I guess we opened a can of worms! We could not have imagined such a simple suggestion would cause such a BIG STINK!
We are advising a lovely client how to prepare her home for sale in Santee. She is a widow in her 70's; a dear. Among many other things we suggested she do to increase the value of her home before she moved out of state, was to remove the flag pole that was center stage in her small front yard. Because this client knows us personally, she took absolutely no offense, as we explained that flag poles tend to age a property, and in order to update it for today's buyer, it would probably sell better without a flag pole. Her daughter agreed that if that is what we believed to be the case, they would remove the flag pole, and they did.
They removed it on Memorial Day.
Let me just tell you that our client's family traveled out from Texas to get this house packed up and updated and they were doing so at a pace that was simply amazing! They were not even aware it was Memorial Day when they began to remove that pole. The elderly neighbor next door came unglued. He was so angry he could not contain himself, letting our client's veteren-son-in-law know exactly what he thought about him in no uncertain terms. And then the neighbor gave my husband a call!
Mike tried to explain as best he could that the decision had nothing whatsoever to do with a lack of patriotism or love for the good old U.S.A. It was simply a matter of looking out for our client's best interest and doing everything we could possibly think of to get that selling price up as high as we could in this very difficult buyer's market! He got so angry with Mike he couldn't speak. Before he hung up, he did inform us that the entire cul-de-sac is "p$%*ed off" at us. Mike said he looked around the cul-de-sac and saw three homes with flag poles in the center of their yards, including the angry man's house.
After we get the outside repainted, we thought we would purchase a flag that hangs off the side of the house from a pole, but then I got to wondering if that would be another faux paux: The house will be vacant and there will be no one there to take it down each night!
The bright side is that we take the fall for removing the flag pole. If new buyers were to have moved in and decided to remove that pole ... well, I wonder if a pox would have been upon their home!!!
~Debbie
Comments(3)