A friend of mine was looking to buy a different house. He bought into the constant assurances that the housing market is better, he doesn't like his current home anymore and he wants to move. He made the mistake of calling Sterling Realtors and getting involved with a guy named Tim Greene.
So here's what happened: the friend went to an open house to look at a property. He fought his way through the hordes of children unrestrained by their ignorant parents and had a semi-decent look at it. He was interested enough to want to take another look at it without the shrill cry of uncorrected children bumping and pushing past him. He called Tim back and set up another appointment to look at the property again. A more thorough look at the property and he was sold. He set up an appointment with Tim Greene to look at his property, since the hook Tim uses is that if you buy that property, he'll sell yours for free.
Tim came to my friend's house with many papers. They looked through them and signed on the appropriate places. My friend then gave Mr. Greene a check for $3500 in earnest money. The understanding was that he would secure his financing within 30 days and then he would close on the property. Because he was dealing with ol' Tim, he was wrong.
A week passed and my friend had spoken with a real estate broker that Tim had recommended. He is self employed the same as I am- and understood that thanks to Clinton and company allowing anyone and their sister to get a mortgage based on a handful of magic beans as collateral-the restrictions are much tighter. He was in the second week of his thirty days to acquire financing when the guy he was using to get his financing suggested that he contact ol' Tim, because he hear a rumor that the property in question was sold. Guess what?
Why the house that he had put earnest money on had been sold! How is that possible you ask? Isn't earnest money the binding part of a binding contract, you wonder? Well it would seem that good ol' Tim hadn't even presented the owners with his offer. Curious, isn't it? Not only that, he didn't even tell us that the house was sold until we asked him point blank about it.
It gets better. A week passes, no return of the earnest money check. Two weeks and a phone call was made. Tim (God bless him) offered to hang on to the earnest money in case my friend found a house that he loved "even more." The offer was rejected, and a third request for the return of the earnest money was made.
Tim now claimed that he shredded the check, after, of course, he claimed to mail it back. A stop payment was put on the check-and of course-a $35 fee was required. Tim was contacted about covering the $35, he said he would be happy to, sorry it didn't work out, yada yada. One month later-no check, no call back, no contact what so ever. Do yourself a favor. Don't do business with Tim Greene or Sterling and Associates. You'll thank me later
UPDATE- Mr. Sterling finally sent the payment after 5 weeks of almost daily calls.
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