By Amy Gamerman

Have you ever had to go to extreme measures to close a sale?

Christa Kearns, Realtor, The Corcoran Group, Westhampton Beach, N.Y.

It was a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch, super cute. The owner's grown son and daughter lived with her. The house was super well-maintained -- it just reeked of weed. But there was a line out the door at the first open house, and multiple bids. It went from list to contract in a total of seven days.

The seller was going to move to Florida when the sale closed, and her adult children were going to move into a rental property she owned. Her kids just mooched off her, took advantage. They were mad that she was selling the house, and they wouldn't help her move.

The closing was at 2 pm. I showed up at 10:00 am. The first red flag was that there was no moving truck in the driveway. I opened the door to the house. Her son was laying on a couch, smoking a bong, and all the boxes that had been packed were unpacked.

The seller was getting out of the shower. I said, "What is going on? You are closing in four hours!" And she said, "Our tenants didn't move out of the rental, so we can't close." Probably, I unleashed a little. I told the son, "Go get a truck. You have one hour to get as much out as you can." I whipped into action, just chucking things out of the house onto the grass.

It was like a hundred degrees. I was in a green suede dress, sweating, and trying so hard not to chip my manicure. It was my brother's wedding the next day. We were making decent progress, but in the middle of it, the son realized that his mom must have packed his weed in one of the boxes, so he started having a panic attack. He's throwing stuff out of the truck, trying to find the weed, and I'm throwing it back in. Eventually he found his weed and had to go smoke some, because he was so stressed.

Meanwhile, the seller is walking around in circles holding a mop. The buyer arrives for the final walk-through while I am walking out of the house with a loveseat on my head, barefoot. I told her, "I need an extra hour." And to please trust that I will have this house emptied and cleaned by 7 p.m. She leaves, in utter shock.

It was such a scene. Some of the neighbors offered to help. There was a computer desk in the basement that was too big to get up the stairs. This nice father and son duo took it apart.

I called the buyer at 6:59 on the dot. The house was spotless. I missed my brother's rehearsal dinner, but the manicure was intact.

Niko Cejic, licensed sales agent, Douglas Elliman Real Estate, East Hampton, N.Y.

It was a great piece of land in Montauk, a building lot a couple hundred meters from the beach. The land was under contract and due to close. One problem: The neighbor next-door didn't think the land could be built on, and he was trying to incorporate it into his homestead.

This guy had planted daffodils, and built a deer fence in the back corner that encroached about five yards onto our client's land. The surveyor needed to see the land unfenced. We had been ready to close for weeks, but the neighbor wouldn't get rid of the fence. If we'd gone to court, it would have taken months to get this done.

So we hired a guy to rip the fence down. It wasn't like a real heavy-duty fence -- it was easy to remove with pliers. But this was a challenging site, very bushy and pokey, with a small creek. I remember crawling on my hands and knees through briars and climbing across a plank to get over that creek, because we couldn't go in through the neighbor's driveway.

As soon as we get back there, the neighbor runs out. It was like, "Get off my property, I'm gonna call the cops," and "Your career is over," on repeat. We were ripping the fence down and he was putting it right back up. This went on for nearly two hours. Our guy had these scissors you use to cut barbed wire. He was cutting the fence into smaller and smaller pieces, so we had less to remove. The neighbor ran back inside the house and called the cops.

The cops came. I had to trek to the front and explain what we were doing. This was a civil matter, so the cops couldn't do anything about it. I ran back through the weeds and told our guy, "We gotta keep going." We were in the trenches, taking fire. Once the fence was down, I called the surveyor. The deal closed -- finally. Luckily nobody got hurt.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 30, 2024 15:15 ET (20:15 GMT)

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