It’s not so much the listing that was strange, but rather the reaction, the process, and the interactions with everybody involved.

When I see those cheezy real estate TV shows – where would-be buyers look at three houses, then make an offer on one, and always get it, I think to myself, “If only they did a show about what really goes on in this business.”

The following story might surprise you, if you think real estate is a well-oiled machine, or it might not, if you realize just how crazy people can be…

As with many of my other stories, I’m not going to detail which listing this was, and I’m going to slightly alter the details.

A couple of weeks ago, I listed a property in the east end for $395,000, which was, as we say in the business, a “gut-reno.”

It was an estate sale, and it needed a “down-to-the-studs” renovation to really maximize the value.

The house had solid bones – a nice 18 x 120 foot lot, 2 1/2 storey, 4-bed, and a 5-year-old garage, but the house needed new everything.  We’re talking digging out the basement, tearing out all the walls to remove the knob-and-tube wiring and put up drywall in place of the plaster, new bathrooms, new kitchen, new roof, new porch.  If you can think of it, this house needed it.

The “story” here isn’t the sale price, which was $509,500 in the end, but rather the process itself, and the people that I came across.

Here are the best five stories from the craziest listing I’ve ever had…

1) Make them an offer they can’t refuse?

I understand that the saying, “A property is worth what somebody is willing to pay for it” makes sense in theory, but that the eventual sale price doesn’t mean everybody should have been willing to pay for it.

Having said that, I’ve never in my life seen somebody so far off on price, as I did with this house.

I gave a “sign call” to a colleague of mine – a sign call is when a complete stranger calls you on the FOR SALE sign, or the MLS listing, and she took the buyer through the house, and developed some rapport.

My colleague told the buyer that the house would probably sell for between $450,000 and $500,000, which is a huge range, but one that was totally fair, especially given the $509,500 sale price in the end.

The buyer LOVED the house.  In fact, she came back with her brother.

Then a day later, she booked a home inspection on the property, and the inspector walked her, her brother, and FIVE of their family members through the home over the space of over three hours.

She was very serious about the house, and was excited about buying a “fixer-upper,” and renovating to her own individual tastes and preferences.

She told my colleague that she was, 110%, going to make an offer.

On offer day, I asked my colleague if she was going to be getting that over, and told her that we had two offers already registered, around 11am.

It wasn’t until 2’ish that she got the following email from the buyer:

Hi (Name),

Based on the quote given to me by my architect, the most I would be able to offer is less than asking, around the $200,000 mark, give or take.

I will have a conversation with my brother about it, but I do not think it’s worth the effort and expense at any higher than $200K.

–

Oh.  Reaaaaaaaaally?

Because there are lots of Toronto houses that sell for 50% of the asking price?

I know we all value properties differently, but given this was a $395,000 list price, with a $509,500 sale price, how can anybody suggest offering $200,000?

And this wasn’t some nut job – this was somebody that felt paying $600 for a home inspection was a good investment, and was serious about the $200,000 offer!

My colleague asked me if I thought it was worthwhile to get the offer on paper – not for her, but rather to help “boost the number of offers,” to which I told her not to bother.  That’s not a real offer.  If that offer counts, then we may as well have every member of our family register a phantom offer on every listing we ever have…

2) Offer date?  What offer date?

On Sunday morning, around 11am, I received a page from my office saying that an offer had been registered on the property.

I called the agent and thanked her for registering the offer, and told her we’d be happy to see her on Wednesday night at 7:00pm at my office.

She said, “For what?”

And I told her, “To present your offer.”

She said, “No, I don’t think you understand.  If we’re going to buy your house, we’re going to do it today.  Our irrevocable is 3:00pm, so you have a very short time to turn this around.”

Right.  Oooookay….

Soooo……I told her that while I appreciated her aggressive position, we were going to review offers on Wednesday night at 7:00pm, as had been the plan from the beginning of the listing, and as had been promised to every buyer and agent who had seen the property.

She cried, “You can’t just do that.  You can’t just abruptly set an offer date right now!”

I told her that I wasn’t setting an offer date right then and there, but rather as I just told her – we had set an offer date from the start, as soon as the listing hit MLS.

“Nuh-uh,” she said.  “No way.  I’m looking at the listing right now, and there’s nothing about the offer date.”

I told her, “Look at the ‘Remarks For Brokerages,’ it’s right there.”

She said, “There aren’t any remarks for brokerages.”

I paused, gave it some thought, then figured it out: “Are you holding a ‘Client Copy’ of the MLS listing,” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said.  “My client picked it up at the open house.”

“Did you go to see this property?” I asked her.

“No, but my client went to Saturday’s open house, and she got a copy of the MLS listing that was there, and there’s no offer date specified!”

“Right,” I told her.  “That’s called the ‘Client Copy,” which due to regulations under the Privacy Act, is the version we have to hand out at open houses as it doesn’t have the seller’s names.  It also doesn’t have the broker’s remarks, and thus it doesn’t specify that there’s an offer date.”

“Oh,” she said, followed by an extremely long pause.  “So can you still look at our offer today then?”

Unreal…

3) It’s not worth the paper it’s not printed on

Is a verbal offer, considered a true “offer?”

In some cases, yes, and in others, no.

In real estate, a verbal offer is meaningless, and not binding.  Unless you want to sue in a court of law, and spend four years chasing it…

Offers were being registered throughout the day, and one agent kept texting me and saying, “Keep me in the loop.”  So I did; I kept telling him when each successive offer was registered.

Around 6pm, he texted me the following:

David my client is in London and can’t sign or print or write anything. I’ll give u a verbal and if u accept we will give u paper 2morrow @10am.  K?

No, really.  This happened.

So what?  The expectation was that this guy would say a number into the phone, and with that, I would tell the other seven agents presenting in person, with signed offers, and deposit cheques in hand, that they could go home?

“Sorry folks, but an out-of-town agent, with an out-of-town client, who I have never met, gave me a verbal offer on the phone an hour ago, and we’re going to sleep well tonight knowing that he’ll show up tomorrow with a paper copy and a cheque.”

Right.

I told him that we weren’t willing to work with a verbal offer, and that he should find a Kinko’s or Staples.

He was upset, and said he’d hoped that his verbal would be taken for its merits, but in the end, he was able to get the paper together and send over his offer………..of $395,000.  The asking price, against SEVEN other offers.

In the end, it would seem that the offer was worth just as much verbally as it was on paper…

4) Oops

The $200,000 “offer” doesn’t count, since it wasn’t put on paper, and wasn’t registered.

But having said that, there was a worse offer than that $395,000 asking-price offer that was submitted.

Despite the presence of EIGHT offers, one agent submitted $370,000, on a $395,000 listing, and eagerly awaited my response.

We started reviewing offers at 7pm, and he was incessantly texting me for updates.

This guy, for some reason, thought his offer of $25,000 below the asking price was going to take home the bacon this night.

He sent me a series of “????” texts in succession, so finally I just texted him back:

Hi (Name), Thank you very much for your offer, but my sellers have decided to work with another offer.  There was a significant gap in price, but I appreciate your efforts, and the interest that your buyer has shown in the property.  Best of luck!

He wrote me back: “Offer starts with 3 or 4?”

Ah, right.  He wanted to know if anybody was “crazy” enough to go to $400,000.

He added, “I will take to my buyer.”

I wrote back, “Offer starts with a 5.”

He wrote back, “3 or 4?  What 5?  I don’t understand.  Offer starts with 3 or 4?  I will talk to my buyer.”

I wrote him back and said, “(Name), you are off by almost $140,000.”

To which he simply wrote back “Oops,” and that was all I heard from him.

5) Define “shame,” really…

I didn’t complete a pre-home inspection for this property because it basically had diseases only found in sharks.  I mean this house needed everything, and nothing in an inspection was going to come as a surprise.

I do a pre-home inspection for every listing I have, but for this one – there was no point.

With 82 showings on the property, only three agents emailed me and asked if we had an inspection, or why we didn’t have one.

Then I got a call from an actual buyer.

The buyer called me, directly, even though she was working with a buyer agent.

She told me that her buyer agent informed her that there was no pre-home inspection, and that she thought this was “unfair.”

She added a few other words as well, such as, “unprofessional,” “devious,” and “criminal.”

Really.  “Criminal.”

She said, “Your actions are borderline criminal.  You’re trying to pull a fast one on everybody here, and it’s criminal!”

She said that I had a moral, ethical, and legal obligation to disclose all material facts to do with the house, and the only way to do this was to conduct a pre-home inspection.

I informed her that despite her impressive use of big words, that she was, sadly, mistaken.

I told her that she was welcome to conduct her own pre-home inspection, and she said she would: if I would pay for it.

Yes.  Another agent’s client called me, and asked me to pay for a home inspection for her.

That’s a first!

I told her that I appreciated her interest in the property, and wished her all the best.

To that, she responded, “You are absolutely shameless.”

–

It’s a wacky, wacky world out there!

This was a very unique listing, and it provided me with some very unique experiences.

Before anybody asks the obvious question, “David, for a guy who complains about under-listing properties, why did you under-list this one?”  As I’ve said before, we basically take this as given now.  And if we are going to change the way we do things, it’s not going to happen in a day, and my sellers – who interviewed six Realtors before they chose me, probably wouldn’t have wanted to be the guinea pig in a real estate experiment.

As for two other burning questions:

1) I did not entertain any bully offers, even though three agents made overtures.

2) I told every agent I would accept the highest offer, one shot deal, and I did.

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Have a great weekend everybody – and on Monday my next video, “What If The Whole World Worked The Way It Does In Real Estate?” is coming out.

Here’s the teaser: