Craziest Things You've Heard While Trying to Buy/Sell Your House...jff

My brother bought a house that had the washing machine in the basement. The hose from the washer dumped into the sump pump. (My brother is a contractor so he didn't care because he knew he could fix it but you really have to wonder what the people were thinking:)

My mom had an offer, accepted it and opened escrow. Part way into the escrow the lady found out that if she died before escrow closed, she would not get her deposit back. So she cancelled the deal. Umm, what? If she's dead, why does she need it? And she was a single lady with no children. We thought that was pretty bizarre. LOL

And, yeah, another lady offered my mom like $50k less than she was asking and wanted her to leave it furnished! WTH!

Two house hunting stories - the first when we were house hunting: we were walking through a cottage a few blocks from the water, great neighborhood, private beach rights, the house needed some cosmetic work we thought - which was OK - it had a lot of potential. Then we saw one of their cats urinating in the corner of the dining room as we walked through. (!!!!!!) Now we have always had 1 or 2 cats and they've never peed anywhere but the little box or outside. We got out of there fast being glad the cat chose to pee when he did so we knew there was probably alot more where that came from.

The second story comes from when we were selling our first home, a small ranch. Most of the prospective buyers were seniors, looking to scale down, move closer to their adult kids and grandkids. A lady came back a second time with her senior parents to see the house. The older man refused to even walk in the door. My child and I were outside playing in the front yard and the man was sitting on the front step. Without asking he proceded to tell me that he refused to even look at the hosue since his wife and daughter were planning his death. Startled, I asked if he was ill - no - he answered that he was perfectly healthy but since his wife & daughter had mentioned in discussion that they wanted grandma nearby for the almost inevitable time when she'd be alone.... that was enough for him to refuse to acknowledge the probability that she's one day be alone after he was gone - he never stepped foot in the house. Meanwhile a week later another older couple bought the house for the same reason - their daughter and grandkids lived down the block and they wanted grandma and grandpa close by. I know those grankids probably had plently of sleepovers and fun at their house!

We were selling our house due to having been relocated. We were in escrow, and had already made a major price concession (because we just needed to get it sold so we could move already). Okay, whatever. So there we were, a week from escrow closing, and we get a call from the buyer's agent asking if the refrigerator would be included in the sale. Umm, no. Clearly stated in the contract that the refrigerator was not included - typically in California refrigerators are not included in the sale unless they are built in. Which this agent knew. So she proceeds to tell us that the refrigerator not being included would be a "deal-breaker" for her clients, and that as such, we would need to give them a $2000 concession so they could replace it with a like refrigerator. Which was hysterical, because at the time, our fridge was a white, bottom of the barrel Kenmore from Sears. It had been $600 new, and was several years old at that time!

After we picked ourselves up off the floor from laughing, we told the agent, fine. Your clients are past their 17-day mark in escrow. They can walk away from the deal, but we're keeping the deposit. Have a nice life.

Well, a few minutes later she called back and said, okay, sorry, it's not a deal-breaker after all. They're fine continuing forward with the deal.

Yeah, that's what we thought. Idiots.

I just finished helping daughter #2 buy a house so we walked through several dozen houses leaving me with a ton of interesting houses.

There was 1 house where the railing on the steps leading to the deck fell off as I grabbed it to walk up. Apparently it happened all the time and the owner's agent just shoved it back on and told me to use the railing on the other side. Didn't look much at that house because I figured that if they couldn't do a simple fix like banging in a couple new nails then other maintenance hadn't been done.

There was the house where the owner tried to make it look welcoming so she had a plate of muffins and a plate of cookies on the kitchen counter. When you added in the coffee maker, cookie jar, and toaster it made it very apparent that with the addition of 2 plates there was ZERO counter space in the kitchen.

There was the house we had in escrow that had the septic system fail. The seller didn't want to fix it because it would have run around $15,000 so they decided that it wasn't important and we could have it pumped out every other month just like they did.

There was the house owned by an older woman that had so much stuff in it that you couldn't walk into any of the rooms except the living room, her bedroom, and 1 bathroom.

There was the house where the owners had finished the basement themselves. Not very good quality work at all and the toilet in the half bath they installed wobbled and leaked.

There was one where the owner did his own addition and ran a water line and electrical out of a basement window, around the corner, and into the bedroom/bathroom of the addition. He had bales of hay to try to keep the waterline from freezing. Oh and the floor slanted so much that the doors couldn't close.

When we bought our first house we were fresh out of college and looking for a starter home, aka...we didn't have a lot of money for a house. We knew we were going to see lots of fixer uppers and older homes. We were okay with that. Our real estate agent made an appt the night before to see a house and told us they'd need us to call when we were on the street so they could put the dogs out. Not unusual. When we pulled in they were leaving. When we opened the door the house reeked. It was a great room and things looked neat and clean from a distance, but the smell was awful. It was bad enough we didn't want to go past the entry. Good thing. Because the green shag carpet was a litter box for at least two dogs and a cat as far as we could tell. With NO attempt to clean anything up. Our real estate agent kept trying to get us to look at the rest of the house telling us the carpet could be "updated". That was the last day she was our agent. I still find it hard to believe anyone lived like that much less showed their house in that condition.

This is a bittersweet topic in my house since my husband is a realtor. Just today he was at the closing table and the buyers were backing out of the deal over $450. Seriously. The lady was picking up her purse and walking out the door, shaking her head no even though the matter was cleared stated in her signed contract. My husband said eff that and paid the money. It had taken months to get to the closing table and he was more than willing to pay those dumb people to close the deal. Sigh. On a funnier note he once got a call back from an irate agent after showing that agent's property. Apparently the showing before my husband and his clients involved one of the parties taking the biggest, nastiest dump in the hall bath and not flushing. The home owners were flipping mad and sicced their agent on my husband. Then there was that time his client e-mailed everyone (sellers' agent, title company rep, lender, etc.) signed closing documents. Only they weren't signed documents. They were pics of the client whacking off. My husband said that was an awkward closing because everyone agreed to not mention the e-mail ever again. Or that time his buyer was married to a figment of his tax preparer’s imagination. How do you prove you weren’t married to someone who doesn’t exist? That was a tricky mess to untangle. Or the house with padlocks on all the rooms... Or the house with an entire closet full of ladies’ panties... I could keep going but you get the idea. I am glad I don’t do my husband’s job but I can safely say I have learned one thing - people are weird no matter how normal they may appear on the surface.

I own my home & hate vehicles parking in front of our home so I get it.It is a public street but they are always managing to block my front driveway

My husband would have a problem with that if it was a constant and at 4 am in the morning it maybe.

I looked at a bunch of houses when I was buying my house (my first). There was one house that was infested with roaches. They did offer $2000 to replace the carpet, but there's no way that would have taken care of anything. I stepped one foot into the front door and turned right back out. One house had air fresheners plugged into every plug...and that still didn't mask whatever weird smell their house had.

The one that actually made me laugh out loud was a house where the seller had laid out a home inspection listing everything wrong with the house and about 7 different rebuttals from different people along with a note that the price on the home was non-negiotiable. Amazing that all of the rebuttals were from self-employed people who didn't provide a license number. A "roofer" said the roof didn't need to be replaced because even though the shingles were brittle and covered with hail damage, it wasn't leaking. An "electrician" said the outlets didn't need to be grounded, 60 amp service was sufficient as long as you didn't run multiple appliances at the same time, and the missing breakers were no problem because those wires didn't work. The "plumber" said that the plumbing in the house was fine and that the reason the tubs and toilets always backed up was because the city lines needed repair that would be done by the city for free. Ok, if for free, why haven't you had that done?! I bought three years ago and that house still hasn't sold.

When we decided to build house #2, we placed the first house we designed and built on the market.

At the time, I had strict instructions to not show the house without letting me know in advance. We had 2 digs at the time, paper trained, but our oldest at 12 had cancer and had some issues. So I wanted to be around.

When we had showings, I either had chocolate chip cookies or garlic in the oven.

My horror was coming home one afternoon from getting my daughter from MDO and realized there had been a showing without my knowledge. Our sick dog had diarreah and vomited ( on the papers) .

Thaw family that visited that day with my sick dog that had only been alone for less than 2 hours bought our house. I was sick because it was not perfect that day.... Later I was told, they understood the old dog because they had a similar experience and that the house stood for itself . It was clear that it was clean, prepped and ready for a new owner.

I am still in awe that they looked past our sick dog. The house was on a golf course, beautiful location and they still love it. We are friends !!! We built our new home less than 3 miles away!!!

We lost our baby that summer but if I ever sell another home... Something will be in the oven cooking!!

Cars on the street, visible power lines, water towers, cell towers, busy roads, are deal breakers for me.

Actually, cars on the street kind of ARE a deal breaker for lots of people. Where my first house was had that issue. The thing is, when one person parks in the road, someone else thinks it's okay to park in the road, then another, and at some point, it's a usual or daily occurence. Where I lived, it scared me to death the kids darting in and out around the cars. I vowed to make sure that the next neighborhood I lived in didn't have that.

I would ask your neighbor not to park in the road anymore in order to sell your house.

I can't remember what crazy things were said when selling a house, but I remember having contracted for a house that was almost finished, and I was writing a punch list for what they needed to attend to before the close. The realtors were still showing my house because they wanted to show-off the floor plan. I was sitting in the middle of the bathroom writing, and a customer came up and "gave me permission" to be there. I looked up at him and said "Thank you. It's MY house." His eyes popped and he walked away without a word.

Some people...

Dawn

When my parents were selling their house, one guy went around tapping on all the walls with two of his fingers. They dubbed him the woodpecker. To this day I wonder what the hell he was checking or thought he was checking for.

The craziest when we were selling was the buyers who wanted my furniture after offering $40,000 less then asking (we were selling for $120,000). Craziest looking at houses was going to see a house that was over budget, but I had always admired and it was next door to our Realtor so it wasn't out of her way to show it too me. The husband had been sent by his company to New England the family decided to follow, just as he was then sent to Florida. The house was part of the underground railroad. The beams in the basement still had bark on them because they were actual trees. Anyway when the family decided to go and move to New England, they just left. Without taking anything or even making the beds. Toys were still out, clothes still in closets ect...it was soooo creepy. I just had a totally weird vibe in the house and ended up having (literally I am not kidding) nightmares for the rest of the week about it! Like bolt upright in bed, elephant on chest, nightmares about the house!

oh my don't i have. we just sold our 'money pit' home. we had already bought in the new state we were moving to, and had dropped the price so much, soooo much. like almost 100k from the purchase price in 2008. on top of that we had put hardwood floors everywhere, fireplace, yard went from dump to pardise. top of the line appliances. in ny all appliances are included, in sc they are not (so i got to buy everything again). sooo anyways, we had na open house and this family comes with wife, a million kids, husband, mother in law. then he loves the house but isn't sure (because he has no opinion of his own) and calls his buddy to come with all his family and 'try out' our home. the open house ends, we come back, these people are still chit chatting (the friends) in our backyard!!!!!!
then the guy calls our agent and says i wanna low ball. really? ok and he offers like another 100k less than what the zestimate is. with the price he gives he couldn't buy a bathroom in the house let alone the house. the agent says to him i am not even gonna bother.
clearly they couldn't afford it but thought we were desperate enough to take it? i don't know but their smell did not leave the house for a day. it bothered me sooo much. yuck.