Lucille is a very lovely lady in her mid 70. She is still working in a local supermarket, but she talks about retiring. She came from Carolina and is renting here for the last 2 years. Her son and her teenager granddaughter are with her, at least for now.
They are referred by a friend of mine. Lucille is quietly smiling, and her son does all the talking. They are looking for something inexpensive for Lucille. My sixth sense tells me that they are not serious buyers. Something in the conversation made me think this way, either what was said, the tone, a gesture...
We are a family company, so when I say it, there is a rejection. Why am I labeling people, and how could I know... Hey, I am not fighting you. I just feel this way. I am not the one who does the showings, so they have all the opportunities to prove me wrong.
A couple of days of showings and they come to write an offer. The agent puts together the contact, sends it to the REO listing agent. They need POF. The agent calls the Buyer, and Lucille's son explains that it would take a week to get any paper whatsoever. They have that prepaid legal plan, and every paper goes to the attorney, and it takes time. Why do you need to send the Proof of Funds to the attorney for review, but there answer is that every paper, no matter what, will go to the attorney, and it will take time.
Hey, all we need is POF, and without it the contract is not going to be sent to t he Lender, and at this price point you may be out of luck.
Does not matter. It is what it is. A week later they got the document they needed only to find out that the house is already under contract. Another round of showings and another stumble block when they finally find the home. Another failure.
Third time it gets funny. They again found a property, and I am helping to put together the contract, and after signing it, Lucille asks me to check something else here and something else there.
What? She has just signed an offer. So what that she had signed the offer? I turn to her son, and he sets the record straight. He said that she has been buying a house for 31 year now. She is going, looking, signing the offer, and never buys. There are always so many ways to screw the deal, delay, not produce a document to the mortgage company, you name it.
During his tirade Lucille is sitting next to him and she is smiling. Like she always does. She looks so beautifully innocent, that it is impossible to believe her son that he is telling the truth. She does not object, she just smiles. Does she understand what is happening? Obviously, she does. Does she want a home? She says she does.
Even after that the agent tries to get them into the home, and showing and showing after one evening the agent bursts into the office and screams that there is no more of Lucille and her son. What happened? Oh, they are this, and they are that, and they are not going to buy a home EVER... and it is all in quite strong language...
Hmm... I said the same thing from the beginning, but in much nicer language and I was a bastard, the guys who assumes things and they throw some other epithets my way. No, guys. This is the sixth sense, and I can't even explain what prompts me that. I guess it is defined as experience.
We ended it the same way that I said from the beginning. The difference was that by the time we finally did it, we had 4 labor intensive but fruitless weeks behind us. Yes, we work with people with no guarantee of success. This is the nature of our business. But it is still different from working with a guarantee of failure.
I met Lucille's son at my friend's place recently. It's been months since we parted ways. They are still looking...
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