Very rarely do I engage in negotiations that take a long time to complete.
Whenever a third party escrow is involved, I’m depending on the buyer’s speed to complete the necessary steps; all while mine are as fast as my Internet connection.
Very fast, that is.
This is a first for me though, having agreed on a sizable sale in a couple of days, only to witness it stall 45 days later at Escrow.com
Despite the buyer’s promises that payment is in due order, I had to cancel the Escrow.com transaction with a note that the wire never arrived. Escrow shared my frustration over this; despite their very low fees they have a reputation to live up to, after all.
Throughout this ordeal I kept in touch with the buyer over the phone. Upon my cancellation of the Escrow he too seemed to be disappointed; the funding he was expecting hadn’t yet hatched. He asked to make a security deposit to ‘lock’ the domain – that was already “reserved” for him for the 45 days prior.
I declined, stating that other offers were on the table. I wasn’t making this up; when I price domains into the five figures I am very confident about their worth.
The buyer came back the next day; surprisingly, his funding “egg” had hatched miraculously overnight. I have a few theories about what happened during those 24 hours but I can’t share them right now.
The bottom line is that the new Escrow.com process completed in 4 days. After 45 days of “bullshit” excuses about how a hedge fund manager dragged his feet or how an LLC was about to be formed, the buyer did what he was supposed to do in the first place: honor the agreement in a manner consistent with the rules of engagement.
As I’m having a “Blue Moon” beer and some Papa Johns pizza, I wonder how many would have given up after the first week or two. Forty-five days is a long time to sit on a live transaction without flinching in some way but the end result proves that it was all worth it.
That is a long time to wait, but your connection with the buyer paid off. Congratulations.
Mike – after a while I decided to wait it out, but I gave the buyer a date on which I’d cancel the escrow. Once that happened, I was pondering my next move when the buyer decided to buy more time. By declining to secure the domain any further I gave him the chance to get his act together with regards to funding the purchase.
Why did you wait around that long regardless if you have another buyer on the table or not?
I don’t get the logic behind your decision…were you compensated with a higher price or some sort of carrots to keep you around?
Poor Uncle – If you can comfortably walk away from a five figure sale, please let me know 🙂
I maintained enough patience to accost the buyer’s stretching of the Escrow.com process. Don’t forget that an agreement is binding, regardless of the time it takes to facilitate payment, unless explicitly stated in a contract.
It sucks when the other party doesn’t respond at your speed. There should be a fixed time within which the deal should be closed in an escrow service. Taking a step back and saying you had enough in a five figure sale needs some balls. Good move and Good result Acro.
Longest I had to wait was about 30 days with escrow.com.. that’s because transactions with a check take longer.. with snail mail, the check clearing and 4 day process.
I must say though, all in all, the service does provide a sense of security for both buyer and seller, especially when large amount is involved.
Congrats on sale!
What I am getting tired about are these buyers who offer X amount for a domain name, we agree and go to escrow.com to set up a transaction and then they never show up. They dont reply to emails and they dont ever explain what has happened.
Its happened to me too many times and I am sick of it and I think its high time that the domain name industry start a web site with the names and email addresses of these people who refuse to stand by their word/agreement.
Some of these people I have dealt with are CEOs of large companies, in Europe mostly. They think they can just walk away. Its sad when business comes down to this sort of crap. Anyone else for a blacklist web site – this has to be happening to many domainers across many sites.
theories, hmm. let me take a shot. the buyer had the funds tied up in another investment, maybe gold, and when it spiked over $1300/0z recently he decided to hold out to see how much higher it will go before he has to cash it in for the domain. he was hoping to buy your domain for a mere 6 oz, instead of 8 or 9 😉
Your patience is admirable Acro. I can see how it may have been worthwhile if the agreed price surpassed all other offers. Your reaction was spot on though, way to get him off his ass with the take it or leave it reply.
Congrats!