Monday, April 6, 2026

The title search flagged something. An old easement from 1987 that nobody disclosed, runs right through where the buyer wanted to put a pool, and I thought okay we can work with this, but then she started asking questions about the easement like whether the utility company had ever actually used it (they hadn't, not in 30 years) and whether that meant it was abandoned (it doesn't, that's not how easements work) and then she wanted her lawyer to look at it which fine, but her lawyer took three weeks and came back with more questions, and during those three weeks she toured 11 other houses with me, made offers on two of them, lost both, and then circled back to the original house except now the sellers had accepted another offer because we'd been in attorney review for 22 days over an easement that a landscaper could route around in an afternoon. The house sold for $412,000. She's still looking. We've been working together for 14 months now and she's made six offers total, lost all of them, and last week she texted me asking if I thought she was being too picky and I just (I didn't respond for two hours because I had to think about how to phrase it) said no you're being thorough.

The seller called while I was on vacation. Said the HOA sent someone to measure his grass. Not a complaint first, not a warning, just a guy with a ruler in the front yard at 7 AM on a Tuesday. Grass was three and a quarter inches. Limit is three. He got fined $150 and told if it happened again they'd put a lien on the property. We were supposed to close in four days. Buyer's lender flags the lien search, finds a pending violation notice, wants written confirmation it's resolved before they fund. HOA office is closed Wednesdays and Fridays. Their compliance officer is on medical leave. Nobody can sign the letter. Closing got pushed two weeks. Buyer's rate lock expired. Cost them $4,200 to extend. Over a quarter inch of grass.

Her daughter started asking questions. That's how it started. The mom is in the kitchen opening cabinets, which fine, that's what you do at an open house, and the daughter, maybe 8 or 9, she's in the master bathroom and I hear her go "Mom why is there a camera in here." And my stomach just drops. I go in there and she's pointing at the smoke detector. And it's not a camera, it's just a smoke detector, but now I'm looking at it and I'm like wait is that a camera? Because the sellers, they're weird. They insisted on being home for the first showing which is already a red flag and the husband kept following people around. So now I'm standing on the toilet trying to get a closer look at this smoke detector and the mom comes in and she's got her phone out already, like filming me, and she goes "I'm documenting this." Documenting what? I'm trying to figure out if your kid found a hidden camera, I'm on your side here. It wasn't a camera. It was just a smoke detector with a little light on it. But then I had to call my broker because the mom posted something on her neighborhood Facebook group about "suspicious devices" at the open house and tagged the listing. Three people cancelled their appointments. The sellers blamed me for not "controlling the narrative." The house sat for 12 more days. They ended up taking an offer 15 thousand under asking. The daughter was right to ask though. You should always ask.