In a recent blog post about shoveling snow in front of a vacant listing, I took a little time to toot my own horn and shoot a little video. Yeah it was a pain in the patootie and it took about 2 and half hours to shovel a path from the road to the front door. It was worth it, though, because people wanted to see it. They were calling the showing service and even with unflattering photos online they saw the price was right.
Recently, the tables were turned when a buyer client wanted to go house hunting. They had picked out a few homes from their Internet search and they were available to be shown...because they were empty. Now, in my area there are a lot of foreclosures and short sales that are vacant but there are also "plain vanilla" homes that are vacant, too. It's these homes that should have been shoveled but weren't. Either the listing agent was too lazy or was above shoveling or, maybe, the owner of the house was too cheap to have the listing agent hire a contractor (the two teenagers down the street or some day laborers) to shovel the snow so people could get in to see the house.
It was a real shame to drive up to a house only to see a lockbox on the railing or front door knob and so much snow that there was no way I was going to wade through it to try and open the door.
I look at it this way. If I can shovel a driveway in order to allow access to potential buyers and their agents, others can, too. I might be wrong about this and I might be expecting too much but in this current housing environment, if you want to make any money and sell some houses you might have to shovel some driveways.
Oh by the way, I got an offer on the house. If all goes well I might just get paid before all the snow melts in the Spring.
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