I just thought I’d pass this along in the event it can be of use to someone here at sometime in the future.
You never know WHAT will swing a SELLER to your side of the deal.
It could be something as simple as your manner, your promptness, or any of a number of other seemingly meanless things that take place while you meet someone for the first time…Or it could be a CLOSET DOOR!!
I recently received a phone call from a very uptight home owner. When I say uptight I mean someone that is very difficult to deal with. In this case it was a older man (60’s) who had been left his fathers home. The house needs a LOT of work but is in a very desirable area.
I asked my usual list of questions and didn’t get very far…This guy was simply a PAIN IN THE @SS! He wanted a list of “projects” I had worked on, references, pictures, and on and on…He was so annoying he became MY PROJECT!!
It became a GAME to me…I asked him if he would meet me at the house before I compiled the list of items he requested because if the house is JUNK…I wasn’t going to waste my time getting him references.
I guess this reached him some how and he decided to proceed with the meeting.
I expected a very “corporate” type at this meeting, white collar, UPTIGHT A-HOLE.
What I got was a HIPPIE!!
I could not believe THIS was the guy I’d been talking to…But as soon as he opened his mouth I REMEMBERED!!
This is the kind of guy that can’t let you just look around the house…HE has to take you room by room. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH…
Then we get to a door under a staircase…It leads to a simple coat closet…Of coarse, he has to open it and SHOW me the closet…But when he does I notice something…I notice HEIGHT MARKS and DATES on the inside of the door.
I asked him if they were HIS height marks as he grew. He stopped in mid sentence, looked at the door, and said…“YES, they are…I forgot these were here…Oh well, I guess the new owner will just paint over them.”
Then it happened…The IDEA!!
I said…“No, you can’t let that happen…You need to take this door with you…Take it to YOUR HOUSE! I can buy another 6 panel door anywhere…You CAN NOT replace this…Who took those measurements??”
He told me his mother did it every year on his birthday…and at THAT POINT this guy just opened right up…
He told me about his family, his childhood in the house, his parents. Within 1 hour I had a signed sales agreement and he was telling me that I was the perfect person for this house…That I UNDERSTOOD the HOME.(?). I took the door off the hinges for him and sent him back to HIS home out of state, and I ended up with a GREAT DEAL!!
You just NEVER know what will break it open.
In this case it was a closet door.