Does the tree come with the house?

We had a terrible thunderstorm here in New Orleans yesterday.  Huge lightning flashes, booming thunder, pouring rain...sounded like the sky was falling.  It brought to mind my very first listing, when I was a brand spanking sparkly new agent.

I was following the roadmap in our brokerage for all rookie agents, which included sending out announcements to everybody I knew to let them know I was now a Realtor®, capital R.  Lo and behold, I got my first listing from this mailing!  A couple who were friends of my mom's (they did say mail to everyone) had a rental house they wanted to sell and called me to list it.  Holy cow...what do I do now??  Well, list it, of course.  Plow through the best I can with my limited (i.e. non-existent) experience and boundless enthusiasm.

Within a couple of months we had an accepted offer on the house, inspections were great, no termites, everything just peachy keen.  Counting down to my first closing and first commission check.  I was scheduled to meet the appraiser and was running just a little behind when my phone rang.

"Hello, Lisa, this is Mr. Appraiser."

"Hello, Mr. Appraiser, I'm a few blocks away and will be there in a minute or so."

"Well, I just have a question.  Does the tree come with the house?"

WHAT? 

Turns out that during a thunderstorm the night before, a huge tree had uprooted and fallen on the house.  On the house.  A tree.  A big one.

Since it had been a rental property, the house was vacant.  Apparently the neighbors overlooked that big sign in the front yard with my name and phone number on it, since none of them called to tell me there was a tree on the house.  A big one.

Mr. Appraiser says he can't appraise a house with a tree on it.  Wow, how lucky am I to get such an observant Mr. Appraiser.  It was up to me to call my sellers and tell them there was a tree on their house.  A big one.  Not the most upbeat conversation I've ever had, that's for sure.

In the end, the house was repaired, Mr. Appraiser came back out without mishap and we closed.  Yeah!  My first commission check...not a big one.  But it was my first one and it's always fun to have a first anything.  As long as it's not a tree on your house.  A big one.