This comes from a well-informed reader:

You all need to look into xxxxxx and her xxxxxx Web site. She and her associates regularly "pocket list" bank-owned properties to select Bay area investors and real estate brokerages such as Realnet of Tampa Bay and Central Florida Holdings -- before making the listings publicly available on the MLS. The brokerages get the properties under contract and then re-market the properties at a substantial mark-up, anywhere from $10k to $30k. So once the properties hit the MLS, they are shown as "sale pending." This is grossly unfair to consumers and would seem to violate ethical practices that Realtors are supposed to follow.

As many of you know we've addressed this double-dipping sales strategy earlier this year in a story about Nathan Jurewicz, the Short Sale Kid.

I've complained that this practice short changes the banks, and, indirectly, the tax payers who have bailed them out.

Seems to me a real estate agent should market the property to the overall market instead of slipping profits to unnecessary middlemen. But the temptation's probably too great: Agents get two commissions instead of one.

Jurewicz made a persuasive case that banks know about the double deals but don't mind as long as investors take the properties off their books.