Ten years ago, we put an offer in for our current home. It’s a strange story. After nine months of looking, we were determined to buy a house in this neighborhood and were ready to jump on one as soon as it hit the market. On a Friday morning, my husband saw a listing on Zillow that looked perfect, but by the time he tried to forward it to me, the listing had disappeared! He called our realtor, telling her who the listing was with and after some phone calls, found out that the agent had made a mistake and wasn’t supposed to put it online for another week. We basically begged to see it the next day and made our offer immediately, which was accepted.
Then it was time to put our house up for sale. We had listed it the previous fall, but received an offer right away, which we didn’t expect. Since we were unsure how long it would take to find our ‘forever home,’ we declined the offer and decided to just wait and hopefully our house would sell quickly the second time round. Well, it took six weeks, probably because it was now summer and there were plenty of other houses on the market. Our realtor must have shown our house to over 75 people, between the open houses and private showings. I was sick and tired of hiding our wet towels, having all our coats in my van (major lack of closet space in that house) and packing up all our electronics and small valuables to take with us each time we vacated the house for a showing.
But the worst part? The emails the following day that our realtor forwarded us on why the potential buyer wasn’t interested. They invariably started with, ‘This buyer.’ As in, ‘This buyer wants a large master bath’ (well yeah, that’s one reason we’re moving) or ‘This buyer is looking for a more rural setting (why are they looking in this city then?) A lot of it just seemed trivial. Ever since, my husband and I use the phrase, ‘This buyer . . .’ when we don’t like something. In that spirit, I present you with a collection of some of my favorite photos from Realtor.com. Enjoy!
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This buyer prefers to decorate with ceramic pieces (Seriously, WHY the close up of this?)
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This buyer has a big family
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These buyers don't like strangers sitting in their kitchen (I once saw a picture of a kid hiding beside a sofa. Are these realtors blind??)
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This buyer is triggered by abandoned stuffed animals (would it have been that hard to pick up before snapping the picture??)
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This buyer suffers from vertigo
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This buyer prefers a Lion King theme in his garage
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These buyers hate Chip & Joanna Gaines
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This buyer just had a #metoo moment
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This buyer doesn't have a creepy uncle to move into the basement
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This buyer does not run a wild west brothel
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This buyer believes what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas
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| This buyer isn't looking for a haunted house |
Do you ever peruse Zillow, Trulia, or Realtor.com?
OMG, these are freaking hilarious! Your #metoo moment comment made me laugh out loud! And the Vegas bathroom instantly made me think of photos I've seen of the late Liberace's bathroom in his Las Vegas home. The only difference is that his bathroom had a HUGE sunken tub. LOL!
ReplyDelete"This buyer prefers a Lion King theme in his garage" Cracked. Me. Up.!!!
And the photo of basement bedroom DOES look creepy. Kinda' like a place they use to kidnap someone and hide them there. LOL!
That room DOES look like wild west brothel!!!!
And yes, I've used Zillow and Trulia before to find an apartment. However, in the apartment listings I've never seen photos like these. All the apartment listings (and photos) have been taken once the previous tenants have moved out. Maybe once or twice I've seen photos of someone still living there, but rarely.
And speaking of moving, I'm actually looking to move in October. In fact, I have an appointment to look at an apartment this afternoon outside the city. I'm over city life, particularly Philly. I'll be posting about that in a future post.
FABULOUS post, my friend! Great read while having my morning coffee! X
Can you believe that shower!?? I mean, wouldn’t you have to special order ‘Get Naked’ on the glass? It’s mind boggling! People are so weird! I did not even know you could use those websites for apartment hunting. I’m excited to read about your decision to move and hear all about the apartment hunt. Will you still be able to be car free? Good luck on the search and keep me posted! XO
DeleteYes, car free! The area I'm looking at is completely walkable, AND they have a Trader Joe's there. That was my main concern. I HAVE to have a Trader Joe's nearby. Oh...and a wine store too. LOL!
DeleteThat’s good news, Ron! I wish there were more than TWO Trader Joe’s in Northeast Ohio! That’s a quarter of the state!
DeleteOMG. You are so funny! I had a giggle at all of these. And your story about selling your home sounds daunting. Like, let's get it over with already so we can live our lives!
ReplyDeleteWe often look at Realtor.Com. The pricing around us is astronomical and we think: If we sell this house and our rental properties we can move to, say, GA and live like Royalty!
Ugh, selling a house in yesterday’s market was no fun. Hiding all our crap got old very quickly. And my oldest had just moved back home for the summer from college, so we had extra crap! I think we even moved some stuff to my in-laws’ basement. Today, people sell their house in one day and probably don’t worry about how anything looks. Isn’t Realtor.com so fun? A few years back, I came upon my childhood home for sale on the site. My parents had moved in 1991, so I hadn’t seen the inside in a few decades. That was cool to see!
DeleteSelling a house can be so stressful with the potential buyers coming in and having to make sure the house looks nice. It does get tiring after a bit! I love "this buyer" and the pictures you shared of "oddities". Sometimes we think about moving to a different city so for the fun of it we'll get on Realtor.com and start checking out houses. Then we'll like this with the kitchen or that with the living room or not like it, etc. I have to say in all the houses I've sold and bought the realtor never presented us with feedback about why someone didn't like the house or not. Seems a bit odd, like you can change the design of a house or make a room bigger?
ReplyDeletebetty
We might have requested feedback? I can’t remember. Six weeks of having to clean and leave got old really quick! I thought our house was very nice, but we couldn’t change the bathroom sizes or the lack of closets. We had put a nice addition on it in 2005 and everything was updated, for the most part. Unfortunately, many of our neighbors didn’t take good care of their property (I used to blog about it) and it hurt our asking price. Glad to be out of there!
DeleteLove your captions on these pictures. It is interesting to see how people decorate (and sometimes it is enlightening to see how much different a photo can be from the real thing).
ReplyDeleteA good realtor will know hot to take photos to enhance a property. Smart ones know that less photos can be more when it comes to weird decor!
DeleteBijoux, oh my sweet heavens, this was hilarious! Your captions were perfect and just kept getting better as I scrolled. Get Naked? So gross. Perfect caption. Vegas, vertigo, CREEPY UNCLE?!?!?! Lol. My goodness, thank you for this! And I never did get a comment on my blog before the P.S. What is with the weird bug my blog has against you? :/
ReplyDeleteWordpress blogs often trip me up, but even Blogspot blogs have given others issues lately. I’m so glad you enjoyed my humor. It cracks me up that a realtor would think it was a good idea to take photos of some of this stuff. Like, WHY? Let prospective buyers discover it after you lure them there with a pretty rose bush in front! Ha!
DeleteSo true.
DeleteThis is hilarious. I love your "This buyer..." set-up. Your captions are perfect. I remember when we sold our last house and it was the same: whiny complaints about things that could never be changed-- so why was the realtor bothering me with them? That's all I could think whilst muttering about stupid people.
ReplyDeletePeople are stupid! And maybe we were dumb for asking for feedback?? I can’t really remember if we requested feedback or not. The rural one really got me, though. They were looking in the wrong county! Our backyard was a wooded slope (clearly shown by our realtor’s lovely photos) and a number of people complained that they wanted a flat backyard with grass. So dumb . . .
DeleteThose are hilarious! Very funny captions with the "this buyer" Selling our house 3 years ago was a nightmare! We had to hide 4 litter boxes and take one of the cats with us in the car because he would have driven the lookers crazy! After one showing my neighbor told me she could see kids jumping on our couch through the family room window! They would leave all the lights on and sometimes the front door wide open! One time the water in the sink upstairs was still running! When we finally got a pending sale the buyers were ridiculous with their petty demands to the point we almost cancelled the sale ourselves! It was crazy and I was so glad when we finally closed!
ReplyDeleteOmg, I remember my mom complaining about what people did during an open house when she and my dad sold their previous condo. People ate food and stole Some of those small Bath & Body Works hand sanitizers from her bathroom. We did get an offer where the buyer was asking for some of our furniture and wanting us to pay for some updates, so we just refused the offer and waited. It really can be a nightmare!
DeleteSo funny! I definitely will have to start visiting the realtor sites you mention! I've been looking at homes on Zillow and what gets me is they show the kitchen, but never the pantry...just the pantry door. "This Buyer" needs pantry space almost more than she needs the stove!
ReplyDeleteWelcome and glad you enjoyed this post! I agree that showing the insides of closets and pantries would be more helpful! I often notice that they take photos featuring the current homeowner’s furniture which isn’t staying. Why???
DeleteOh those are funny. That Vegas bathroom is funny.
ReplyDeleteIsn’t that bathroom so gaudy?
DeleteWhat amazing comments and photos. Our estate agents don't usually report back on the potential buyer's reservations, so I have no idea why people viewed and then lost interest. In many parts of the UK now there are so many potential buyers chasing so few properties that offers are often made within hours and the reservations of the also-rans really don't matter.
ReplyDeleteYes, that’s what’s going on here. Too many buyers and not enough houses on the market. That’s why it took my son 18 months to get a house. Nothing like when we sold our home 10 years ago.
DeleteOh mercy girl, ALL the time! Mostly to remind myself of how lucky I am! Of course like most people I have a "dream house" vision but it will likely never come true so I like to think that I'm pretty close to obeying the scriptural command of "be content with such things as ye have" haahahaa! One of your "showings" stories reminded me of once when we were trying to sell a house in Knoxville. We got an offer almost immediately and turned our noses up at it. Weeks and weeks and weeks (actually months), we took a nearly identical offer. I was so sick of our realtor's emails with "feedback" ... I grew to hate that word! I don't want feedback; I want an offer! Ugh I hope they carry me out of this house feet first, haaha xoxo
ReplyDeleteI mostly look at the websites to be nosy. I’m always curious what the inside of houses look like in my neighborhood and around town. When we decided to move, our primary reason was to escape the basement flooding issue that began in 2000. Our city kept calling them 100 year floods, but they were occurring every other year. In August 2011, it was the final straw. We had a second backflow valve installed in our basement, got a warranty with it, and disclosed it in the paperwork. To this day, when it rains hard, I panic! We did our due diligence on this neighborhood and there’s never been any flooding that we are aware of. Plus, our house sits up high!
DeleteAnd that’s the real story!
Love it, Bijoux. Thank you for the chuckles. Since we are living in a "hot" market it is amazing what people are trying to sell and some don't even bother cleaning up their house because people are buying houses here sight unseen.
ReplyDeleteYes, people are buying sight unseen and foregoing inspections. It’s crazy!
DeleteGood God, these photos are off the hook! But your comments make them hilarious.
ReplyDeleteWhat are people thinking when they post this weird photos?
Of course, when you look at some of these homes you have to reckon there's no much thinking going on.
The vertigo bathtub is a keeper--as an example of what not to do!
Take care.
Aren’t they bizarre photos? And to think a realtor snapped those shots and put them on the internet. You have to wonder! Enjoy the weekend, Rob.
DeleteI LOL at the Lion King one. I can see someone saying that, sadly. And the me too moment, hahaha!
ReplyDeleteI'm on the Love of Old Homes facebook group and I am constantly looking at pictures thinking things like couldn't they have removed the used floss pick from the sink before snapping a pic.... or why a close up of a vase of flowers? Sometimes I feel the photographer is trying to show off their photography skills and not the house. I do always get a kick out of realtors photo bombing themselves in a mirror or when I spot a dog in a picture.
Exactly! It’s so easy to move something out of the picture frame! And the close ups of things that aren’t for sale (like my first photo) make no sense! I understand taking lots of photos, but wouldn’t a realtor edit them or at least realize some are not useful and better left off the internet? Another thing that drives me nuts are when they leave the toilet lid up in the photo. No! The pet ones are funny, too.
DeleteYes to the toilet seat being up. Even if it's a sparkling clean bowl, just close the lid before taking the pic!
DeleteI might be the only one who thinks "Get Naked" is hilarious and the perfect addition for my next home, ha. Thanks to my blog readers, I now regularly peruse Zillow Gone Wild. Most of these pics you've shared look like they could have been pulled straight off that site!
ReplyDeleteI think I checked that site out once. I distinctly remember a bedroom full of mannequins!!! So creepy!
DeleteOMG buy and selling a house is no joke. I sold my moms house about a month, we closed mid May or so. We had put the house on the market in October. Our real estate agent was an idiot. She totally missed an email from our next door neighbor who was real estate agent himself and he wanted the house at full offer for his parents. She never saw the email and steered us towards buyers who were applying with an FHA loan and could not qualify. My sister only found that our next door neighbors were interested in house when she just happened to have chat with the father who was there visiting his son. It was crazy. They finally got the house but at much higher interest rates due to how much time had gone by. I am even thinking of filing a complaint against her. But "This buyer" hilarious!
ReplyDeleteAllie of
www.allienyc.com
Some of these realtors are just clueless! I’m sorry to hear what happened with your mom’s house, but glad it ended well! Thanks for visiting!
DeleteOMG, sooo funny! Your captions were perfect!
ReplyDeleteOH, I absolutely look thru the home sites. Not to actually move... I feel like we are in our forever home since we've been here 30 years... but maybe just because I'm nosey. ha! Some are staged just perfectly... but others... whew!
It’s a fun pastime. Always interesting to see how others live.
ReplyDeleteWow, can't believe you had that many people look at the house. Things are moving so quickly here, that many houses are sold before the sign get's posted in the yard. People get into bidding wars and most sellers are getting more than their asking price around here. Enjoyed your "This buyer", some good ones there for sure. Congrats on your house.
ReplyDeleteSandy's Space
Thanks. It was ten years ago, so a completely different market than today.
DeleteThis was a fun post, Bijoux, not the part about what you had to do when showing your home (been there too) but the comments. It took us much longer than yourself and we called people "tire kickers." I have seen some realty listings with photos similar to those shown here. I took all of our photos and provided them to the realtor after we had a realtor take some after she recommended we remove all the wall treatments. We hated the results and rehung the curtains, then took our own pics. BTW, the window treatments were ivory see-throughs and not anything so unusual.
ReplyDeleteOk, now that is super strange!! As window treatments usually stay with the house, I can’t fathom why a realtor would want them taken down for photos? Especially ones that are neutral in design! You have to wonder!
DeleteI could do without the realtor sending me the buyers comments. A simple, not interested, would do.
ReplyDeleteIt really did get annoying.
DeleteHa ha.....that wild west brothel was the best. The description fits perfectly.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Haddock. Glad you got a kick out of it.
DeleteThose are so funny and yes! Absolutely bathroom is so gaudy.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed!
DeleteOMG, those are horrible. I don't usually look on Zillow or similar sites, but one of my coworkers was looking a few weeks ago and a few of us chimed in with "look up my house" and it was insane how much houses are going for right now!
ReplyDeleteIsn’t it completely nuts? We could all make a mint selling our houses right now, but that would just mean paying a fortune for another one. No thanks!
DeleteExactly! Ours has almost doubled in 12 years, but that most likely means that all of the other houses have too!
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