The Homeless Millennials

So Candy, the quintessential twenty-something, is moving here from North Dakota. I am told she and Mr. Candy are "rebuilding their credit" and have two dogs and two children. They aren't willing to fly out here and find a property. Instead, they want me to find them a rental home sight-unseen. This magical home has to be the size of Buckingham Palace and be priced like it is the Blue-Light Special at K-Mart.

They "need" four bedrooms, in a particular school district because they were told by someone's cousin, who lives in Tucson, this is THE SCHOOL DISTRICT (it isn't) and it must have a pool. And by golly--I am to stop what I am doing as soon as they e-mail me and to drive to what ever home they find on Zillow (because the data I pay for, apparently, isn't as reliable as the free data on Zillow). It does't matter that they aren't my only client. Nor does it matter that there is a $500 fine if I enter a home without the listing agent's permission. No. I work for them. They are the client, dammit and I will treat them like royalty!

What am I supposed to do when I get inside this imaginary home? I am to tell them if they should rent it or not. Of course, I like my license, so there is no way I am willing to do this. I explained a couple of times, I will not make a decision for them. I also encouraged them to come out and pick a home. They aren't wiling to do so.

Candy was willing to get her feathers ruffled when I suggested her expectations were unrealistic. I explained the market is freakeshly nuts right now. There are multiple applications on every property, and those folks with 700 credit scores and no pets are going to get first crack at homes in desirable areas. There would most likely be a bidding war (the listing rental price in some areas is merely a suggestion and often the home goes to the tenant willing to pay the most). Basically, I was telling her she was nothing special. If she wanted a place to live, she was going to have to be flexible.

I realized she was going to ignore my expert advice, when one Monday morning I got an e-mail from Candy demanding I stop what I was doing and see 16 homes she found on Zillow over the weekend. "I expect you to see these by COB today." There was no "please." There was no "thank you."  To be fair, I am not sure it is possible to see 16 homes in one day. What she didn't expect was for me to fire her.

Napoleon Complex James

I had an unusual experience with James, the real estate agent today. I e-mailed him last night, asked for clarification because I was pretty sure I misunderstood that he had unknowingly obligated me (to my client) to do something that generally was not in my scope of standard of care. It was his responsibility.

When I asked him about it, he wrote back the nastiest, unprofessional note I had gotten from a fellow colleague in a long time. To be fair, we (as agents) are all on the same side. Yes, we represent our own clients, but our goal is the same: get the transaction closed. So, why be unkind?

His true issue, I  believe, was he didn't want to work the weekend, so he told my client I would run a fool's errand he truly was responsible for. It wasn't that I (mostly) minded driving the 130 miles through afternoon traffic today, I did mind the rude bullshit response I got when I asked about why he chose to obligate me.  Bullies shouldn't be tolerated. Unfortunately, there are those who think the only way to interact with those they work with is to be unbridled asses. This agent is the poster-child for unbridled asses.

It crossed my mind to set up a bunch of fake e-mails and write yelp reviews about this dude. I decided not to because, there is no such thing as a good property management review anyway. Besides, my karma needs all the help it can get.

My poor client oblivious to this stupid issue or the level of abuse I tolerated get this done, was grateful beyond belief when I showed up at her work and handed her keys. She had no idea what I had gone through. My client, however was grateful. She hugged me. She thanked me, repeatedly. And I suspect I might hear from her again in the future.

None of her gratitude would have happened if I had fought with this guy. That was enough of a reward for me. His karma can speak for itself.

Rentals

If it ever comes up, I really, really hate chasing rental leads. I do it for the following reasons:

1. I work for a property management company and we have vacant rentals from time to time.
2. I am referred to by other property management companies who like me and have given me a lot of business and I want to keep them happy because I sell all of their owners' homes.
3. I am referred to by past clients.
4. My kids are addicted to groceries and electricity.

Rentals pay a small stipend, and as the demand is high, and the supply of rental homes is low, the stipend is less and less. For example, if I have to show someone rentals on more than two occasions, I am probably spending more money on the gas than I am making. Also, the small stipend doesn't stop the amount of work that goes into finding a rental home.

With supply low, one might think potential tenants would have an idea: if it is vacant, take it. But no, most potentially homeless people think of shopping for a rental home as just that, a shopping excursion. "I don't think I can live with that color of eggshell on the walls..." or "I am not sure my grandmother's prized hutch will look right with the afternoon sun shining through the west wall..." When what they really should be thinking is "This house meets my criteria for price range/school district/everything else and doesn't have any applications on it. Where do I sign!???"

The one saving grace about being willing to find potentially homeless people rental homes is these potentially homeless people often are willing to buy (especially if they have good credit and are too picky about renting a home) or they are willing to buy next year. So, a potential renter is really a potential sale. So, there is a silver lining. Sometimes.

Right now, as we are rebuilding our lives, I am handling a lot of rental clients. None of them seem to understand the concept of supply and demand. But I am at a point, especially after the crazies of late, where I am thinking it is time to take a break from these folks.

Is It Too Much To Ask?

Dear Renters,

It would be awesome if you have a reasonable credit score (it doesn't have to be perfect, but at least have it higher than 500). And while you are at it, I would greatly appreciate it if you waited until after you moved into your forever home before you got the pit bull or the felony. One more teeny-tiny request, no evictions. M'kay??

Thanks,

The very tired real estate agent

Donnie

A couple of weeks ago, Donnie called me. He wanted to move in six weeks into a new rental--which is roughly three weeks too early to look. Anyway, I sent Donnie a bunch of houses and told him to call me in a couple of weeks when the time was right.

One day, now four weeks out from when Donnie wanted to move, he called me asking once again for help. He said the exact same things he said before, almost word for word. He gave me the same spiel, which, at the time, suggested to me he was just frustrated and felt I wasn't listening. Of course, I did, but that still doesn't change the reality: the rental market is super-hot right now. You get what you get.

After way too long on the phone, I agreed to take Donnie to look at a few properties the following Sunday. I was already in self-loathing mode about the entire thing because I rarely will give up a Sunday afternoon for a rental shopping trip. Besides that, I had now talked to Donnie a few times and he had said the exact same things. It was as if he only had one particular topic he could discuss. That alone went from "well, he's probably frustrated" to unnerving.

Anyway, I took Marty Sunshine with me to meet Donnie and see the couple of homes that were available. When I show rentals, I often don't meet the person ahead of time. I make no apologies for taking someone with me when I go meet a stranger who wants to see a (most likely vacant) home. I never will. This particular day I was glad Marty was with me.

Donnie had an edge of anger to him. He wasn't unpleasant, but he was certainly strange. He was strange enough that I was through with the entire experience three minutes into our outing. I can't pick one particular item that stood out, but here is a small list of his odd behaviors for those two hours.

• While I was driving he continued to flash various items in my line of sight, including a concealed carry permit* (almost right away), pictures of rented homes, e-mails from other people he thought I should read, and his fully-tattooed arm with a picture of his dog on it. 
• He was very quick to tell me he purposely custom ordered his single cab truck because it was just him. He would be living alone with his little dog. He told me about six times he had no friends. He wasn't lamenting, he was bragging. 
• He never stopped talking. Ever. It was past the social convention of awkward "endless chatter." At one point he even started chanting (there is no other word for it) about how we are sum of the three people we associate and this wasn't a problem for him. Fortunately, he had nobody else.  
• Marty and I attempted to carry on a conversation with him. I asked why he moved to Arizona (he had been inconsistent about when he arrived). Donnie hemmed and hawed and quickly changed the subject. It was the quietest he had been since he had been in the car.
• He insisted if the place we looked at didn't come with an automatic ice maker it was a deal breaker. Awesome, but ice cube trays at the dollar store are a great alternative to being homeless. I was prepared to counter with that if he found a place that didn't have an ice maker. This is really not that unusual for someone to pick out a small detail they want to live and die on, but I threw it in because he kept on about the damn ice maker. 

There were many other odd triggers. All of which alone were just unusual. But added up together he put off a strange serial killer vibe. His energy was intense and if I had seen him walking down the street I would have gone the other way. He just had that kind of presence about him.

When he left my car, Marty started to say something and I put up my hand and stated, "There will be no noise in this car for the next five minutes." Five minutes wasn't nearly enough, but it was a good start. When the five blessed minutes were up, Marty stated I was not to show him homes again. He hadn't needed to bother.

I never do this, but I took Donnie's business card and looked up his business. He has no web presence. He (repeatedly) said he was a contractor but doesn't have any record of being one in Arizona or "California" (where repeatedly told me he is from). I also never do this, but I googled his name. There was someone with his exact name: first, middle and last, who died about two years ago. That person was 11 years older than Donnie. By the way, Donnie's middle name and last name are unusual. I know Donnie's middle name, because he wanted to be sure I knew it.

Since then, Donnie hasn't gone away. I sent him an e-mail saying I was unable to help him. He ignored it. I then sent him a text message explaining I had many pressing and personal things going on right now and I was unable to help him. I said my father is 79 and I wished him well. My father being 79 had absolutely nothing to do with my pressing personal issues, but let him jump to his own conclusions. (and I do have a lot of pressing personal things going on in the next few weeks). He has called every agent at my (small) office looking for me. He has repeatedly called me, leaving messages, saying he really needs me to help him. Nobody else will do. The messages have gotten more and more strange.

As a final way to hopefully get rid of him I talked to a male agent I had met. I told him Donnie gives off a strange vibe and I just wasn't comfortable. Did he want the lead? I explained I work in a small, mostly female, office and I wasn't about to give any of the agents there this guy. I was upfront about everything I experienced with Donnie and what do you know!? The agent agreed to take him on. Four hours later, I got a text from the agent. He said, "This guy doesn't shut up. He is giving me the creeps." Yep.




Note: *I don't care if anyone has a concealed carry permit. In fact, I am not sure they are needed in AZ. However, if you carry concealed, why announce it to the world? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Also, why tell me and shove the CC permit in my face while I am driving 70 MPH on US60?

Don't Mess With Mary

I am currently using the dinosaur of a computer for everything from checking baseball scores to writing blog posts. This computer was brand-spanking new in some year where the second number happened to be either a 0 or a 9. But the darn thing still works well enough to find out the Diamondback are in second place (as I write this). It also is better than no computer, which is my other option. By the way, the latest Great American Novel is on my broken laptop. The great news is it is I backed it up. The not so great news is it is backed up into DropBox and the password and access information just happen to be located on the broken computer.

When I found out this was my "new" laptop, I dusted it off, kicked it off and went down memory lane as I looked at old files from here and there. Most of these files are stored elsewhere--like DropBox or in my broker's office. But I did run across one particularly fun transaction I thought I would share with you.

A few years ago Mary called me. Mary was an 80-year old former music teacher who swore like a sailor. She lived in Davis California and bought a rental house when the time was right in Gilbert Arizona. Now, she wanted out and she wanted out now.

The house in question was pretty cute, actually. It was a cozy number, but the view was phenomenal. It was on an urban lake (we don't have "real" lakes in these parts). It also happened to be in one of those snooty neighborhoods where all the homes and neighbors look alike.

The house was priced right. It was clean, updated and had all the right stuff. It also had the wackiest set of neighbors. Next door to my listing was Mrs. Kravitz. In addition to being a busy-body, she was the president of the Home Owner's Association. She would call me on a regular basis to report some strange infraction. Finally, I explained to her, I wasn't the owner. Call the owner.

Incidentally, Mary was so sick of this woman, that Mary called all of the local religious organizations around and sent them to Mrs. Kravitz's door as revenge for the odd HOA infractions.

The real issue with Mrs. Kravitz was she was scaring potential buyers away. If she saw a car in the driveway, she would take it upon herself to be a one-woman welcoming committee, being sure to share all of the neighborhood gossip. She would tell about former tenants who lived in the home, being sure to exaggerate completely. No. There was NO gang activity that happened in 2004 where the police were called and allegedly raided the house. I checked, but it made for great conversation with Mrs. Karvitz. One buyer's agent actually called me to tell me her buyers weren't interested. They loved the house, but the next door neighbor was an incredible gossip.

When things finally came to a head with Mrs. Kravitz, I told her exactly what the buying agent said and explained, if she didn't want an empty home next door to hers, or for someone to come in and make a low-ball offer--which would affect her property value--perhaps she could find her way to actually do something other than stare out the window when she saw strange cars approaching my listing.

But it wasn't just Mrs. Kravitz. She had a team of co-neighbors who were as crazy as her. One woman actually sent me a text from the back yard of this house saying, "Just a friendly reminder, the grass needs to be cut." I called that number and let that person know the owner would be calling the police and filing trespassing charges against her. Mary didn't tell me she sent the religious affiliates to that house too, but one day I saw Quakers knocking on that door.

The folks on the other side were running an Air BNB house (thought Mrs. Kravitz told me that was impossible, because she would be the first to know and an AirBNB was against the rules and nobody broke the rules on her watch). Those same AirBNB owners also took it upon themselves to chop down some of Mary's shrubs one day. These plants were also in the back yard.

Mary tried to get me to pour weed killer all over the front yard of those folk's home, but I was afraid karma would get the best of me if I succumbed. Instead, the Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons and Harikrishnas paid a visit there too.

Eventually the place did sell. It sold for a lot less than it should have, as it stayed vacant longer than it should have. After it closed, a colleague of mine suggested I drive around the neighborhood at 3 a.m. blasting Metallica. As great as that sounded, I am sure Mary asked God to sort it out.

Hi. Welcome to my blog.

Howdy. 

Marty and I are in the rebuilding process of our lives, which is humbling and humiliating all in one. But hey! Humor is a heck of a lot more fun than wallowing in self-pity. Trust me, I have done a bunch of that too.

Anyway, I had a blog I started years ago when I was dealing with the ins and outs of the former accidental business. Just as the business retired, so did the blog. However, now that the former accidental business is gone, I still feel like writing, so here I am. 

S--