Do you remember Wacky Wednesday?

It’s a book by Dr. Seuss and it’s an absolute classic!

One of the best parts about being a Dad is that I get to re-live parts of my childhood as I parent my own kids, and sometimes it helps me visualize what my own mother and father experienced while raising us.

My daughter has her fair share of Peppa Pig books, and that lame giraffe, Sophie.  She’s got six copies of “Goodnight Moon,” as does every child, because people lack originality when buying gifts at the bookstore.  But once she was old enough, I brought out my books from childhood.

Terrible Toybreakers
Willie’s Raiders
Socks For Supper
Rabbit’s New Rug
Popcorn

Do those ring a bell?  Let me know if one of them does.

My mother told me she was part of a book club in 1978 or 1980 and every month, they’d send a new kid’s book.  I loved these books to death.  I have vivid memories of reading these, or having them read to me, in various rooms in my first house.

They were in storage in my mother’s for two decades but now they belong to my daughter.  We brought home one book every time we visited “Grammy’s House,” and now Maya has them all.

But Wacky Wednesday, I have a problem with.

In a nutshell, it’s a book where you – the reader, has to find things that are “wrong” on each page.  Wacky, if you will.  Most of the time, it’s like a missing leg to a table, or a chimney in a tree.  Sometimes you have to think about it for a second, like a mouse chasing a cat.  But there’s one trick in this book that I think is so tough for kids to get.

Why?

Because I had to Google it myself!

A sock in the shower?  Obvious.

A tree in the toilet?  Sure, no problem.

A faucet upside down?  Yeah, a kid will see that.

But my daughter and I spent a week trying to find the fourth wacky object in this scene, and I finally had to Google it.

It’s circled above: the fish in the jar.  But even NOW that it’s circled, I bet you still can’t figure it out?

It’s the cork.  Fish need oxygen to breathe, so a cork can’t go in the bottle or the fish will die.

SERIOUSLY?

This book is for children.

I had a really, really wacky weekend.

Nothing eventful happened.  No momentous occasions.  No sales to speak of.  But I had so many really odd, bizarre, just downright wacky experiences that, collectively, it felt like a wacky weekend.

Let’s have some fun…

–

Wacky Weekend Tale #1:

Every time I have a listing, I expect to get odd inquiries.

Some buyers just have no clue how Toronto real estate works, or how properties are priced, how offer dates play a role, etc.  And that’s fine, I don’t expect every buyer to come into the process knowing the ins and outs of a complicated market!

But on the flip side, I continuously receive emails that I just don’t understand.  And by that, I mean I understand the meaning of the email, but I fail to understand what the sender was thinking.

Case in point:

Here’s a listing of ours for sale for $639,900.

It’s for sale.

And yet “Gil” emailed to ask if his Dad can rent the unit for a month?

Huh?

Let’s not bother analyzing.  It won’t get us anywhere…

–

Wacky Weekend Tale #2:

A cottage was put up for sale south of Muskoka in early September, only it wasn’t listed for sale, but rather merely put up for sale.

What does that mean?

Well, it’s sort of like an exclusive, but not really, since they were cooperating with agents.

It’s like they didn’t put the property on MLS but advertised that it was for sale, which is quite odd considering the reach of MLS.

Also odd: they set an offer date for 18 days later.

That’s a long time to hold back offers!  But it’s a cottage, and it’s not listed for sale on MLS, so maybe they need more exposure?

A client of mine was interested so he submitted an offer.  So did two other potential buyers.

The sale was complicated.  Oh, in so many ways…

The property is tenanted which isn’t ideal.  And the tenant doesn’t want to leave, which complicates matters.  But who is the tenant?

The owner’s daughter.

A real family squabble we got on our hands here!

The offer review process dragged on for three days!

And in the end, which of the three offers did the seller accept?

None of them.

He turned them all down, then said he would list the property on MLS.

Wacky, wacky turn of events…

–

Wacky Weekend Tale #3:

This is another example of, “The market is complicated, so I shouldn’t judge anybody.”

I’m not judging, but rather making light of a wacky email I received on a hot condo listing.

I understand how tough the Toronto real estate market is and I understand that there’s no guide book.

But there has to be just a little common sense, no?

Look at this:

Huh?

“Renting to buy,” you say?

I would offer that this isn’t even a “thing,” except we heard from Mark McLean in the summer and Key Living offers a form of rent-to-own.

But to randomly email the listing agent for what might be the most sought-after downtown listing last week, and ask about renting to own?

It’s misplaced, to say the last.  It’s wacky.

It’s also sad in a way.

But mainly wacky…

–

Wacky Weekend Tale #4:

Maybe I just expect too much of people, I don’t know.

I’ve always been bothered by stupidity as well as ignorance.  A “learned helplessness” is also a huge pet peeve of mine.

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of taking an hour to run 12 KM which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I returned home to five missed calls, three voicemails, four text messages, and twelve emails.

I currently have seven active listings and we are bringing five more to market this week.  My phone rings all day long and never stops.  It’s my job, so I’m not complaining, but I will complain when I receive a voicemail like this:

“Hi David, my name is (redacted) and I’m showing your unit on (redacted) street this afternoon.  Can I ask you something?  Can you call me, please?  I don’t know where to park and I’m hoping you can help me out.  That would be really great, David, thanks!  Speak to you soon.”

That’s verbatim.

I understand that some people are more helpful than others in this world, and I don’t consider myself to be unhelpful, but I just don’t have time for shit like this.  Who does?

More to the point, what is this agent thinking?  This condo is on a main street like King, Queen, Richmond, or Adelaide.  There’s parking on both sides of the street.  There are parking lots all around.  Why in the WORLD would an agent call me on a Sunday afternoon and ask me where to park?

I know, I know.  What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

But I’ve had fifty showings.  The other forty-nine agents didn’t call and ask where to park.

I always wonder how individuals like this manage to successfully make it from bed, to the shower, to the breakfast table, and out the door in the morning without calling for help…

–

Wacky Weekend Tale #5:

Toronto is Toronto.

Whitby is Whitby.

Different places, different markets, but how different?

Oh – very different, it seems!

Kidding aside, while I want to say, “This is how it works in Whitby,” I’m sure this isn’t representative of the entire market.

I just loved this so much.  I keep laughing even as I read it now for the tenth time:

You may.  But you may not.

Could be tonight.  Could be tomorrow.  Who knows, right?

If/when, but not one of those on their own.

“heads up” in quotations, meaning, what – some sort of hidden meaning?

Over the weekend, I had at least ten agents call me and ask, “Would you look at a bully offer?”  I had four agents telling me they were bringing one, but none did.  This type of talk is not just common, but rather automatic.

To send out an email with a “maybe” speaks to a really excitable listing agent!  I can’t imagine this happening in the central core, it would send shockwaves…

–

Wacky Weekend Tale #6:

I watched twenty minutes of football on Sunday.

Not a single second of the night game (that’s because I’m writing this post at 9:30pm…) and none of the 1:00pm games.

The only football I watched was a little of the 4pm games as I flipped hamburgers on my mother’s barbecue and stood in the doorway watching Dallas versus Los Angeles.

As glorious as that twenty minutes of football was, I had a bit of a sour taste in my mouth from an earlier interaction on Sunday.

Just after 11:00am on Sunday, I received a text message from a number I didn’t know that said the following:

HI Dave!
Can you show me (property address) today?
Full disclosure I have an agent but Sunday is his day to laze on the couch and watch football.
I can meet any time from 3pm to 6pm.
THANKS!
Sal

Also verbatim.

Every agent runs his or her business differently.

Most of my clients know that on Sunday, I work from my second home office: at my mother’s.  I usually do morning appointments but from 1pm to 5pm, I’m at “work” in the front left bedroom of her house where I’ve got a really nice desk, an incredibly comfortable office chair, a spare laptop battery.

Whether it’s Chris, Matthew, Tara, or all of them, my team is out working on Sunday as they are every single day of the week.  They’ll take our buyers out to see properties morning, noon, and night.

I can’t imagine a world in which an agent tells his buyers, “I can’t show you this house on Sunday because I’m gonna laze on the couch and watch football.”

The sad part is, I think “Sal” believes this is okay.  Didn’t seem to phase him in that email one bit.

–

Wacky Weekend Tale #7:

The continuing theme here: not everybody understands our real estate market.

But you have to admit that if there’s one type of person that you think would understand our market, it would be an individual who works in the market for a living!  Like, oh, I dunno, say, a real estate agent?

I have a listing at $749,900.  There is an offer date set for Wednesday night.

You, the blog reader, likely assume that any property at this price, in September of 2021, with an offer date, is going to sell over the list price.

And you would be right!

But a licensed real estate agent?  Surely he or she would know at least this much, right?

A very similar, yet obviously inferior property just sold for $855,000 two weeks ago.  Do the math here on ours, and you can guess where the price is going to land.

But on Saturday, I received a bully offer on this property for……………….wait for it……………..$749,900.

The list price.  BUT, and this is a huge “but,” it also had not one, not two, but three conditions.

Conditional on financing for ten business days, conditional on a review of the condominium’s status certificate for five business days, and conditional on a home inspection for five business days.

Nobody does home inspections on condos, but that’s beside the point.

I called the agent and said, “Thank you for your offer, however, we are reviewing offers next Wednesday night.”

He said, “Yeah, I’m doing the bully offer man!”

I thanked him again, but told him that we would be waiting until Wednesday.

Incredulously, he asked me, “Do you think that’s smart?”

I wanted to jump through the phone and strangle him, but I need to keep him on the line so he can be the moron who shows up on offer night to be used as a step-stool for everybody else.

Before I could answer, he added, “Don’t you think you should check with the sellers first?”

I told him that the sellers were overseas (true story – they left for the listing period) and that they were tough to reach.

He said, “Well, I hope you can get in touch with them soon because we put a three-hour irrevocable on the offer.”

Wacky, wacky, wacky.  You literally can’t make this stuff up.  Hollywood writers couldn’t write this guy any better.

This guy might have been smoking the wacky-tabacky.

Maybe he was indoors too long and went shack-wacky.

Perhaps he had too many wacky wings and it affected his judgment.

I’m not sure.

But as I always lament after sharing these stories, I really feel bad for his client!  All this agent had to do was spend five minutes to look at the history of the building, and voila!  There’s your price-point!

But a bully offer with conditions?  It’s so incredibly misguided!  It’s like trying to roll down your window in an airplane.

I didn’t bother explaining to him that my sellers would be unlikely to forego their scheduled offer night to work with a conditional offer, let alone an offer with three conditions.  I can’t have those conversations anymore.  I feel like I should be charging a consulting fee.

The wacky thing is, I had the exact same situation last weekend on another condo and that agent tried to sell me on “doing the right thing” by selling properties conditional so all parties had “time to breathe.”

Wacky, wackier, wackiest.

–

A wacky weekend indeed, and I didn’t even read my daughter Wacky Wednesday tonight.  I read Rabbit’s New Rug, and when I tried to skip over a paragraph, she knew!  She recited the section that I missed, from memory, word-for-word.  How do kids do that?

So I’m reading my childhood books to my daughter instead of letting her enjoy the new culture and literature that exists in all things Paw Patrol.

What’s next, I up a giant G.I. Joe poster on the wall in my son’s room?

(crickets)