Real-property marketers reveal the strangest
Business Insider asked real-estate retailers across the country about what it is clearly like running inside the enterprise and what they want they may tell their customers. These are the weirdest requests they have ever received from customers.
One agent said they were asked to reveal a domestic and conduct almost the complete sale procedure over FaceTime. Another is asked to install a listening device in a consumer’s home to pay attention to the prospective customers’ comments.
Many of the sellers’ strangest requests involved pets, from being asked to walk a patron’s canine before every showing to bringing a purchaser’s parrot through the residence to make sure it became “relaxed” inside the home.
Here are 13 of the strangest and most severe customer requests actual property sellers have ever gotten.
Terry Hamilton (not pictured), who sells houses in Missouri and Kansas for a median of $265,000, said one of the strangest requests he ever was given changed into when a consumer asked him “to install a listening tool of their domestic so we ought to listen to the potential client’s feedback.”
2. One agent was asked to stroll a patron’s canine each time he confirmed their domestic.
Boris Fabrikant of Compass sells houses with a mean fee of $1.Five million in Manhattan, says a consumer as soon as asked him, “Can you walk my dog before each display?”
3. One foreign customer desired to buy a domestic over FaceTime — and he did.
“The most severe request I received was from an overseas purchaser who requested me to FaceTime him for a showing from overseas,” stated Jared Barnett of Compass, who sells houses from $2 million to $ 5 million in New York City. “He ended up shopping the $four million condominiums all coins without stepping into the home till the day of the remaining!”
4. One patron asked to use each restroom in a home earlier than buying it.
Kelly Robinson of Compass, who sells Manhattan and Brooklyn homes for a mean of $3 million, said a consumer once told her, “I want to do my enterprise in each restroom before buying the home.”
5. A dealer wanted the buyer to take their puppy to the side of the home.
Karen Benvenuto of Compass, who sells $1 million to $3 million houses within the Hamptons, said she once encountered “a dealer that desired the client to undertake their pet as part of the transaction.”
6. The agent needed to smooth out a shed in a foot of snow because the homeowner forgot to do it.
Once, “an owner of a house forgot to easy out the shed for the walk-through (neglected of state), and there has been approximately a foot of snow, and we wheelbarrowed (in heeled boots) all the debris from the shed all of the manners in the outside to the front yard to be picked up for rubbish on the day of the remaining,” Lina Lopes of Douglas Elliman, who sells houses with a median rate of $350,000 in Suffolk County, Long Island, told Business Insider.
7. A patron requested that retailers walk their parrot through the residence to ensure it became “at ease” there.
Richard Steinberg and Payton Smith of the Douglas Elliman Steinberg Team, who sell $10 million houses on common in Palm Beach and for the duration of South Florida, stated the strangest request they have gotten “might need to be on foot their parrot through the residence to make certain it was at ease!”
8. One purchaser requested the agent to spray a hose on each domestic they checked out to see how it’d sound in the rain.
“I was taking a consumer out in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and they have been very adamant about locating a place of ‘tranquility; quiet’… Consisting of from the rain,” Jason Tsalkas, an agent at Compass who sells homes basically in Brooklyn for between $650,000 and $2 million, told Business Insider.
“So, for each area, we noticed, they asked me to show at the hose from the outdoor area and spray the home windows and outer linings of the residence as if it has been raining to test the sound,” Tsalkas stated. “For the report, we determined a place for them.”
9. One client had to be close to a subway station with an elevator — and it was nearly impossible to find.
“Not so much ordinary because it changed into just something I hadn’t notion approximately: I once had a consumer insist on being close to a subway station with an elevator,” Colin Turek of Compass, who sells houses in New York City between $800,000 and $2 million, instructed Business Insider.
“She had a horrific return, and accessibility changed into crucial. Running with her made me realize that MOST stations do not have elevators and present different accessibility troubles. The town needs to deal with this!”
10. A newlywed couple left at the back of a massive mess for their agent to clean up after they went on their honeymoon.
Maggie Ross of Compass, who sells houses in Brooklyn for an average of $2 million, said her maximum extreme “request” became easing up after some newlyweds.
“I became once asked to host an open house in a small apartment after the marriage of the couple — who left for their honeymoon with a room full of half-smoked joints, beer bottles, and the marriage dress at the ground,” Ross said. “Thankfully, I arrived early!”
