Complaint Review: MI Homes

My husband and I visited Lorie Olivier, the real estate agent for MI Homes at Christenbury subdivision in Concord, NC in July 2007.  We made an offer on a home under construction and were told by Ms. Olivier that it was too low and she would not submit it to bring the offer up which we did.  When we signed the contract she said we had to agree to a "no contingency clause" and this is the only way they would sell us this house. Under duress we signed it.  We wanted to put down $1,000 and she demaned $7,500 or no deal.  Shortly thereafter, the housing market fell apart and we couldn't sell our house.  Ms. Olivier wrote the contract "time is of the essence" which we did not request.  It was for the benefit of MI and her so I'm certain she'd be paid her commission.  When we couldn't sell our house and close after much heartache and pressure from the local MI principals, they agreed to put our down payment on another MI Home that we could purchase.  Not being able to sell our house, we were never able to use this offer.  MI sold the house we were going to buy within 30 days of the default on our part.  Ms. Olivier said they did not sell any houses in Christenbury on a "contingency" and I'm about ready to go door to door and take a survery because I don't believe this to be true.  I've heard others in the real estate industry locally comment on Ms. Olivier and her practices. We feel completely duped. In the beginning MI said they would pay $5,000 towards closing if they could not compete with the rate I was able to get from another source. I work for a bank and was able to get a better rate and their financial manager agreed to pay the $5,000. Ms. Olivier marked through it and wrote $2,000.  She said that was the offer and would not stand by the written statement.  Our contract also said if we could not arrange financing all monies would be returned to us and the contract dissolved.  When we couldn't sell our house, we would have had to borrow money for a first mortgage, second mortgage and bridge loan plus the loan we already had on our current home.  MI refuses to acknowledge this part of the contract and we cannot get them to return our money even though they didn't lose any money on this house. The government has put all sorts of programs in place for people who were duped into mortgage loans they couldn't repay; what about the hard working people such as ourselves who've been robbed by MI Homes.  Who protects us?  My husband has since been downsized and now we will not be able to sell a house or move.  We reported MI to our local Better Business Bureau and Mikel McElroy the local president lied and said we said we would not buy a MI Home so as to take advantage of their offer to put the $7,500 on another house.  The bureau closed it and said they'd met the contract.  We disputed and did not accept the conclusion.  It is very disappointing.  Who will speak for us?  We can ill afford to throw away $7,500.  And that brings me to why they even required us to put that much down in the first place.  Our credit is excellent.  I want everyone to beware of realtors and MI Homes. We wrote to the Robert Scottenstein in Columbus, Ohio, their CEO and he would not even have the decency to take our calls.  I communicated with his assistant and she referred it to the local president.  This seems unfair business practices to me.  Fraud and mis representation.