we’re just trying to cover the buyer’s agent commission you asked for by increasing the sale price.”

Now I was the one confused. Commission hadn’t come up at all in the first call. And the math didn’t add up — pushing us to the max escalation price would more than cover the commission difference. At that point, the numbers told the truth, and the “money grab” was exposed. The agent, clearly caught off guard, got flustered.

How It Ended

The next day, I texted the agent to see if we could keep the deal alive. They hinted we could probably “meet in the middle” on price. But by then, my buyer had made up their mind. They didn’t like the way we’d been treated, and they figured that if it was this difficult just to get under contract, negotiating repairs after inspection would be nothing but trouble. So they withdrew their offer.

The Lesson

Not every deal is worth saving. When trust breaks down early, it often points to bigger problems ahead. Sometimes the best decision isn’t to push through — it’s to walk away.