THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, November 8, 2019 |M7
LAURIE FOX
Real-estate agent, Coldwell
Banker Residential Real Estate
Lakewood Ranch, Fla.I had a couple who were looking
for a condo. It was going to be
a landing pad for when they
babysat their grandchildren—
just a sleepover place. I printed
out the MLS sheets for four
condos, but the last one got
stuck in the printer, so I ended
up printing it twice. So I’m like,
“Oh, we have five listings.” In re-
ality we are looking at four.
I get close to my clients; this
particular client, I babysat their
grandchildren myself. So I’m talk-
ing to the client and asking how
the kids are doing. Of course,
there is a Starbucks involved. We
stop for coffee. A lot of these
condos look the same, but I do
pay attention. I’m not a dingbat.
There are 12 buildings in this
condo development. By the time
we walk into the fourth condo,
I’m pretty animated. I’m doing
my Vanna White thing: “Wow,
look at that fabulous view, this
is so spacious.”
Her husband hates going with
us, so we are taking pictures and TARA JACOBYsending it to him. Then I say,
“Let’s go see the last one.” We
get in the car and I punch the ad-
dress in. But we are driving
around the neighborhood in a big
circle. This time, instead of
swooping in from the north, we
are swooping in from the south.
We get out and look at the
apartment, and my client says,
“Does this feel like déjà vu?” Nei-
ther of us realizes we are back at
the same condo. We go in there,
and we are looking around and
she says, “I like this one better.”
I say, ‘It’s got a better feel,
andlook—it’sgotaviewofthe
pool, too.”
We start taking pictures and
sending them to her husband,
and he replies, “Ha ha, very
funny.”
We were like, “What do you
mean?”
He says, “You guys are in the
same unit.” We both started
laughing so hard, we are crying.
They ended up buying the
condo. It was like, “Hey guys, if
you don’t buy it the first time,
I’ll keep taking you back.”
I ended up selling it for them,
too.
—Edited from interviewsple; we became friendly. Not
even two years later, they de-
cided they wanted to move.
They were expecting twins.
They had put in this pool and
redone the landscaping—it was
a new $100,000 backyard. We
listed it in April of 2012 for
$1.75 million, but that proved to
be too high.
This was the third time in four
years that the house was on the
market. I got a lot of, “What’s
wrong with the house; why does
it keep getting sold and
resold?” And, “Is the
house cursed?” Peo-
ple felt they had
seen the house
before and they
were a little re-
sistant. The pool
ended up being a
50-50 thing. Some
people were like, “Oh,
I liked it better when it
wasjustagrassyyard.”
I sold it to this single guy
who was an investment banker
for a little under $1.6 million. At
that point, the market hadn’t
appreciated much. Technically
the sellers lost money because
of over-improving.Q
Have you ever sold the
same home multiple
times?DAN WEISER
Director, Estates Division
The Agency, Beverly Hills, Calif.Once I’ve been in a house once or twice, I know
how I’m going to show it. I have my routine
down. By the time I’ve taken the 189th person
through the house, I’m sick of my own voice and
I’m sick of my pitch.
I sold the same four-bedroom,
ranch-style house three times in
less than five years. It’s in Cheviot
Hills—a little pocket of Los Ange-
les that’s very family friendly. At
the time, it was that rare four-
bedroom in a neighborhood that
had a lot of entry-point homes at
three bedrooms, or larger, more ex-
pensive homes.
The first time, I listed it for $1.549
million in 2009. But it didn’t show so well; it
read a little bit dated. So [the clients] pulled it
off the market and did a quick lipstick job on it:
new flooring laid right on top of the old wood
floors, new stainless-steel appliances in the
kitchen. Then we relisted it in 2010 and sold it in
the first week for $1.589 million.
The couple that bought were very nice peo-‘Is
the house
cursed?’
Then less than a year later in
2013, these agents called me:
“Would the owner of the house
be willing to sell?” They had a
desperate buyer. The story be-
hind it was very sad: Two broth-
ers were buying the house for
their parents to take custody of
their late sister’s children. They
needed a single-level house
with rooms for their parents,
the kids and the nanny. They
had to show the judge they had
a safe place for the kids to live,
and this house was around the
corner from one of the brothers.
I had sold the house a couple
of times by now, so I knew the
condition was very good. The
pool even had a sophisticated
cover, which is a safety issue
with little kids. I shot the owner
an email. He was a numbers-
driven guy. He said, “If someone
wants to give me way more
money than I paid, I’m ready to
listen.”
We ended up showing the
house and the people made a
$2 million cash offer on the
spot. Once we knew the circum-
stances of their situation, we
felt a little guilty. We closed in
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IN THE TRENCHES|AMY GAMERMAN
A Kind of
Real-Estate
Groundhog’s
Day
Agents tell of selling
homes that go on the
market again and againNY