Surely other realtors collect houses on their Top Ten Weird Places list, right? I'm not the only one making a point of memorializing for posterity the ones that leave me and my buyers tilting our heads sideways in that canine gesture of confusion? We went into another four houses today. Number one was absolutely beautiful, but had such a tiny yard that it is probably not happening for these guys. Numbers two and three had potential, but were laid out so poorly that we were barely inside of them for five minutes. The last house was obviously remodeled extensively, a flip with a big budget, and my buyers were really digging it. They were, that is, until one came up from the lower family room of the split level and said, "There are mushrooms in the basement." Huh? Mushrooms? They meant that absolutely seriously. The brand new carpet was soaked across a band of six or eight inches, spanning the width of the north wall, and no lie, there were toadstools growing on the baseboards. This wall was underneath the kitchen on the inside, and the exterior wall ran under the deck where the drainage was sloped the wrong way and the gutter downspout ran right over the poorly arranged rock bed. I'm not sure what caused the problem, but it was a big enough issue that as soon as I got back home, I called the listing agent (who was also the house flipper) and told him about it. His voice started out chipper enough when he returned my call, and as I described the issue, I could hear him crumbling in on himself. Sorry, dude. Water happens. It's a shame. That house might have been "the one" for this couple.
I really loved the yard on the third house. It was a quarter of an acre, the same size as my Original Park, but laid out in a rectangle rather than a wedge, so it didn't feel quite as enormous as my last house. There were a ton of flowering shrubs and mature trees, bordering on the overgrown, but I liked it anyway. It made me want to get out there and prune a few things back (although the wonderfully overcast day that fell as a storm blew over might have been part of why I had such a strong desire to work outside). I even loved the chicken coop that the sellers had out back, although my buyers explained that they were absolutely not into the idea of raising chickens.
I don't think any of the houses we saw today are going to be 100% right for this couple. I had to expand my parameters a little to come up with four more houses for tomorrow. The good news is that they are serious, and their timetable doesn't allow for any foot-dragging. Within a week we ought to be under contract, God willing and the creeks don't rise.
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