Public open houses provide great opportunities see a property in person and meet (and impress) the listing agent. The can also be places to overhear instructive, amusing, erroneous, and sometimes downright alarming things that people say about the property.
Here is my Top 10 list of pearls of “wisdom”, scratch-your-head anecdotes, and drop-dead astonishing things overheard at open houses:
10. Visitor to another visitor: “I think there is asbestos down there, but asbestos is nothing to worry about.”
(Make sure you have a good agent to help you determine and understand significant factors about a house.)
9. Listing agent: “You have to work with an agent at my company if you want to get this house.”
(Yes, we all like to work with who we know and trust, but that goes for YOU as well. Stick with the agent you’ve chosen — their relationship with you, advocacy of you, and ability to launch a strategic attack on offer day for you is what you want, regardless of the company they are with.)
8. Visitor: “My parents told me to look for a house where no two bedrooms share a wall.”
(I’m still trying to do the math on that one. One thing I am sure of: That buyer is still looking…)
7. Listing agent: “Sign in on my laptop/ipad/app to get disclosures!”
(You don’t need to sign in to anything. Have your own agent get disclosures for you. Let your own agent be the one to be field all the subsequent emails and marketing pings. Put your own agent work for you. Even if you don’t yet have an agent, do your own choosing, rather than have an aggressive seller’s agent pressure you.)
6. Visitor: “That room doesn’t have a closet so it can’t be a bedroom.”
(I hear this question a lot. People can be forgiven for thinking this — it’s a common theory and actually seems logical — but it’s not necessarily the case. There are definitely specific requirements for a legal bedroom, but in our region, a closet isn’t one of them. Among a list of requirements, like legal ingress, egress, ceiling height, heat, etc., appraisers will usually designate a bedroom a bedroom even if it doesn’t have a closet, as long as it meets the minimum size and other requirements to be a bedroom.)
5. Visitor: “I brought a marble to see if the floors are sloping.”
(Is that person planning to let the marble make one of their most important decisions for them? If floors are sloping, you can typically tell without a marble, and sloping floors don’t necessarily mean something is “wrong” with the house or foundation. A quick assessment with a structural engineer is better than a marble when making decisions worth hundreds of thousands of dollars!)
4. Visitor: “Does this house have air conditioning?”
(When I hear this question, I can be pretty sure this is one of the first homes the person has visited in our Bay-breezy neck of the woods. The vast majority of homes in Alameda County do not have AC. It’s typically not hot enough for long enough to warrant the cost of a system for most homeowners. Cross over to Contra Costa County, though, and it’s a whole different story, just 11 miles away. They also have swimming pools there ;-))
3. Me: I was hosting an open house one Sunday when I suddenly heard the shower running. In the bathroom, I found a nice couple ‘testing the water pressure’ by running the shower, the sink and flushing the toilet all at the same time, thus disrupting the open house and leaving a wet sink, shower, and footprints for others who were there to view the house in its pristine condition.
(Again, put your agent to work for you. An open house is not the time or place to use or flush the toilet or “kick the tires”. Have your agent take you to the house privately to view all the details. Have your agent request and review the disclosures with you to see what the sellers and inspectors say about all those things you want and need to know about a house.
Meanwhile, you can concentrate on making a good impression on the agent at the open house, so they are rooting for you if you submit an offer on offer day!)
2. A woman standing in front of an open house loudly announced to all visitors: “You know you can’t build on this lot!”
(The woman was an adjacent neighbor. Her property has a view, and she was trying to dissuade potential buyers from thinking they could expand the house that was for sale, which might potentially impede her view. Buyers were not dissuaded by the neighbor’s claim itself, because it was obvious it was not correct; however, many buyers didn’t want to live next door to someone so meddlesome and self-serving, so the woman’s actions did impact the number of offers submitted. The buyer who did buy the house was an architect and licensed contractor with deep knowledge of the city’s building requirements and restrictions. He had every intention of building on the lot, and he did, adhering to the city’s view ordinance which legally protects existing views.
Additionally, the meddlesome neighbor was served a cease-and-desist order, getting herself tied up in a legal knot of her own making.)
1. Listing agent of a house on a very busy corner: “This is a much better location than the one up the street (on the quiet cul-de-sac), because you can walk to the 7-11 across the street!”
(Slurpees and twirling hot dogs (expiration date unknown) at any hour of the day or night? Constant comings and goings and parking lot activity? These are dubious ‘highlights’ and only served to ruin the agent’s credibility.)
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