Our son, who is a successful Commercial Broker was explaining to me why I should be out knocking on the doors of area FSBOs.
I explained to him that although I did that once upon a time, I stopped it in 1982 when I got "Porched."
"Porched ?" he queried... "yes Porched, I repeated.
One sprung afternoon I had decided to boost my listing numbers. There was a cute cottage at the end of a road close to our office. It had a For Sale By Owner sign.
I parked my car , opened the gate and strolled down the path to the front porch
As I knocked on the door, I heard a gruff "whoff" followed by a growl!
The noises had come from a great Dane who was now occupying the space between the stairs to the porch and the walkway.
The dog continued to bark and growl for what seemed like a long time. He then decided to lay down.
I quickly decided that my choices seemed to be staying put til the owners showed up, or getting mauled.
Staying put was my choice.
In about an hour the owner came home with a load of groceries. She was surprised to find me on her porch, and quickly put the dog in the house.
We visited for a few minutes and she invited me to come back later that evening when her husband came home.
I did get the listing and sold these folks a new home in addition to listing the existing one.
It was a successful enterprise, but I have never felt inclined to knock on a door again. Being stuck in that situation was frightening! I still love porches, but I prefer to stick to my own.
Love your title and that is too funny, (alhtough I am sure not at the time)! It's so hard knocking on doors..I prefer the whole direct mail marketing thing :)!
Jeanne and Ralph, OK, I've never been "porched" and hope I never will be. Being cornered by Fang must have been pretty scary!
Good morning Ralph and Jeanne,
Getting "porched", cute title and blog - my dane would have run you all the way down the drive, you were lucky!!
I am so sorry, but your misfortune gave me a good laugh. I have never had that happen. But, it would have been very disconcerting to say the least!
Ralph and Jeanne,
What a fun story and I love that the outcome was so successful. Have a great weekend, I sure am ready for it. A
I love dogs but the growling and defending thing would probably have porched me too.
Great story and the right time to end your door knocking. Being a Realtor for 16 years, prior to going into the mortgage business, I can surely understand your story. The last time I wrote any kind of ad for my mortgage business, was 1996.
Jeanne and Ralph, I included this post in Last Week's Favorites. Have a great week!
Hey, I would stay on a porch for an hour for 2 transactions like that. You showed the lady that you were persistant! LOL Great Danes are usually not mean, they were used as quard dogs only because they are BIG - they are like fuzzy lambs despite their size.
Ralph glad you made it out and was able to have a transaction. I never open gates when I am door knocking, if there is a closed gate I walk by.
You've been traumatized for life! I'd stick to my own porch too, if I were you!!
Hi Jeanne and Ralph,
This was just a great read. I can visualize you in that situation and I am not sure how I would have handled it, likely no differently, :-)
Jeanne & Ralph: Oh, you got the listing and sold them a house, too... so what's not to like. This sounds like a great new type of "niche" marketing. Just take a taser with you next time. :)
What a scary situation. It's just good the dog laid down and didn't attack. Love your new word, "porched".
Gretchen
Jeanne and Ralph: I used to run into similar troubles when I was appraising years ago. Just think about all the poor mail deliverers!
Gene
Pretty funny. I am glad you made it out safely. Being that it was such a huge dog you are really pretty lucky.
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