I work in the real estate industry, not as a Realtor® fortunately. It is tough to make money as a Realtor and many Realtors do it as a retirement job or as additional income to another job. They do not have any guaranteed income from selling houses. The only way they earn money is to sell a house. The listing agent and the selling agent split the commission on the house. On a $200000 house the commission might be 6% and this is split two ways. If it is an even split the agent may make $6000. If the Realtor sells 6 houses a year then they will take home $36000 before tax. Add to this the MLS fees, brokerage fees and the cost of continuing real estate education that they are required to take and you can see that they do not make much money. Because their income is directly related to the cost of houses in recent years Realtors have seen their income drop dramatically.
The Realtor you did not buy the house from spent a lot of his time researching houses for you and showing you them. He has not been paid one cent for doing this and now they have lost the sale there is no chance of any income for all of the work they have done. The Realtor now sees this as wasted time. He could have used this time more productively showing houses to other prospects or canvasing for new prospects. Imagine if you went to work for a couple of weeks and then found out you were not going to get paid for it.
I can understand the Realtor's frustration. He basically sold you the house and then you closed the deal with someone else who took his commission for doing next to nothing. It certainly was not very professional of him to say you cheated him and his family. I am sure he did not answer his phone, got back to you late and got J's name wrong because he is working his butt off trying to support his family. Again, it's not very professional of him but these are not fun times for Realtors. He may be having difficulty in making his own mortgage payments because of the recent drop in house prices. There are also less people buying houses due to the economic downturn and due to banks being more strict as to who qualifies for mortgages. Each Realtor/brokerage has a slightly different method of selling you a house within the rules for their MLS. He may not have been the best Realtor and he may have been trying to cut some corners so he can get more work done and have a better chance of supporting his family but what you did was not cool.
The best way to find a good Realtor is to get recommendations from other people who have bought a house recently. If they have had a good experience then chances are you will too. Buying a house is a probably the largest investment you will make and you should not just call someone out of the blue who you know nothing about. There are good and bad Realtors just like there is good and bad in any profession and you need to make damn sure that you pick the right one before you start looking for a house. 80% of Realtors today will not be Realtors in 5 years time; most find it much too difficult to make anywhere near the amount of money they were expecting to make. On the other hand, the good Realtors usually are very good. This guy may not have been the best Realtor but I know he wants to earn money and because of that I am sure he would have sold you the house. It would also not be in his best interest to have not submitted the offer on the first house. He will never make money if he does not submit offers.