August? Really? I haven't been here in so long it took me ten minutes to remember how to post!

Here is what I am fired up about today. What is up with the foreclosure listings?!?! The remarks are lame and when you call for clarification no one knows ANYTHING! It seems to me that the standards for listing foreclosures has dropped. (let me add here that Trina Forystek's team over at redwhiteandblue are the exception to that, in my experience) At least last year when I showed the house with the large poos spread about the upstairs I was warned ahead of time. The attitude I get when I try and get information these days is like "hey, it's a 20k house on an acre, what do you want?" Well what I want to know is what kind of repairs we are looking at before my Buyers and I spend an hour and a fortune in gas driving to the site. Different Buyers have different areas and levels of comfort in the rehab department. We should be able to weed out some of the projects that don't suit us before we head out shopping.

No kidding... I showed a house this week that got our attention by boasting 2000 sf, but only 2 bedrooms and one bathroom. Doesn't that sound odd? So I called for clarification because it was a 30 mile each way drive for both of us. The listing office didn't know anything about the house. They referred to a prior listing when another agent had it for sale and reported that it had no interior walls. That someone had bought it and started some remodeling that they never finished. The remarks, I am NOT KIDDING said "TLC"... "handyman's project". They should have said, "THIS HOUSE NEEDS TO BE LEVELED AND MARKETED FOR LAND ONLY" "BE CAREFUL WHERE YOU STEP, EVERY STEP" "DON'T JUDGE THE DELAPIDATED BARN TOO QUICKLY BECAUSE BY THE TIME YOU LEAVE YOU'LL THINK IT LOOKS PRETTY GOOD" "BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID". It was ridiculous and I was angry.

Talk about wanting to be reimbursed for your valuable time.

Repo Agents... don't forget that we're losing sunlight very early these days and your houses are cold and dark. We are entering them with people we hardly know. We have responsibilities, obligations, and families to be with. Every time we head out to show your properties we are taking time away from those things and putting gas in our tanks to go to work. This is the nature of my job, I am not complaining. I love it. But I don't love wasting my time on misrepresented or poorly described listings.

Don't even get me started on the phantom buyers that "appear" after I submit my offers.