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Seattle Times business reporter Elizabeth Rhodes posts the answers to your real estate questions as they pop up during the week. Join this ongoing discussion, which also features reader reaction to real-estate articles appearing throughout The Times.
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February 26, 2008 1:00 PM
Developer's discount price riles others
Posted by Elizabeth Rhodes
Q: A few months ago I helped my son buy a condo in a small, newly refurbished building. He got it for about $10,000 off the asking price, and the developer paid his closing costs. A month later, the developer sold an identical unit on the same floor for $30,000 off. This seems quite unfair to my son. What can he do about it? Shouldn't the developer have disclosed he was desperate to sell?
A: There is some recourse for buyers who think they were duped: state consumer protection laws. Designed to protect buyers from unfair or deceptive business practices, they guard against such tactics as bait and switch.
However based on the details you provide, Seattle attorney Craig Blackmon says he doubts that your son's situation is a consumer protection issue -- unless your son has strong proof he was deceived by the seller.
Absent that, your son has no recourse, says Blackmon, because his agreement with the seller is both legal and typical of how the market works.
"The buyer and seller each strike a unique bargain, and that bargain may not be the same as reached by the same seller and a different buyer. The theory is, the marketplace works best when people are able to strike their own unique bargains," Blackmon says.
Indeed, that's common in car purchases, where the final price is dependent on the buyer's negotiating skills. It's also very common for airline passengers to pay widely varying prices on the same flight. There's nothing illegal about that.
It's a non-starter that the seller should have revealed his financial situation. "A seller is under no obligation whatsoever to disclose his financial situation or any other reason for selling a unit," Blackmon concludes.
Posted by seattleman
3:27 PM, Feb 27, 2008
No, your son do not have recourse. The housing market is going down, and Seattle is not an exception. Housing prices can quickly go down even within just a month.
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Posted by barbara
11:04 AM, Feb 27, 2008
Did your son use a licensed Realtor to assist with the purchase or did he buy directly from the developer? If he did not have his own agent, he became an unrepresented buyer and the developer/seller represented himself. A good agent would likely have been able to discover many of the issues through research - at no cost to the buyer!