I have been playing out the following scenario in my head for a week and I'm torn to figure out if I should call this gentleman back. I had just come inside from mowing the lawn when I noticed that my cell phone had a missed call. I called the number back and spoke to a gentleman from St. Louis, whose wife wanted to move closer to her family. He told me that he saw a sign in front of my listing and wanted to see it. I told him that I lived on the same block and would be able to show him the home right away. There is no doubt that this is not the safest practice in the world but when you have a home that's getting very little traffic you tend to let your guard down a little bit. I meet this gentleman, his wife, and son in front of the home after giving him directions from their hotel, but there's no hotel for miles of the intersection that he gave me and he was just in front of the home after he called on my sign. This is my first red flag that I take with a grain of salt because he is new to the area.
We proceed into the home and I let them take a look around. I don't follow them too closely because the home is vacant and they seem like a nice couple. The gentleman asks me if my client would be interested in renting the property and he would replace all the cabinets and vanities because they are dated. I tell him that my client lives out of state but I would speak to my seller and get back to him. Now were not in a procuring cause case here but just for the record I did explain dual agency to the nice family.
I spoke to my seller the following day and he was very interested in this buyer/renter's proposal. Before I can call our friend from St. Louis I get a call on my phone from the same number as the day before. The caller say's he wants information on the new construction on such and such a street. I respond back with the name of our friend from St. Louis and ask how he found out about the place. He tells me that his friend told him about it and he is in the area and would like to see it right away, but I still have to give him directions to the house. Sound familiar? This house is also vacant so now I'm a little bit freaked. I call one of my buddy Realtors to go with me and he meets me at the house. Our friend from St. Louis is standing in front of the house and when he sees me he says hey you're the guy from yesterday. I want to run like hell but I stick to it. We go in but he only goes into the kitchen. He asks me about renting this for his father and that he is leaving that night to go back to St. Louis. This home is almost twice the price of the home we saw yesterday and is miles away also. I told him I wouldn't be able to get that to happen in such short notice but that he had my business card from yesterday and to contact me if he needed anything else. Once we left I drove to the police station and filed a suspicious persons report. I haven't heard back from him since. Another strange thing, his cell number is based in Texas. Weirdo or honest coincidence, you be the judge.
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I'm voting weirdo with a healthy dose of suspicious activity!