I pulled up a listing a week ago and noticed that the Listing Agent had posted in the Agent notes that the "BUYER" was to pay a fee of $750.00, which they called a "Short Sale Processing Fee". This bothered me very much. And the reason it got under my skin, so to speak, is because the Lenders do NOT charge a processing fee to the Seller who's in the mess that their in (possibly to their own doings) yet they (The Listing Broker/Office) takes it upon themselves to ask for a fee from the BUYER! What nerve!!!!!

I'm sorry if I'm the only one that finds this fee EXCESSIVE "padding", gouging or whatever you want to call it.

The Buyer's in today's market is struggling (for the most part) to get their down payments and yet we have agents that have the gall to want to impose even more frivolous and un-necessary charges on to them, which they shouldn't be responsible for. A Short Sale Processing fee!!!! Are you kidding me?!!!!

When representing my clients I'm inserting a statement on the contract that my client will NOT be responsible for their outlandish fee and if they want to get the fee, they can TRY and get it from their Seller. Let's see if the LENDER will think their fee is okay and pay them for it!!!!!! I don't think so!!!!!!!

This one is really a HOT one for me. The worse part of this all is that it is our BIG "branded" real estate offices that are doing this!

Even in the hard and rough market that we've found ourselves in, we still can be honest and fair in our business practices and not stoop to outlandish dealings that will make us look even worse in the eyes of the public than we already do!!!

I'm truly appalled and disappointed in what I'm seeing in the market place today with my fellow "REALTORS". And I'm ashamed at what we've become as an industry.