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Ok, so these are the two craziest showings I think I’ve been on. There are so many stories and interesting things that have happened in my four and a half years as an agent, but here’s two that have stood out.
Here’s the first one. We’ll call this the country spook! Ha ha! Ok, so here’s the stage, it’s the winter of 2018 and I’m working with the buyer, great buyer, and he’s looking for his first house. We scheduled this showing for about 7:30 at night, it’s the middle of winter in Wisconsin, you know probably zero degrees, and we drove out to this property and it’s way out in the country, and when we arrive, there’s not a light on at the place, it’s just pitch black.
Dakota, my teammate, was with me just shadowing me a little bit to see how showings go, as this was just over a year or so ago. It’s 7:30 at night, pitch black, we go into the house, we turn all the lights on and the house is actually pretty nice. It was move-in ready and everything was looking good. I was thinking, “Man, this is exactly what he’s looking for and it is priced really well… this is going to be a slam dunk!”
So, we’re showing the house, we’re going through everything and everything is going good and I’m thinking he’s going to write an offer on this house. Then we go down to the basement and I turn on the lights and am looking around. It’s a stone foundation, it looks fairly decent, a couple of cobwebs, but nothing out of the usual, and it’s dry.
So I turn and look at my buyer and he’s got this look on his face that I couldn’t really read. He goes, “there’s something going on down here.” And I’m looking around and I’m like, “there’s nothing going on down here.” And he’s like, “there’s something here.”
I’m thinking in my head, “What? I’m here, there’s nothing here, like looking around there’s nothing.”
Then I’m turning off the lights in the basement and I’m like, “man, I thought this was going to be the perfect house for the guy… like it meets all his criteria, but he didn’t like the basement and how it felt.”
So anyway, we go to the next house and Dakota… I turned to Dakota and said, “hey, what is this buyer thinking, he said he felt weird in the basement like there was something there, like some spirit or something?”
And Dakota said, “Dude, I’m not really into that kind of stuff but even I thought there was something going on down there.”
And I was like, “holy smokes!”. I typically don’t get into that kind of stuff but Dakota said, “yeah that was just weird, there was just a weird feeling down in that basement.” So yeah, I don’t typically get into that kind of stuff, but I didn’t feel anything, but it was kind of crazy. Two people in an old country house… I don’t know, it’s just kind of a crazy story and makes you wonder.
Story #2! It’s another country house. It has to be out in the country if it’s interesting. Story #2 is this brand new house hits the market and I reach out to my buyer and say we need to get into this house for you. We go and drop everything and we’re there in 2-hours before it hits the market and it took like an hour to get there, so we were right there. So, we get to the house, me and the buyer, the buyer’s family couldn’t go, so it was just us two.
So, we open up the lock box and get the key and the key doesn’t work. I’m fidgeting with the door and it doesn’t work. So, I call the listing agent and say, “Hey, this key doesn’t work. Is there any alternative? Any hidden keys?” She calls the seller and calls me back, “No, there’s nothing, I really apologize.”
I’m thinking, “Great, we came all this way out here and we don’t have a key.” So I’m walking around the house and I’m thinking I’ll check the patio door and the service door to the garage. And I see that there is a dog kennel and there’s this, probably 1 ft by 1 ½ ft dog door into the garage. And I was really… well, I came all the way out here and really wanted to get into this house.
So I called the listing agent and said, “hey, there’s a dog door that goes into the garage, I know this is a little bit crazy but can I go through there?” It was a little bit wet out so it was definitely something I didn’t want to do because I thought there’s no way I’ll be able to get through this small door without getting my dress pants all dirty and stuff like that. So, I got permission, talked to the buyer like, “hey, we’re going in.”
What I was thinking was, with my luck, the door between the house and the garage is probably going to be locked, but let’s give it a shot!
So, I’m maneuvering and shaking myself through this little dog door. I was able to maneuver and get myself into the garage and the door between the house and the garage… it was open!
So, it was fantastic! So, I was able to get in, let the buyer in and within 3-minutes the buyer said, “hey this is way too small for us.”
So, it’s kind of a funny story even though they didn’t end up buying it. It was just a crazy story, like how we got into that house and how we made it happen for them was pretty interesting.
The crazy thing is these buyers ended up buying a house just a couple houses down, just a couple months later. So, I don’t know, maybe that little extra effort left a positive vibe in the buyer’s mind for that area.
Two craziest showings that I’ve conducted! There’ve been tons of other stories but just thought I’d share those with you. Hopefully that’ll give you a little boost in the mood today. I appreciate you guys and catch you later!
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Austin Solomon | The Solomon Group – Coldwell Banker Action – (715) 212-4693