“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
O er had been a generous term. The document attached to the email was a virtual glove-slap to the face. For a pristine home that hadn’t been on the market a full week, an o er twenty percent below the asking price wasn’t just laughable, it was insulting.
Her jaw tightened as she read the terms. If she weren’t legally obliged to, she wouldn’t even show her clients such an o ensive lowball. Skipping to the end, as the incredulous tide turned into a furious wave, Carmela glanced at the additional terms section. There had to be something to
indicate why the prospective buyers wanted a hundred-thousand-dollar discount.
Instead of bullet points listed within the standard form, there was an appendix. The laundry list was the kind of thing she’d expect in a fixer-upper or a handyman special, not a turnkey home. As she scanned the list, she zeroed in on the four-letter word that turned every agent’s blood to ice. Mold.
Carmela nearly gasped.
According to the o er, behind a malfunctioning pool heater was evidence of black mold which could be spreading to the household water pipes.
Before Carmela could read any further, she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. There
was no way.
No way the house had a mold problem. At its worst, the fix could cost tens of thousands of dollars, and if it were discovered in a formal inspection. . . Carmela shuddered at the thought.
When she’d regained her composure, she searched for the name of the agent who’d sent the o er. Rhiannon Rodriquez.
“Stevie Nicks fans, huh,” she muttered to herself as she plugged the name into the MLS, the database where information on all agents and properties lived.
As soon as she glimpsed her bio, Carmela laughed. It was a bitter thing, but it relieved a little tension in her shoulders.
The woman could scarcely call herself an agent. She hadn’t even had her license for a full month. She didn’t have anything under her belt other than a crappy apartment listing.
“That explains everything,” she grumbled to herself in her regular speaking voice as if having a conversation with a friend.
Not only did this Rhiannon person have no idea what she was doing, the brokerage she was a liated with was an absolute nightmare, a lawless pit where new agents fought
for scraps with zero direction. Carmela had been part of the o cial complaint lodged with the state licensing board, but they hadn’t been able to get the poor excuse for a brokerage shuttered.
The agent’s information in the MLS was so new it didn’t even have her picture yet. Carmela’s curiosity was piqued.
She needed to put a face to the insulting o er. Dropping the unusual name in the search bar of her browser, Carmela expected the results to appear quickly. What she didn’t expect were those unforgettable gray eyes staring back at her.Slumping in her chair, Carmela reached for her glass. The champagne had been a wise idea. She only regretted grabbing a mini bottle instead of a magnum.
Rhiannon Rodriquez wasn’t a bumbling new real estate agent with no guidance; she was the gorgeous woman who’d definitely flirted with her at the open house. She wasn’t a babe in the woods. She was a ruthless little shark.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN RHIANNON PULLED her borrowed luxury sedan into the driveway of her parent’s house, she was still on the phone with her cousin and his wife. Sunset had brought along with it buckets of rain just in time for her drive home.
“Do you think they’ll accept such a low o er?” he asked as she shifted the car into park and stayed inside to wait out the passing storm.
“No. Probably not,” she replied. “That wasn’t the point of it,” she explained for the third time. “It’s to get them to come back with a countero er. That’s how we’ll know what their real number is.”
“Real number?” his wife echoed in confusion.
Rhiannon rolled her eyes since they couldn’t see her.
“Everybody overprices their house. No one actually expects to get what they ask for. There’s a guy in my o ce who adds twenty percent to what he thinks any house is worth. That way, the buyers feel like they got something when sellers come down.”
“What’s in it for the sellers then?” he asked.
She was tired of telling him the same thing over and over again. “Well, there’s a good chance the seller might get the house for even more than its worth. Not everyone is lucky enough to have an aggressive agent like me on their side.”
She smiled, feeling too proud of herself. She needed her first sale more than she wanted it.