My husband and I got married in 2007. We both had custody of our teenage boys and couldn't live in either of our current homes. We needed more space. I had been renting a condo on the river on Merritt Island, and my husband had a two bedroom home in Melbourne. We decided to rent for a year while getting his house on the market for sale, (and hopefully sold, so,we could buy another one. We put a lot of work into his house. We painted the interior and exterior, trimmed trees, installed new blinds, replaced screens and had it professionally cleaned. It looked amazing. The house was in a great location, it was a quiet neighborhood and even had a community pool and tennis courts.
I was a little concerned about the neighbors. They had a bunch of yard decorations in the front of their house. They had plastic flowers in the flower beds, little statues all around the yard, one was a little dogs butt sticking out of the ground, a couple of turtles, some windmills, some flags and had a floral wrap on the mailbox. That stuff that would turn me off from buying next door. Then while we were painting the outside, we discovered she got three (live) chickens and let them walk around the neighborhood. I was really getting concerned. They did have an HOA, but they did not have any restrictions on how you painted or decorated your home or yard. They apparently had no issue with chickens either.
My husband received orders that he had to go to California for school for the military (he's in the Air National Guard) and would be gone for six months. I had to handle the final details of getting the house ready. Once it was "perfect," I ordered the sign up and went over to take the photos to list it in the MLS. I had been happy to hear that all the chickens were gone from one of the other neighbors the day before, and was excited to get it listed.
I could not believe what I saw when I got to the house. Right on the property line, but facing our driveway, was a five foot stuffed bear. I was flabbergasted. Who would do that? Why would someone do that? I just knew it would scare away any buyers. I listed the house and my husband who had a decent relationship with the neighbors was going to call them over and ask them move it or even put it away until the house was sold. He did not end up getting in touch with them.
A couple of weeks went by, there were several showings, no negative feedback about the bear. After it was listed for about three weeks, I got the call that an offer was being made. It was really close to the asking price, no contingencies, they wanted a quick closing. We took the offer. A week or two into the process I mentioned to the buyer's agent that we had been worried about the bear and to my surprise, she said "The bear? Oh they loved the bear. They loved the neighbors yard and the bear was the reason they fell in love with the house." They had been looking for a house with a community pool, but without a strict HOA. They too loved that type of yard decoration and did not want to buy in a development with an HOA that had restrictions on things like that. They fact that the house was turn key was just a bonus. What sold them on the house was the lack of HOA restrictions and the big brown bear in the front yard.
A year or so later I drove by to see how the house looked and wasn't surprised to see the floral wrap on the mailbox, to match the neighbors. We had heard from the old neighbors around that time, that they are great friends with the buyers. In the year after the sale, I received several phone calls from agents with listings in the same subdivision, asking how I was able to get such a good price for the home, it was the highest sales price in that subdivision for a couple of years. I told them it was immaculate, move in ready and the buyers loved the neighborhood. I didn't mention the bear.
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