3 Contracts

I know it is a seller's market here... I wrote 3 contracts this weekend and here is how it went.

Contract 1: Submitted to selling agent Thursday morning. Reasonable/starter home for $360,000. Buyer submits a $5000 Earnest money deposit close the end of March. Excellent buyer with excellent credit. Not good enough for the Seller who thinks he is D. Trump. He wants $10,000 and all contingencies removed with in 10 days including inspections and appraisal! And the EM non-refundable. Buyer is very frustrated but wants the house so he agrees to his unreasonable demands. The seller's agent appologizes for the seller and explains he is difficult to work with.

Contract 2: Offer submitted Friday morning. $155,000 not good enough for this seller either. But we have a "verbal" counter offer but no "written" counter offer. It is now Monday. Maybe I will see it sometime today. My buyer leaves to go back where they are moving from tomorrow.

Contract 3: Offer submitted Friday morning $147,000. Submitted to the agent (she is the owner). She was all excited to tell me about the place and to sell it. And now she does not return ANY calls after leaving several messages regarding the contract. And when you call her cell phone it says she can not take any more messages because her voice mail is full? Does she check it? It is not like she has to find the seller?? I had to call a mutual friend to find out what is going on with it (because she is getting a referral fee) and was told by the mutual friend that she will get back to me on Monday... we'll see. Sad thing is this buyer is leaving tomorrow as well so if she does not get the contract she has no more time to find something else.

What ever happened to "time is of the essence" in real estate. Or is it "lets hold it for a few days not call the selling agent back for a while and see if we can get multiple offers and drive the first buyer crazy while waiting to see if they got the house?"