The weather was perfect, the signs were all out...What went wrong?

What went wrong? That is the question I have been asking myself since yesterday afternoon.

It all began when we decided to have a MASS OPEN HOUSE! We have 4 listings on the same block, perfectly laid out for this magnificent occasion. Or so we thought!

One week before the proposed event the first home-owner canceled! He said NO WAY could we have people just waltzing through his house, we tried to assure him that they would be supervised, no mud would be brought in, etc. But, to no avail, as he still wouldn't budge! OK, that's fine we thought, we can do this with 3 houses, surely we'll still have a big turn-out!

The 2nd house to be pulled off the Open belonged to the Brokers/Owners of our fine company. You see, they just bought a mini-mansion ;) & were preparing to list their former home. The excess "stuff" was not cleared out in time, "the basement should be finished before we list" they cried! OK, that's fine we thought, we can do this with 2 houses!

The Open was scheduled for Sunday from 2-4 pm. A great time after church and Sunday morning lunches! I get a phone call on Saturday, the voice on the other end told me that the 3rd house on the Open had been run into! I say, "well what do you mean it has been RUN INTO?!" The builder of this brand new construction home had ordered concrete for Saturday morning. It would not be completely set by the time 2 pm on Sunday rolled around, but at least people could walk on a sidewalk instead of clay mud! It seems that the driver of the concrete truck thought he heard "GO, GO, GO!", when in fact the words being screamed were "WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!" So, as you may have guessed, the driver back his concrete chute right into the finished bonus room over the garage! The builder was able to repair the home and you can't tell that just 2 days ago there had been a truck sitting in the house!

I figured nothing else could go wrong, we had enough drama to last us a year and this marvelous Open House (featuring 2 homes) would go smoothly.

Sunday afternoon around 1, I arrived at my duty station. A new listing on a quiet street. The owners are a young couple with a 3 year old daughter. They are visibly shaken and I ask "What is the matter?" The story goes like this, the parents got out of their 4 door pick-up truck and close the doors behind them. They each go to open the back doors to retrieve their bundle of joy and much to their dismay, the doors have all locked! Their precious 3 year old is strapped in her carseat, inside a locked truck, in the driveway of their home! They scramble to find spare keys, but they had not made any copies. And even though this is a new model pick-up, the couple never cared to activate the OnStar Emergency system! They frantic ally call the police, and 30 minutes later their daughter is safe in their arms again with no harm done! I get them out the door for an afternoon of family bonding at a local mall and begin to set things up for the Open House.

I have candles burning, lights turned on, most of the personal items stowed away and I wait. Then I wait some more. I call my fellow Realtor and ask how her Open is going (since we had 2 of 4 houses open that day!) By the end of our 2 hour block she had 3 visitors and I had 0! Well, if you count my mother and father who brought two of my sisters and one boyfriend, I guess I technically had 5 visitors!

At first I was upset, we had ran ads in the paper, set out way too many signs and listed the event on the MLS. Then I realized, that someone was probably just looking out for us! A higher power must have realized that our last couple of weeks had been way too eventful and he/she didn't want us to deal with writing a contract to sell one or both of these fine houses! He/she wanted us to relax and watch the weather channel for 2 hours at someone else's home, while they were not there!