Tuesday, June 2, 2026

The other agent emailed at 9pm. Night before closing. Subject line just says "issue." That's it. One word. Sellers had already moved out, already in Arizona, already emotionally gone from this transaction for like two weeks. Buyers did their final walkthrough that afternoon and apparently the basement has three inches of water in it. Three inches. The sump pump failed sometime between the sellers leaving and the walkthrough, which was maybe six days. Here's where it gets good. The sellers' agent tells me his clients "thought they mentioned" the sump pump was "temperamental." They thought they mentioned it. To who? When? Because it's not in the disclosure, I can tell you that much. I have the disclosure in front of me right now. Nothing about water, nothing about the pump, nothing about the basement being anything other than dry and perfect. Buyers want $8,000 off the price. Sellers are offering $2,000 because they "weren't even there when it happened." Like that's a defense. Like the house stopped being their responsibility because they drove to Phoenix. My broker's asking me what the disclosure says. I know what the disclosure says. The disclosure says nothing. That's the whole problem. Remediation company already came out, quoted twelve thousand for full treatment because there's mold starting behind the drywall. Starting. It's been six days. The title company keeps calling me like I have answers. Closing was supposed to be at ten tomorrow morning. Nobody's closing anything tomorrow morning.

The commission check was short. By like four hundred dollars because of a staging company damage claim that came out of my end. And honestly? It was my fault. The sellers had this massive fish tank, like 200 gallons, custom built into the wall. Staging company comes in, I'm not there, they move a bookshelf in front of the electrical panel that controlled the tank's filtration. Nobody notices for three days. Every single fish died. We're talking exotic stuff, saltwater, the husband kept saying "twelve hundred dollars of fish" over and over. The staging company blamed me for not flagging the tank situation. I blamed them for not asking. The sellers blamed everyone. We settled it by splitting costs and I just wanted the whole thing gone so I ate my portion. The listing photos still had the tank in them, full of beautiful living fish, and I had to explain to every single buyer why there was now an empty glass wall full of nothing.

Closing was at 2pm. Buyer walks in at 1:45 holding his phone like a weapon. Shows me Zillow. Shows me the estimate. Four hundred and twelve thousand. He's paying four sixty-five. He goes, "This says I'm overpaying by fifty thousand dollars." His wife won't even sit down. She's standing by the door like she might bolt. I tried to explain, I said the algorithm doesn't know about the new roof, doesn't know about the finished basement, doesn't know the seller replaced all the windows last year. He goes, "But it's a computer. It has all the data." The title company lady is just staring at her keyboard. Twenty minutes of this. Twenty minutes. The sellers are in the other room, they've already signed, they're waiting to hand over keys to a house they lived in for 12 years. Finally his wife goes, "Kevin, we toured eight houses. This is the one. Zillow didn't tour anything." He signed. But he made me initial next to the purchase price like I was personally guaranteeing something.