Real Estate Etiquette?

I need some advice from people who have experience with real estate and dealing with owners/sellers, and realtors.
I've never purchased a home (yet). Recently, I was really close to buying my first home with the help of my folks,
We were literally going to sign the contract until last minute the owner pulled the house off the market for some reason.

When we asked the realtor why, he said that the owner decided he's going to first build a new house for his family and
then sell this house (that we were about to buy) at the end of next year.

We thought this was very unusual behavior. Do owners typically do this stunt? Do they put a house on the market and then
suddenly take it off when someone wants to buy it?

The original price was 350K the owner put it out for. When he pulled out after we almost agreed to sign and buy it, we went
around the town contacting other realtors about the same house. Those other realtors told us the next day that the house
was now for sale at 400K. We said, "FK this" and ain't gonna buy it now. We think that particular owner is a very dirty, lying,
cheating SOB. But maybe this is just the way owners typically play the market? IDK. Is this how it normally goes? Do they
usually play the market just to try and raise the price as much as they can? The owner of the house is a rich guy. He builds
a lot of houses in this area and the house is currently occupied by his son's family. So the owner doesn't live in the house
himself but his son's family (wife and 2 kids) live there and have lived there for the past 4 years.

He probably just wanted to fix the house and make it better so he could sell it for more(search "house flipping" to get a general idea).

With current housing inflation, sellers doesnt hesitate and perhaps finding their listing is too low. A bit unethical but it is legal

there was a time when homes were sold per built sqm, so owners would do stunts like build more stuff to increase sqm. then regulators slapped them with "total area" sqm regardless of whats being built or not. so they spike the price and only decrease when buyer is serious. I think the owner's son needs money.

i did marketing for an agency and I'd witness funny stuff like this. one of the messed up ones was when a seller accepted 2.5m for their villa and the realtor drafted a contract for the seller with the idea the seller gets full 2.5m (usually realtors here get 2%) and the realtor would sell it for 2.7m with realtor getting nice 200k, not usually how things work but sometimes people agree. this seller went to court, not crime so it was dismissed, then the guy went to rera (real estate regulation authority) and they favoured the seller of course. by now the buyer left the country and the realtor had enough drama to avoid the seller. 3 years later the gov require his grounds for infrastructure improvements and sent a surveyor to estimate the price of his property. 870k.

oatmeal said:

The original price was 350K the owner put it out for. When he pulled out after we almost agreed to sign and buy it, we went
around the town contacting other realtors about the same house. Those other realtors told us the next day that the house
was now for sale at 400K.

Click to expand...

Offer 300K. When they go high, we go low.

oatmeal said:

The original price was 350K the owner put it out for. When he pulled out after we almost agreed to sign and buy it, we went
around the town contacting other realtors about the same house. Those other realtors told us the next day that the house
was now for sale at 400K.

Click to expand...

Depends on the laws, but at least here, unless the agreed price was signed by both parties.
The seller can jack up the price all they want.
Did the seller do things in bad faith.
Yes, for sure, he is a cunt for doing that.
In fact, it can go both ways, the seller doesn't have to sell to the highest offer either.

xReminisce said:

Depends on the laws, but at least here, unless the agreed price was signed by both parties.
The seller can jack up the price all they want.
Did the seller do things in bad faith.
Yes, for sure, he is a cunt for doing that.
In fact, it can go both ways, the seller doesn't have to sell to the highest offer either.

Click to expand...

Yes, I agree. In the end, I realize the land owner can hike the price up last minute if he wants even if he said at first it was 350k. Nobody has bought the house yet in 4 years, but he put up his own son's family in the house in the meantime because the value of the house keeps going up anyways each year so no hurry to sell it in my opinion.

It's just that it seems like a very nasty and low ball thing to do to mislead consumers out there by putting it on the market and then when someone like me comes along and has a very serious discussion with family and realtor and then decide, yes we are going to buy it, then the owner says, not for sale anymore.

On top of that, we found out from other realtors that he put it up for 400K right after us. So when he asked the realtor again he said the owner is now asking for 400K if we want it. It was just 350K 24 hours ago *facepalm* damn people like this need to be put in jail.

I have 20 years working in selling drugs online and gambling, nothing prepared me for the den of thieves that is real estate.

Good luck.