This morning the dogs began barking with their “intruder” voices so I checked my cameras – no cars in the driveway. I told them they were silly, then heard the knock on the door.
Sure enough, there was a stranger there, and he was a real estate agent.
It seems he was intent on showing our neighbor’s property, but was unfamiliar with the area, so had followed his GPS and wound up in our meadow – at the locked gate. He asked if I had a key. I said no – the key is on my husband’s key ring and he’s not home. At that he groaned about having to drive all the way back down to the highway and come around by way of the real road.
Since their house and ours are only about ¼ mile apart, I suggested he walk – it would be much faster.
Why do people do that?
Every time someone comes up that road I wonder about their sanity. Do they just follow blindly because GPS says so?
Anyone with any sense at all would stop and think “This must be wrong” after it became apparent that they were not driving on a well-traveled or maintained road.
This road starts out from the highway as a County road, but after a few miles it leaves private land and dives into State of Idaho land. From there it becomes more of a trail. It is narrow. It has some rather large rocks and holes. Since it hasn’t been used regularly for many years, it also has some young trees growing in the road. It is, after all, nothing but an old logging road.
I did suggest to him that when traveling in areas like ours, it’s wise to consult an old-fashioned paper map. That doesn’t always help because not all roads are marked, but at least it lets you see where you are.
We chatted for just a few minutes and he told me that he hailed from Boise – that’s 480 highway miles from here. I asked if this wasn’t a bit out of his territory and he said it was not – he covers all of Idaho. That, by the way, is 82,751 square miles of territory.
He assured me that he knew all of Idaho because he’s done a lot of traveling to ski racing events. Gee, I’ll bet that really lets him in on the zoning, property taxes, availability of services, and all the other things an agent should know.
If you read my posts, you know I believe in agents choosing a niche or a territory and becoming "the" expert, so of course I think choosing an entire state the size of Idaho as a territory is a bit foolish.
He mentioned the vicinity of two other places he intended to show these people and I wondered if GPS would lead him on the same kind of merry ride trying to find them.
I think perhaps the listing agent should include driving directions in the listing, or at least give instructions to any out-of-area agents wanting to show.
My second puzzlement was about the potential buyers. Why would anyone choose an agent in Boise to show them homes in Priest River?
Later in the day I had reason to wonder whether the agent and his buyers ever connected. If they also followed GPS, they would have ended up just as he did. And if they got lost and tried to call him, they’d have been out of luck. There is no cell signal in this valley – and probably not anywhere on that road either.
Someone did try to come through later in the afternoon. My dogs were outside that time when they began their “intruder” barking. I looked out and saw someone walking across the meadow, looking at the gate, and turning around to go back where he came from.
I think... if you're going to show property in an unfamiliar area, it might be good to scope things out ahead of time, so you know where you're going.
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