A Real Estate Company Policy Prevented seller to counter-offer

I represent the buyers. I sent an offer via email to the seller’s agent. Buyers requested to get responses back from sellers by next day 6:00 PM.

6:00 PM arrived and past, but no responses received from seller. I text and sent email to find out the status of our offer. Finally, after few times tries, I got a response back requesting buyers to submit a new offer with a better price. Sellers did not counter-offer. I conveyed the information to my clients (Buyers), they were un-happy, they wanted to see the actual counter-offer terms and conditions and not to submit another offer with a better price.

I have seen in the case of multiple offers where the seller notifies all interested buyers that there is a multiple-offer situation and invites all prospective buyers to give their best offers, and after a deadline, the seller reviews all offers and decides who gets the deal. But, in our case there was no multi-offer and simply seller/seller’s agent wanted us to play high/high game with no guarantee they accept our offer at all.

I responded, with my buyers suggestions, indicating buyers would like to see the counter-offer from seller and go from there. We gave them another half-day to receive seller’s response. As usual, I followed up with a text and phone calls. Again, the time came and past and no responses received, I text twice and re-send email again, no respond. I called after a couple of times, the agent (wife) finally answered and she claimed they (her and her husband) did not see my email. I re-sent the email and stated that my buyers want to see the seller’s counter-offer.

The seller’s agent said, our company policy is that when seller doesn’t agree with the offer, we request a new offer to be sent with a better price. Wa! That was surprising, since this is a seller decision and not the real estate company policy. My buyers didn’t like that attitude and that real estate’s policy and asked me to drop the offer. I am not sure if the Sellers know what their agent doing to their business! Both Buyers and sellers lost the deal because of this real estate company policy!

As I stated earlier, I understand inviting buyers for their best offer in the case of multiple-offers, but I don’t know why the real estate company policy preventing sellers to counter-offer in a single offer situation. The only reason that I can think of, is the seller is not serious to sell and wants to see how far the buyers go without committing themselves to sell. But, how it ends up to become a real estate company policy, is a puzzle for me.

Many buyers, such as my clients, don’t appreciate these types of behaviors and drop their offers. If any of you can come up with good reasons that a real estate company should always prevent sellers to make counter-offer while not running the buyers off, please let me know.