Resi agents often come face-to-face with the oddities of humanity when trying to sell homes.
Here are some of the whoppers two brave souls shared with the Wall Street Journal about what they witnessed in a day’s work:
Stripper poles
“Every time I show the house, people think there are structural problems, because why else would you put a pole there? I always explain it as an “exercise pole”—it’s a class, like Zumba,” said GiGi Malek oftTerrace Sotheby’s International Realty in Forest Hills.
A satanic shrine
One time Malek had a client whose son had a satanic poster, black candles and what looked like a dried goat’s head in his room.
“I said to the dad, ‘Could we take the poster down? It would be better if it was more mainstream.’ That was a challenge, because he didn’t want to hurt his son’s feelings,” she told the Journal.
A penchant for cooking fish
(Right before a showing, of course)
Cooked fish (Credit: Public Domain Pictures)
“Sometimes I just want to tell the gut-wrenching, honest truth after an unsuccessful open house,” Malek continued. “How about not cooking fish five minutes before I get there?”
Buyers with a preference for used a mattress
(Credit: Masahiko Ohkub/Wikimedia Commons)
“I used to work in California, and I once had a client sell his beautiful ski chalet in Lake Tahoe completely furnished. But he happened to love [his] mattress. So he bought a nice new mattress for the buyers, not thinking it would be an issue. But during the final walk-through before the closing, they noticed [the new mattress]. They wanted the one that was per the offer, even though they knew it wasn’t brand new,” said Janine Hostetter of Robert Paul Properties in Massachusetts told the Journal. [WSJ] — Erin Hudson