Yesterday, I received one of those calls we Realtors® love to receive: “You sold Casey and Mark’s home and did such a great job, I want you to list my home.”
After speaking with the homeowner for a while, we scheduled an appointment for today. I went to work looking up information on his house and pulled up all comps in the area. Public records show 1 acre, 1989 built, 1252 SF with no covered parking, zoned for horses. I spent another three hours going through a 7 mile radius to find similar comps and prepared the listing package.
Today, I arrived about 5 minutes early and took a few pictures while looking around. Hmmmmm, exterior fencing of stacked cinder block with some barbed wire and/or chicken wire mixed in, over 30 rusted out junker cars in the yard, two tin lean to’s being used to store stuff and rotting wood fascia on the exterior. Not even a look at the interior, yet.
The homeowner greeted me with, “I know public records show only 1252 SF and 1 acre but I screened in the patio and was told by a “friend” that it could be used as SF, so my home is over 2500 SF. And, I know my lot is at least 1.25 acres - I personally stepped it off.”
Me: Well, here is what I have based on what we can prove and it appears your home is worth about $250,000 to $265,000. You’ll have to spend time cleaning up the yard, scraping and painting the rotting wood fascia and have all those rusted out cars removed.
“Well, I know that anyone looking at this home will want the cars, I know the friend who told me about the screened in porch is correct and I KNOW my house is worth at least $475,000 to $500,000. When you get realistic about my house, call me or I’ll find another agent.”
“Thank you for your time and I wish you the best selling this home.”
My response is usually, 'Wow! Would you mind to give me your friends name and number because I think they would love working in the real estate business.' Then the look of 'dumb and dumber' seems to appear. This allows me to move on and of course then I have a lead on who is going to be calling next! LOL
Comments(39)