One of my favorite bloggers, Patricia Kennedy, posted Listing From Hell? Not Necessarily. Very well written blog, read it and you will not regret.
It reminded me another story, somewhat weird, but we do not choose the stories, we only choose whether to tell them.
The Seller of a condo-hotel studio in the Fountain Beach Resort put it for sale for $50K. He had a tenant. The arrangement was that if the tenant was at home, we could call him, give him 10-15 minutes and then show. The tenant never said "no" so that was not the problem.
The problem was that when I would come with people to show it to them, it looked like the tenant used the 15 minutes to create as much mess as he could and leave just before we walk in. It was difficult to find space on the floor to put your foot. Clothes was laid all over the floor, the never made bed and everywhere else.
There wold often be unflushed toilet, leftovers of yesterday pizza... You get the picture.
It was the best price i the resort and we could not sell it. No matter how we tried to prepare prospects, they could never see beyond the mess.
One sunny Florida day I had a couple of retired newlyweds (that's true, they were not young kids, but they were deeply in love as if this was the first wedding for them). They saw the sign and the lure of an incredibly low price (which fell since then even lower), brought them in.
I did the routine, explained that they should look "beyond the mess", and they smiled and said "Sure, we understand". I called and try to insist that we come right away, hoping not to give him time to create all this mess, but he said "10 minutes, please" so we went upstairs exactly in ten minutes. I opened the door, they walked in... tried to walk in, and then the lady stormed out with a face, that was very unflattering at best. She was also loudly expressing her unflattering remarks in a foreign language (also unflattering, if not plain foul), which happened to be Russian.
How could I even dare to show them THAT? Well, what about looking beyond? Yes, but not THAT...
Anyway, the newlywed ended up buying a terrific luxury 3 bdr residential oceanview condo for just over $500,000. Good this was brand new and there were no tenants.
The tenant in the studio did not last long anyway, Someone managed to look beyond... or simply not notice the mess altogether. He happened to be a single guy.
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