I don't do a lot of listings of properties other than our own properties that we buy and sell through our fund.  When we are doing our own properties, we are in control and get to call the shots to make sure everything works.

 

"Everything works" means being able to clean it, fix it, make it better than it was before and make sure it stays that way before it gets sold or set up on a Lease to Own.

 

So when I listed a house the other day to help an older lady out to sell her house through a short sale (I also helped her to cross the street), I was expecting some of those same things from her.  Not even close and why would she?

 She is done!

 

She is done mentally, somewhat physically in the matter of messing with that old house, and done with it all together.  She has moved out and is ready to move on with her life.

 

Well so what?  Her and thousands of others like her are in the same boat.  That's true, but here is why it gets to be a strange journey.  No one cares about the house anymore!

 

It is completely without ownership or at least mentally and legally by all parties.  I don't own it as the listing Realtor, the bank doesn't own it, and sure, she still owns it, but like I said she is done.  In fact, so done that she informed us she was shutting off the power and "Oh, by the way there is a bunch of food left in the freezer in the garage."

 

Um, what am I supposed to do with that?

 

What I did was drive up there on a Saturday night to remove the food and unfortunately just throw it all away.  Better that than some Hazmat situation taking place in the middle of the scorching July heat.

 

I remember I once visited my uncle in Dallas, Texas, when I was 14 years old, in the middle of the summer.  He lived in a condo at the time and the guy next door had venison stored in his freezer out in the garage.  Turns out, this neighbor goes out of town and his freezer goes out, and the most putrid smell starts emanating from next door.  I actually arrived at my uncles three weeks after the incident and could barely hold back from throwing up every time I walked outside in the 95 degree, completely humid July heat with that lingering smell.

 

Where does it go from here?

 

I will keep the house listed and hope a buyer comes along that can spend a lot of money on getting it back up to a livable condition.  The bank has already rejected our offer and I think it was too high anyways.  It's a sad state of affairs that I would have never been able to dream up as a scenario in my previous life and I don't think my client could have either.

 

The good news is we are country of resilient fighters! The economy won't stay this way forever.

 

We will be back on our feet and will have forgotten about it or at least manipulated our own memories of the past to tell ourselves that it wasn't all that bad.  It must be a survival technique.  In fact, we are so good at this, we will do it all over again sometime in the future.

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