This has been a very traumatic week for me. I am sad that many "vendors" can behave in such selfish and uncaring manner to potential buyers. In fact it is difficult to call these people vendors at all. There are many property owners who pretend to put their properties up for sale. I have written about this before but it just goes on and on. They waste so many peoples time and money. Buyers often have come especially to Israel in order to buy real estate. Figures are agreed, sometimes even people of great communal influence use their leadership positions to help them in the negotiations, agents ( I know of many real estate agents who have seen this disgusting behavior)  work for hours in negotiations, the buyers are usually considerate and very fair, deals are allowed to go to lawyers when suddenly  the real truth of the vendor is seen. They are not seriously intending to sell, their words are worthless,  they act without caring about the many others involved. It hurts to see good people hurt by such disgraceful actions. I know that selling houses is no easy venture. Situations change, vendors change their minds and this happens. These are true vendors who mean to sell but during the process have good reason to halt the proceedings. These are not the people I am talking about. I would hope that anybody who decides to put his property up for sale, to do his homework and make sure that he really intends to sell. He should speak with his lawyers, his bank, check the market if he wishes to buy something else, check out the costs of taxes and moving and real estate broker fees etc. Vendors should also make sure that their family is united in their decision to sell. I have seen terrible arguments when spouses, children and parents get involved. All these matters have to be sorted out before putting the property on the market and wasting time and hurting others. I wish that their was a registration fee for vendors, so that if they were not serious, they would be fined. These so called  "vendors" are giving Israel a bad name. If a vendor wants to know how much his property is worth all he has to do is ask a reliable real estate agent and that should be enough. He should not start bringing in buyers to see how big an offer he can get. In some cases an offer is agreed between "vendor" and the buyer, these property owners often allow lawyers to begin work just to show how "serious" they really are, or they suddenly jump their asking price even after accepting a particular offer verbally. This week even after the offer had been upped and agreed, the vendor once again continued with the same shaming behavior, allowing more hours of wasted energy by both buyers, lawyers and real estate agents.
I would never pressure a client into buying or selling a property, I just expect fairness and honesty in negotiations, and a word should mean something once figures and conditions are agreed.
It seems that many Israeli's are on another planet when dealing with buyer's from outside Israel. Its about time that property owners pretending to be vendors stop this unforgivable and horrible way of behaving.

Michael Bloom