For last few weeks I have been listening these stories way too often. One of my friends put a healthy offer on a short sale but the offer was not accepted. Later he found out the house was sold at lower than what he offered. What happened the seller's agent also represented the buyer and he made sure his offer did not make it to the bank. Actually the agent told my friend that if he had represented him then he would dump all other offers in the trash cans......

It was hard to believe. But when it happened to me it was not difficult to believe. I saw an Aliso Viejo home (short sale) on Saturday, the day it came in the market. On Monday I put an offer with $40k more than listing price (I knew the house overly underpriced). The listing agent told my agent that they were gonna consider the offers only submitted on Sunday! He talked to my agent once on Saturday and twice on Sunday and failed to mention his criteria. No doubt in my mind he is representing the buyer too.

My questions to everybody: Is this ethical? Or is it even illegal? Haven't these types of practices made the whole real estate thing so bad? What we can do about these lowly people?