“Believe it or not, I sold the wrong house two different times and one week between each mishap. Here’s what happened…
My clients and I drove up to the first house and we were chatting up a storm. We drove up and saw the real estate sign and I glanced at the address on the house. The house was missing the 3rd number out of 4 digits. It had apparently fallen off. No biggy though. I use the lockbox on the front door and we proceed to view the property.
My clients loved it. So we wrote the offer up that afternoon. It was accepted and everyone was happy….for a week….until the home inspection. I show up, using my GPS on my vehicle to get to the house. When I get there I am surprised that the house doesn’t look familiar. When I get in the house I know I have never been in this house before. Uh Oh!
So, I call my clients and tell them, ‘Well, you are buying a house but it isn’t the house you think you are buying.’ They were freaked out and we stopped the inspection.
They showed up to see the ‘new house’ and discovered that they liked it BETTER. As it turns out it was 3 doors down from the one that they thought they were buying (the one with the missing address number). They proceeded to close on the house. Now here’s how this happened a second time…
A week later, I showed another couple a house. I was very careful to make sure the real estate sign had the appropriate agent named on the sign.
My clients were sitting in my vehicle with me with the husband in the backseat and the wife in the front next to me. We viewed several homes and they found one they liked. And it was priced great. As we were driving around the husband made a comment of it is 133rd street. I responded with, ‘No, it is 132nd street. See here on the listing printout?’
Well he made no further comment and we viewed the home on 132nd street. We wrote the offer that afternoon and I presented it that same day. Anyway, I was happy that our offer was accepted and I was talking and joking with the listing agent.
As we were talking, I told him about the first house that I sold in error. He said that he could definitely see how that could happen. He told me he had a house listed on the next street over that was literally the same as the house my clients were buying.
All of a sudden I had a recollection of my buyer’s comment from the backseat and I broke out in a real sweat. Could it be that we had offered on the wrong home? I asked the other agent what the house numbers on that house were. They were 1 number off from out of 5 from the house we wrote on and they were not on the house, only the mailbox. Not Again!?! I had to know for sure…
So, I drive over and sure enough. I wrote the offer on the wrong house again. I called my clients and told them that they were buying a house…just not the house they thought they were buying.
Once again, I get the clients in the car and drive over to the house they actually wrote on. Luckily for me, the other agent had been correct in that they were virtually the same house. Although the house was flip-flopped, they both had 3 bedrooms, 1 bath. They both had a covered patio, air conditioning (which is rare in this price range) they both had fireplaces and hardwood floors in the living and dining areas. I lucked out even more because my clients liked this house better. Although both had fenced backyards, this one had a fenced front yard too and they had children.
A miracle…I sold the wrong house and it closed with happy clients…and then did the same thing again the next week. Amazing, but true.”
