We all have the clients who are only interested in buying a house if they feel that they have stolen the house from the sellers. I don't know if it is because:
- they feel the pressure of the media telling them it is a buyer's market.
- they are afraid of looking stupid in front of their friends.
- they are afraid of buying at the top of the market
- they need bragging rights around the water cooler.
Regardless of motivation, the story of a recent buyer may take the cake.
She found the house that she was willing to buy, which was an estate sale. The seller's family had not cleaned out the house, and the buyer noticed that there were five pairs of Jimmy Choo heels still in boxes in the deceased owner's closet. Better yet, the shoes were her size, a size 6. The buyer insisted that the contract to purchase contain an addendum providing that at settlement, she would receive the dead woman's five pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.
Once the house went under contract, someone arranged for the house to be cleaned out and all the furniture and personal effects be removed so that the house would be broom clean at closing.
You can imagine what happened. The buyer arrived to do the walk through and expected to take possession of her five pairs of Jimmy Choo shoes, but the shoes were gone. They had probably gone to Goodwill or Value Village!
The buyer was disappointed but inflexible. She had contracted to buy a house with five pair of Jimmy Choo shoes, and she was not going to give up on her shoes. The seller's estate had to give her five pairs of Jimmy Choo shoes in order to close the sale.
Note to self: When you are the listing agent and your property goes under contract, make sure that all the relevant parties are familiar with the terms and conditions of the contract. In this case, the person who signed the contract to sell the house was not the same person who was responsible for cleaning the house out.
Note to self: Sometimes the most important thing in the transaction is not the obvious one, but an issue that you don't even see. When I have a buyer or seller who is acting up or acting out, I try to understand what is motivating the behaviour. In this case, I don't think anyone thought that the buyer was going to be so wedded to those five pairs of shoes.
Happily, we were able to close, and the buyer was happy ..... with five brand new pairs of Jimmy Choo shoes!
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