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Elo comments on Wild Moral Dilemmas - Less Wrong Discussion
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I recently faced a dilemma.
A real-estate agent called me to notify me that a property I was inquiring about was sold before auction. I was an interested party and the fact that they did not try to solicit a price from me before accepting a signed contract to another party means they did not do their best to secure the best deal for the owner. I happen to actually know the owner as well, (I have no great worries about losing the deal) I wonder if I should report the events to the owner who effectively lost out on an unknown number of dollars (AUD~$10,000-$50,000), from myself or possibly a number of other interested parties who might have taken the opportunity to bid - had the property either gone to auction or been offered to other parties before the auction.
Extra info: The owner is currently unwell and does not need any kind of further stress in their life; also I don't think anything can be done to change the situation as contracts have been signed (also this was a week ago); also property prices in this local marketplace have gone wild recently, causing stupid things like this to happen - probably frequently. I wonder if regulation of the bidding marketplace would make this less likely to happen.
There are probably cases where it's rational for a real-estage agent to sell a property before an auction. An auction could well return less money than the other party offered.
You can write regulations to fix single problems. That comes with a cost. It increases bureaucracy. More forms have to be filled. It's more complex to sell property.
In general I would expect the free market to solve this issue better than a government produced system.
Auctions aren't free. There are fees to list items at auction and the organization running the auction is likely to collect a certain percentage of the final price as well.
The owner chose them, did he not?
And so he has responsibility for his (supposed) loss. Doing their best isn't in the contract.
Now the question is whether the owner would like to know about it. I think not, unless he plans on making use of their service again.
On top of that, you say they didn't solicit a price from you before selling, and so you may have thought about the price more seriously, had they done so, and maybe this extra number of dollars wouldn't be there if there wasn't the bias of possible anger/pride (no offense). For all we know, the sale could have been a good sale, and that's why they didn't auction. They're the real-estate agents, and you're the someone who they didn't solicit. Sorry if that's a bit rude (I have testosterone problems), but that's the way it is. They're not malicious agents, they do what they can. I think it's better to let it be (but I'm also unsure).
(Also, if they had to chase every best offer then there would be no end to it. They're making trade-offs and maybe you valued the property differently than most people would value it. It's not so easy to say that they're being incompetent when we're incompetent in this domain ourselves.)
(Sounding a bit rude, but thats okay I can deal with that in my own head) Yes it was a good sale; well above the asking price, but considering the market now; they should know better. This was an easy way for them to make their commission before auction, but they also probably lost out on a few extra thousands of dollars for themselves.
My concern is not so much about myself; but about not soliciting the rest of the market (all the parties with contracts) before auction.
I am currently in the decision to let it be. (you raise a good point that the owner has part responsibility, however real-estate agents tend to have the upper hand in people manipulation to convince an owner to settle on a lower deal)
I was questioning your judgment for the sake of argument, but you're probably right about the numbers. Without more knowledge of the area, it's impossible to say if you're being reasonable or not, and it doesn't really matter. You say it's not about yourself, but you wouldn't know it if it was about yourself, and that was what I was trying to say. It's not about you in particular, but about you being the prejudiced party. That's something to take into account in the resolution of the dilemma. But I should be more clear/careful.
I do not disagree.
Why was that a dilemma? I though it would have been a dilemma only if both choices would have had benefits or disadvantages.
It might be possible to change things (I have limited knowledge) but would probably involve a lot of stress on the part of those involved. And I am unsure as to whether I am obliged to share this information to other parties. while it is truth; it is not helpful truth. (others may see this point differently) (I usually don't care so much for the truth being optimum, but in this case it became part of the churning thoughts)
For clarity:
benefit of not saying anything is no more stress
benefit of saying something is more $$$
disadvantage of not saying anything - its concealing the truth
disadvantage of saying something - they may not want to know.
(Edit: making neat on formatting)
If you think that blissful ignorance is bad, then both choices do have disadvantages.