We had a seller with a heavily distressed property that needed a full rehab. We had been talking with her consistently for several days, building rapport, understanding her situation, and working through the numbers together. She was highly motivated to sell and repeatedly told us she needed to get rid of the property.
Eventually, we agreed on a price, and even her husband agreed to move forward with it. The next morning she texted us saying she was ready to proceed, sent over her email address, and asked us to send the purchase agreement so we could move forward with the process. At that point, everything looked locked in.
We sent over the agreement within a couple of hours, but then a few hours later she suddenly texted us saying that she had breakfast with her daughter-in-law’s friend who is a realtor. Apparently the realtor told her she had investors who might want the property, and now she wants everything to go through the realtor instead.
Honestly, this completely surprised us because the seller seemed fully committed and ready to move forward with us. We spent a lot of time following up, building trust, negotiating, and getting the deal to that point. This is actually our first real deal situation, so this experience hit pretty hard.
For experienced investors here — what do you think happened? Is this something common? Is there anything we could have done differently to prevent this from happening?