In an attempt to give you a window into how an evening of showings usually goes for me, I thought it might be fun to document my thoughts the day after.  I don’t know if I will make this a thing or not; let’s take today and see how it goes.

House Number 1

The first house my buyers wanted to see was in Tower Grove South.  It was on a block of mixed construction house styles and materials.  I guess a better way to say it would be that there were a mix of multi family homes with the single family homes, and there were some homes that had brick exteriors and others that were sided.

As my buyers and I walked up to the front of the home, we were greeted with some things that the seller did to make the showing easier.

  1. The seller had the lights on Believe it or not, I don’t know where every light switch is in every house in St. Louis. When it gets to dusk or even dark, some lights on in the house is super helpful.
  2. The seller had the alarm off I think home alarms have been designed to confuse real estate agents. It would be one thing if they all worked the same.  Unfortunately for me there is about 25 years of alarm technology.  Think about it, you’ve never been inside a house and from the moment you open the door and then close it, you have to run to find the keypad, hit the exact numbers in sequence and then hit a disarm button.  Sometimes, there isn’t even a disarm button, it’s just the number.  Anyway, the showing usually goes off the rails when the police come.

The home was priced OK.  It was a house that had been converted from a two family to a single family.  The first floor was pretty much the exact same as the second floor as far as layout.  The disclosure was very helpful.  It said that the floors under the carpet were rough.  Right now, many buyers are interested in hardwood floors and carpet has sort of gone away.  Wait 10 years and it will change.

There were some things that were odd.  For one, there was a room that was sort of a walk in pantry.  It didn’t have a closet, so it couldn’t be classified as a bedroom, but it was just a strange room.  The other oddity was the way the stairs went into the basement.  They were very steep, and the sellers had decided to keep the steps from the original upstairs so it was very narrow at the bottom.  In addition, you had to really duck your body to get into the basement, and there wasn’t much room to do so on the short landing.  Still, the basement was in good shape.

For my buyers, there were a few things that made the house a no offer situation.  For one, the house had radiant heating, but no central air conditioning.  The second thing was that they just didn’t like the layout.

House Number 2

We left that house and went to a new listing a few blocks away.  That house showed very well in pictures, but as I’ve said before, pictures are always advantage to the seller.  Also, if you are going to buy a house, you are going to have to go see it in person.  I think we all had high hopes for this house, which was a little closer to Fox Park.

While we were waiting outside, there were quite a few people milling around.  There were a few multi family homes that haven’t yet been updated, and there was a multifamily in sad shape next to this house that was also for sale.  There are parts of St. Louis city that are undergoing a rebirth. If you are inside that area of redevelopment, the houses have gotten really expensive.  If you are on the edge of the development the houses are less expensive, but you are making a bet that the redevelopment will continue.  If it doesn’t, the property values will drop very quickly.  It’s a risk, but everything is a risk.

The house had an alarm, and the agent gave me the alarm info.  When I ran through the house looking for the keypad, I tripped a little on the carpet.  I got to the alarm keypad and typed in the code.  Nothing happened.  Either the alarm was off, or the previous agents hadn’t re-armed the alarm.

The first thing my buyers noticed when they walked in was the flooring.  It was pergo, uneven, and coming apart at the seams.  Somehow, the photos didn’t show the floor in the online listing.  As we looked around, you could tell that the work had not been done by a professional.   For example, the flooring also wasn’t cut right.  Near the trim, there were spaces.  And, in the upstairs there was a perfect line in two spaces where they hadn’t bothered to stagger anywhere.

Around the time we got to the back of the house another agent arrived.  He was dressed like a bum, so I had no idea if he was the agent or not.  Not a very friendly fellow.   Anyway, he took his clients upstairs before showing the first floor.  We had been on the first floor already so we were headed up to the second floor, which made it awkward.  I decided to take my buyers to the back yard.  I went to the door to the back, but it was one of those locks where you needed a key.  So, I went to the front to get the key out of the lock.  I came back to open the door and the key didn’t work.   So, we decided to go to the basement.

The basement was pretty nice for the area.  It wasn’t finished, but the walls were in good shape.  The HVAC and water heater appeared to be from this decade.  There was a door to the back yard that had a bar across it but no keyed lock.  We decided to take the bar off the door and go to the back yard.  As I walked up the steps I hit my head on the bottom of the wood porch and it really hurt.  It knocked my teeth together.  If you’ve ever seen me, I don’t have a lot of padding on the top of my head so it’s used to some abuse.  Anyway, when we got to the back yard, there was a wooden fence on one side that was falling into the neighbor’s yard, and then the back fence had wood that was broken through.  Also, there was a very large and very dead tree in the yard that would have to be removed and it would be expensive.

My buyers just wanted to get out of the house at this point.  On our way to the front door another agent was bringing their buyers through.  Some listing agents would really like that there were three buyers in the house at the same time.  The thought is that everyone would think the other one would buy the house.  When I’m working with buyers, I don’t particularly like to show a home with multiple buyers there.  My buyers are usually put off by having to share.  This could be avoided with proper scheduling, but because it’s a personal preference for listing agents, I don’t expect it to change.  For the record, when a buyer agent requests a showing on our listings, they are notified that another real estate agent has selected the time and they are allowed to change it.

So, what was there to like in the second house?  I guess the price.  Another agent I know really well had walked through before I did so I asked him about it the next day.  I told him there were multiple offers on it.  He was surprised, and so was I.  The house had bad finish work, which led both of us to think that once you started peeling back the finish work, the house was going to be a mess to remodel.  Also, there was the large tree in back, and the exterior needed tuck pointing.  There was also the issue of the flooring.  All of it would have to be replaced.  I pointed these issues out to my buyers, but we’ve worked together long enough that they know what to look for in a home.  They weren’t interested in making an offer and I was glad.

When showing houses for sale as a buyer’s agent, you are going to have nights like I had.  The houses just weren’t going to work for my buyers.  I always tell my buyers that we are getting closer to buying a house with every home we see.  There are going to be days, weeks, and possibly even months when the houses that come up for sale aren’t going to match what my buyers are ultimately looking for, and that is ok.

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