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Real estate agents spend their working lives going into strangers’ properties and meeting with people from all walks of life, so it’s no surprise they encounter some shocking, scandalous and even scary scenarios – but can you top the story of an agent who accidentally locked a prospective buyer in a property and left him there?
REB recently asked agents to share their funniest ‘tale from the road’ – whether it be a ridiculous vendor request, a clueless buyer or a weird and wonderful open home – with hundreds of agents revealing their most embarrassing and stressful moments.
One agent admitted he inadvertently left a life-sized surprise for his vendors to discover after an open for inspection.
After conducting the open home, the agent called the vendor from his car to discuss the day’s successes.
“As I’m talking to the owner my phone is continually ringing [call waiting], which I ignore. I can hear the owner walking back into the home as we’re speaking. After about two minutes of regaling how fantastic the open was, I hear a deathly silence on the other end of the line, which is then followed by the comment, 'There are people in my backyard!',” he told REB.
“I locked a buyer in the backyard of a house after finishing the open for inspection. They were in the very deep rear section of the property that was concealed by a garden shed and I failed to see them.”
The agent concedes he was lucky that the owner and the potential buyer were both good sports about the monumental mistake, but with the benefit of hindsight the five anxious voicemails provided considerable amusement.
Open for inspections seemed to be a cause of both amusement and concern for a vast number of agents, with another telling REB a well-meaning mother of a tenant tried to help before potential buyers came through.
“I once had a tenant away for the weekend, so his mum went around to clean his property before I had an open for inspection. She inadvertently used a bong as a vase,” he said. “Never had a buyer laugh so much as they were signing the contract then and there.”
Another agent had organised a private viewing of a million-dollar property “and the very posh buyer insisted on bringing her little handbag dog into the house”.
“Much to my horror she put the dog down on the white woollen carpet. It did a huge poop and the buyer then trod in it!
“I was trying to get her to take her shoes off and go outside, and then the dog ran off up the hall and she chased it around, leaving a poop trail all through the home.”
The buyer, the agent said, left without so much as a sorry, leaving her to clean up the mess and then “explain to the owner of the house why her dishcloth was in the garbage bin and little wet spots all over her pristine carpet”.
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