A great and wonderful soft landing occurred today with the closing of a sale to some absolutely dear people who’ve been a joy to work with from beginning to end. I know some may think me a bit of an idealist, but I believe the purchase and sale of a home should be as stressless as everyone can make it. I’ve been on the search for properties in out-lying towns and have come across agents who must believe their markets to be little fiefdoms where they think only they have the right to sell their own listings. More sooner than later those dinosaur mentalities are going destroy themselves. I can’t imagine any seller in our real estate universe of today ever even thinking of listing with an agent who doesn’t allow salespeople from competing offices to show and sell their homes. If there are sellers’ agents out there that think they’ll be able to force another agent’s buyer to work with them, they are completely wrong. With that said, there’ve been sellers who’ve lost the best buyers for their homes simply because their agents wouldn’t allow others to show them. Those were ploys that took place years ago which worked a few times, but for the most part created un-due negative perceptions of Realtors because of the conduct of supposed professionals. Just recently I was barred from showing a home because the agent and seller decided it was best to market his house exclusively. Unfortunately for that seller, I sold my buyers another home that was just as good or better for a lesser price. What goes around comes around when not playing fair. I remember quite well back in the old days when there were several offices who duped the sellers into going office exclusive with their homes and believe me, those poor sellers had no idea how much they hurt themselves financially when allowing it. Knowing how bad that type of mentality is when looking forward, I’ll continue to say, “I don’t care who sells my listings as long as my sellers receive the highest and best prices for their homes.” Like they say about the stock market, “The bears eat, the bulls eat, but the pigs get eaten.”
Believe it or not, my new listing at 905 – 8th St. NE which I posted last night is already sold! That home is quite the beauty and I’m confident the new owners will be there for a very long time. I mentioned as they were walking out this morning, “Your new home is of a design which you’ll likely never find in all of Mason City and North Iowa.” There’s such a scarcity of clean, maintenance free, and competitively priced homes in our market right now. They’re either over-priced or not in the best of condition. Most buyers don’t have the time, money, or knowhow to make much needed improvements. Some of the horror stories I’ve seen and heard over the years would make anyone step back and say, “How did this get so funked up?”
I’ve seen holes in the walls of bathrooms which I could see daylight outside, toilet tank guts in need of replacement to where the owner would turn the shutoff on and off every time the commode was used to keep it from running continually. Leaking water and drain lines create some of the most invisible damages to a home when not quickly repaired. One of the more shocking discoveries was finding a seller not using his shower in the master bath because the drain was leaking in his basement storage room. The buyers discovered it the first time they used the master bath shower and I wasn’t a bit sad in learning he had to cough up some cash to get it repaired. Small housing repair glitches remain as such so long as they’re addressed quickly before becoming crisises.
