I spent the weekend house hunting with a couple clients. We saw lots of houses. Some good. Some not good.
On Friday, I scheduled the appointments for Sunday. Call me crazy, but when I follow the listing’s instructions requiring an appointment 2 hours in advance, and I show up with my client to find that the person or people in the home had no clue I was coming when I gave 48 hours notice, I curse our entire industry.
The first two houses we visited were occupied. Meaning – not only was someone living there, but they were actually inside when we arrived. And both were like the house version of that old clown car. People kept coming out from all over the place. The first house had two people in the one of the many many cars in the driveway, two people in the backyard (no clue why) and people in every bedroom. I get it – we don’t all make enough to live one family per house, but we really walked in on some madness that made us both cringe. One lady was laying in bed with no clothes on saying “come in, come in, you can look around.” I saw nipple. I felt horrible but there was nothing I could do. My job is to show my client the house. The sellers hired a craptastic agent to whom appointments may mean nothing. Except that on my way out the door, one of the men of the house said, “He may have left us a message, we never check the voicemail.” Yep. I know a few real estate agents like that, with their permanently full voicemail.
The next house wasn’t as friendly. Big Bertha was sitting at the kitchen table playing minesweeper on her phone, giving us the grand tour by pointing at rooms with her cane. Then she sent us upstairs to meet her husband who would show us around up there. There were 6 doors in the hallway and each one was closed. Each doorknob had locks on it – the kind you need keys to unlock. Of the 6 doors up there, Bertha’s husband would let us inside of exactly one – which had 3 beds in it. The rest he pointed at the door and described the room inside and just kept expanding his arms and saying “It’s good, it’s big, it’s good.”
He told us the kitchen was renovated but my idea of renovated doesn’t include cabinet doors that are falling off the hinges. The backyard was like an avalanche, with the house sitting at the bottom of it. The owner followed us outside and asked if we liked the house, because it’s “good, good” and I said my client would need to actually see inside the rooms before she buys it. He told us to come back and make an appointment. I just shook my head. Good luck with that one buddy.
Another house was super cute inside but the backyard was about 8 feet lower than the yard next door. And there was clearly a retaining wall there at one point in time that no longer existed, so there was a shelf of dirt and tree trunks just waiting for the next rain so they could mudslide onto the yard of the house for sale. I don’t often leave feedback because I never have anything decent to say to the listing agents besides, “my client just wasn’t feeling it – no specific reason” but this weekend? I was leaving feedback all over the place. The retaining wall house had a form inside they wanted the agents or buyers to fill out and FAX back to their office. I filled out some details about the hot mess of a yard and left it on the kitchen counter for her to find when she showed up to host her open house that was starting in 3 minutes.
Mama don’t fax anything to no one unless they are sitting in the 1980’s and don’t have a cell phone.
