Thank goodness I learned to preview listings before taking my clients to see them!


A fellow agent and I took part of our day today to preview some homes that we were preparing to show our respective clients. Of the six that we looked at, two were actually worth showing and met our clients' prerequisites.


One of the homes was a particular disaster. It looked like a good deal on the MLS, but the next thing we know, we are on a muddy, rutted, seasonal county road, in the middle of nowhere, wondering if we were about to drive off the face of the earth.


The listing said it was conveniently located near town. I suppose this would be true if the buyer owned a helicopter, or a teleportation device. My car would have never made it out there, and my friend's Explorer was a mess by the end of our trip. I would have been in an awkward spot with my buyers waiting for a wrecker to come rescue us.



Anyway, we got there, and the outside looked great, just like the picture on the listing. A quiet, country setting, with acres of trees surrounding. My mood was starting to lift, and I thought maybe this wouldn't be a total loss, after all. I was wrong.


We open the front door, and begin looking around the home. Overall, the home was in good shape except for one minor detail: someone, presumably the foreclosed upon previous owner, had ripped the electrical wiring and fixtures from the wall. Notice I didn't say "removed", I said RIPPED. The home's wiring was completely trashed, so my Rural Development possibilities were drifting away...


Instead of showing six homes tonight with my clients, I showed two, and they are putting in an offer on one of those. When I told them that I had already previewed the homes earlier in the day, they were shocked, and thanked me for putting in the extra effort.


The moral of my little story is that had I taken my clients there without checking it first, I would have looked pretty foolish. Instead, my colleague and I had a funny story to tell back at the office, and I had something to blog about tonight!