Why on earth would she cancel the sale?

Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!

Because she did not like the seller reacting like that.
She found a better house.

More to that story than the story you were told. For sure.

That's a new one to me. You can cancel a sale because the seller makes a rude comment to you?

Obviously there is more to the story. But why don't you just ask your friend instead of hypothesizing on the Internet?

Im asking why the seller got mad about this. me nor my friend know.

If the sale hadn't closed and the potential buyer came by without an appointment, the seller could have seen it as being presumptuous and been annoyed at the interruption.
If your friend spoke to the seller, they were doing more than driving by, and must have stopped, gotten out of the car. If that seller had wanted to deal one on one with prospective buyers, they may have done a FSBO, but you do mention 'agent' so I assume they had wanted those responsibilities falling elsewhere.

I'd love to know the contractual contingency your friend used to walk away from the purchase. "The Seller Getting Mad At Me" isn't a standard contingency in a normal real estate contract.

I agree, there is more to the story then what is written. First the buyer shouldn't be driving by and speaking to the seller if that was not how the "sale" was conducted. The seller may not have wanted any contact with the buyer, wanted it all to go through the agent. If they were just doing a drive-by, no harm in that. Just keep driving. Don't get out and speak to the seller. The buyer is the one that caused the problem. NancyLouise

Your friend did more than "drive by".

Did the seller yell at your friend or were they pleasant and just called and yelled at the realtor later?

Even though your friend was going to buy the house, you have to understand that it is still the seller's home. It isn't the buyer's house until closing. Some people don't like to be disturbed in their home unexpectedly.

Sure ... they should have been pleasant while also being dismissive, but not everyone likes talking to strangers. And maybe they felt that your friend wanted to pump them for information or get a spontaneous tour of the inside of the house.

Or maybe they were just having a bad day. Their car broke down or their dog died or something.

Going only by what you have written, your coworker seems to have overreacted. I wonder if the seller simply asked the realtor to have their client not show up at the house without an appointment, and the buyer's immature reaction was a walk away. Which generally needs a bit more reason than a hissy-fit. You didn't hear the whole story and we are privy to even less of the tale, but that is my take from the snippet.

I'm with green design. There's more to it.

I honestly dont see the harm in her drivng by to show friends what house she was purchasing. Its not like they were trying to go inside and go through out the house. Of course she spoke to the seller who was outside, or else it would have been awkward to be driving slowly by a house and staring at it.
Maybe it is just me but i would not be upset by a buyer driving by my house with friends.

My friend obviously felt offended by the seller reacting like that so she decided she did not want to buy the house from her.

You keep saying that she 'drove by' ... but she spoke to the seller. Did she scream out the car window at the seller?!?

Can you give us more information about how the confrontation actually happened?

Or should we all just continue guessing?

I guess she stopped in front of the house and the seller was looking at them and she told her who she was.

It sounds as if the buyer was trying to do more than just drive by the house. Where I live, for sale signs remain until after closing. Slowing down in front of a house that has been on the market would not be considered odd. Not knowing the circumstances of the sale, the seller may not want to interact with the future homeowner other than a few words at closing.

I agree--more to the story. I experienced an "eager" buyer, and it was annoying, invasive, and stressful.

My guess is that the seller in this case wanted to stop that kind of thing before it started.Sometimes you give people an inch, and they take a mile. I also know that when I worked as an agent I always told my clients to: 1--NEVER let anyone into the home unless accompanied by an agent 2--Contact me if some one dropped by. My guess is that the agent told this seller the same thing. This seller may have tried to contact his/her own agent unsuccessfully and then contacted the buyer's agent.

My experience with an eager buyer:

She drove by the house daily multiple times (during day and night hours) and stopped in front and stared at it. It felt like an invasion of privacy. One afternoon she parked at the end of the street, let her kids ride bikes through the neighborhood yards, and walked up and down the street. The kids were already familiar with neighborhood kids as they went to the same school so no need to meet new kids. She also knew people in the neighborhood. Other neighbors told me about this as they found it odd. One day she knocked on the door and hinted that she wanted to come in. She asked multiple questions about window sizes, etc. Given that the drop -by was a week before we were moving and also near Christmas I was in the middle of packing up a house. I didn't let her in. They also started having mail delivered to our house a few weeks before closing. It was all pretty intrusive to me. Having some one "stalking" the house added to my stress level.

BTW--They had spent about 6-8 hours in the house previously.

I could have been mean about the mail and tossed it. I ended up "carefully" placing it under the stack of appliance manuals in a drawer.

We heard from our attorney after closing that the buyers were disappointed and surprised we weren't at the closing. It was all over the top and creepy.

People with houses for sale are used to "drive-bys." It's nothing unusual.

This post was edited by rrah on Fri, Dec 5, 14 at 16:47

Could have just been a crazy seller. It happens.

Are you 15 and in high school??? Lots of high school social drama and lack of comprehension of basic facts in so many of your posts.

It is also possible that the seller did not complain about them coming by, but rather simply mentioned it, and his/her realtor misinterpreted what was said. So, like that silly game of Telephone we used to play as children, the message was totally garbled by the time it got back to the buyer, who then overreacted.

Lots of missing information

Buyer drove by and said missing information to seller
Seller said missing information to seller's realtor
Seller's realtor said missing information to buyer's realtor
Buyer's realtor said missing information to buyer
Buyer got upset and cancelled the sale using the missing information clause in the sale agreement

hollysprings, what are you talking about?
That's very rude to say!

It was a basic question........
Why would a seller get mad that the potential buyer drove by?

There is no lack of comprehension!!!

tlbean2004 -- The devil is in the details. Because so many details are missing (as Dekeoboe so eloquently pointed out above), we can only speculate as to why the seller would get mad.

Urban myth.

tlbean2004 said - "It was a basic question........ Why would a seller get mad that the potential buyer drove by?"

Here is the answer - Ask the seller or the realtor.

I agree with the crew that this is a story missing a lot of info, and will suggest there is no way to answer anyway, and also suggest that it's pure nonsense. I would not want your friend aka coworker aka potential buyer aka drama queen/king moving next door to me so yay for the seller!

Geez - The bigger question is what the heck does it matter to you???

Aha! Now it's a 'potential' buyer. I'd wager there never was a contract at all. Perhaps the potential buyer wanted to purchase the home but was unqualified or her offer was rejected. Whatever the reason, if I were a seller and someone drove by my house, showing it off to friends and claiming she was purchasing it when in fact she was not, I would be unhappy too.

There is definitely more to the story.

Significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.

Here is a link that might be useful: Asperger

Woah! Completely uncalled for!

My friend was qualified and ended up buying a house that was $35000 more than the house we are talking about.

Definitely seems like this scenario is missing info. Too bad, I'd love to know the details! Given what IS known, however, too much is left to pure conjecture.

Wasting energy for the sole purpose of being mean is not right.

As a friend to the Asperger's community, I find Hollysprings post juvenile and insulting. Both characteristics also symptomatic of AS.

Grow up! We can put names on anyone to fit anything.

Good grief people, get a grip.
If the buyer "cancelled the sale" over this, there was no enforceable contract in place, or they lost their deposit. Things like this happen every day.

This whole scenario sounds like a bunch of baloney. I think jrb451 hit it on the head.

The AS mention was totally uncalled for.
Holly, please get a life.

This was not an urban myth.
But all that matters now is that my friend got a house that she loves.