Have you been living under a rock?

You didn't know Realtors are having financial problems?

Yes I'm very aware realtors have been having problems. I just find it very ironic they would allow this to happen. If they knew they were in trouble, the should have had a for sale sign on this building long ago - but no, they would rather "keep up appearances" and not pay their bills and take the irresponsible way out. Let the bank deal with it - it's not their problem.

Oh - and thanks for the rude response. I really appreciate being called stupid - when all I was doing was saying how I thought this scenario was "interesting".

if you can't pay, there really is nothing you can do that would 100% avoid a foreclosure. You can ask the lender to approve a short sale, but you can't force them to. Realtors don't have any more power over lenders than anyone else.

Also, unless you looked up the property, how do you know that it was the realtor that was foreclosed on? Most businesses just rent space.

They may not even have owned the building, but simply leased it.

The owner may have defaulted once they no longer had a tenant.

As a Realtor I would not place a sign on my old office next to a foreclosure sign directing clients to my new location.
I'd do a mailout and let everyone know.
As was noted by others, who is the owner?

Brickeyee brings up a good thought. The realtor may have been just leasing/renting the space and the owner got forclosed on without telling anyone else. After all the renters of any business very seldom know the legal/banking businesses of their owners. Yes that was interesting.

I didn't mean my response to be rude, I don't think you are stupid.

I'm sorry the written word didn't convey my lighthearted response.

Well cas66ragtop, I don't think it is funny at all - you did say "Foreclosure"! How funny is that?" and later you said "how "all I was doing was saying how I thought this scenario was "interesting".

I am sorry the realtor lost their office, they likely were a victim of the forclosure as others have suggested. I don't get the joke in any of this!

cmarlin20 - sorry, I mistook your original response. I thought you were calling me stupid, I didn't realize you were just joking. Bad thing is - even if you had put a "haha" or a smiley afterwards I probably still would have thought the same thing. Funny how you can write something you intended to be harmless and the other person sees something different. Thanks for explaining and please accept my apology for misunderstanding to begin with.

sasafras - well maybe you are also misunderstanding what I intended to say. Or maybe I could have written it better. I didn't really mean funny-hilarious, or funny-I am laughing at their misfortune. I really meant funny-strange or funny-in an absurd kind of way. You know what I mean? I know this is no lauging matter, and I really didn't mean it to come out like that. I know foreclosures hurt everyone, and for a realtor to become victim, it seems even worse. I've always thought foreclosures were unacceptable, a sign that whoever had the loan must have done something wrong, or not tried hard enough to fix the problem. If it were me, I would be selling as much of my stuff as possible, working another job and doing anything I could to save money. I guess when you run a business maybe it's not that easy.

I see what everyone else is saying about the realtor maybe not being at fault, that they were just leasing. I hadn't even thought of that. To me, it's much cheaper to buy than to rent, even with the maintenance. But I do not run a business, so maybe renting is the better option for them.

The thing I don't understand about it is that this office is so small, it CAN'T be that expensive. It's been there 20 years, and even though it is commercial and is worth at least 3 times as much as any other 80'x40' building - I still can't understand how this thing hasn't been paid for by now. I can only assume whoever owns it must also own other real estate, maybe they have taken out additional loans against this building, and they decided to let this one fall into foreclosure to save the others. Who knows.

We had a Realtor who rented an office in a beach town. He worked out of that office during 'season' in Florida. After the season was up, he worked out of his 'real' office on the mainland. He rented the space each year for 6 months.

He expected to return this year and found the building was being foreclosed. He lost his office, did not put a sign outside, but contacted his clients by email and snail-mail.

He didn't know the owner was having problems.

Jane