Real estate horror stories when selling / buying

[Jason Weeks]

I'll go first.

Recently I had a colleague tell me about a wonderful moment she had had when assisting a client who had an investment property interstate.

Turned out that mid way through showing the home for the first time to prospective buyers the police came and shut down the open home (in front of everyone) to take temporary possession of the property. They proceeded to strip all the dry wall to access illegally stored drugs and growing equipment kept behind it (not by the owner mind you! Apparently by a previous tenant who'd recently been arrested) a surprise to all concerned that's for sure!

When asked whether the owners of the property wanted to fix up the property to make it more saleable, they declined.

Subsequently the online listing was edited to state, requires re-doing of internal walls due to drug raid.

Needless to say it sat on the market for a long time. 

Somehow the interstate investor just couldn't turn their mind to fixing up the property...

Moral of the story?
Choose the right tenants and if something is broken and your advisor says fix it it will sell faster, probably do that.