What was the architect thinking?

You can be in the closet. You can be out of the closet. If you buy a townhouse I recently showed, you can be below the closet! Shown left is a second closet in one of the bedrooms. While I’m all for maximizing space usage, this seems to be a bit over the top (at least over our heads).

Courtesy of PrankPlace.com

Friends of mine called me to share their latest adventure trying to buy a house in the Washington, DC area. At the inspection of a house they had agreed to pay nearly $1.2M for they discovered that the toilet in the basement wasn’t connected to the plumbing in the house! The toilet turned out to be a chemical toilet that repeatedly flushes until the waste is “no more”. According to my friends, the odor is less than pleasant. Their offer has now been withdrawn due to unacceptable inspection results.

Listing photo

Shown left is the photo of the kitchen in the online listing.

Below is what we actually found!

Actual Kitchen

Gwen Banta

Some real estate humor is way overdue on this blog! Gwen Banta with Sotheby’s International Realty in Los Angeles and a blogger for AgentGenius.com published a great list of homes for sale bloopers yesterday. Here’s a sample:

“See attached pigs under main photo”
“EZ access to fleeway”
“Dank room for fotos remolded and espanded”
“House has two car garbage”

For the full list including the winner and runners-up read, “The MLS Rides Again! MLS Bloopers Across America”.

Yesterday one of the houses I showed advertised a high end kitchen with Viking and Subzero Appliances. It also had 42″ kitchen cabinets and granite countertops which were very nice.

However, what my buyers and I will remember the most about the home was the basement. The moment we reached it we all noticed the less than desirable smell. Worse than that was the mess in the laundry area, crawl space and one of the rooms. They needed serious cleaning and junk removal.

Shown left is the laundry area. The photography isn’t the best since I took it with my cell phone instead of my regular camera, but you get the idea. The pant leg hanging out of the dryer is an especially nice touch don’t you think?

How do you test an invisible fence, if you don’t have a dog with you? That’s the question some buyers and I pondered at a recent home inspection.

One of the buyers, Deeya Pavelle, was willing to model the electronic dog collar (shown left), but I couldn’t persuade Deeya to take a walk in the back yard where the invisible fence was installed. Home inspector, Kevin Fulara, wasn’t willing to wear the collar. I suggested offering extra credit to Kevin’s student inspector from McHenry County College who was shadowing Kevin, but he didn’t volunteer either.

Deeya and her partner, Dayle, will have another opportunity to test the invisible fence at their final walkthrough, if they choose to bring their dog, Bandit, with them. My guess is Bandit will have a mixed reaction to his new back yard, but he’ll adjust in no time. The view is much better!

I was pretty embarrassed when I met a couple of first time home buyers at the Starbucks on Roosevelt in Lombard Wednesday night. Just the week before I met two first time home buyers at the Starbucks on Lake in Addison. We had a great conversation over coffee at a corner table.

When I pulled up to the Starbucks in Lombard night, I discovered that it was a drive-thru ONLY! So much for a nice table! When the buyers pulled up in their car with big grins on their faces all I could do was apologize and hang my head in embarrassment.

Mary Umberger’s column, “Love owning your home? Maybe not so much” in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune House & Homes Section revealed the most frightening thing I’ve heard about real estate. According to an assistant professor of real estate at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, women homeowners are an average of 12 lbs. heavier than women renters!

As if the housing industry doesn’t have enough bad news!

Dr. Grace Wong Bucchianeri came to this conclusion after studying about 800 women in Columbus, Ohio. I found her working paper, “The American Dream? The Private and External Benefits of Home Ownership” online at realestate.wharton.upenn.edu, but they want $20 for a copy. I can buy a large pizza for that.