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Imagine the beginning of a classic horror movie - a young (or not so young) couple arrives to look at an old house and, completely oblivious to the disturbing music playing in the background, signs all the papers. And then the actual plot begins...
Okay, and what if the customers didn’t like something and refused to buy it? You will say that then the whole movie wouldn’t have existed, and you’ll be right. But, according to real estate agents from this viral online thread, there have been many stories when a deal to buy a house fell through at the very last moment due to some petty whim of the buyers.
More info: Reddit
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#1
How about our bizarre reason for buying a house? We were looking in the Bay Area and our five-year old son fell in love with one house because the people selling it had two little boys about his age. Our son thought it meant he would get two brothers. The people were so charmed by his misunderstanding that they decided we would make good owners. Their children actually left our son their outgrown toys to have something to remember them by. In the hot competitive housing market at the time, it really worked out well.
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#2
Spent around two months looking for a property with a couple. They barely qualified for what they were looking for, so each offer was a battle just to get it reviewed.
Finally found a house that had a willing seller, good listing agent, and it checked all but one box. That box?
The guest bathroom had a shower curtain the wife didn't like.
Seriously. Not a glass door or anything permanent but a removable curtain held up by those bars you twist into place. I even offered to buy them a $200 gift card for Home Depot or Bed Bath and Beyond to help them find something different. Nope. That curtain [ended] the whole thing for the wife.
Needless to say, I fired them as clients immediately after that.
#3
I knew someone who didn't buy a house because it had too many closets. Other than that, they thought the house was perfect.
After a moment of stunned silence I suggested they buy the house and close some closet doors and just not use the closet(s).
In this list, collected for you by Bored Panda, there are stories for literally every taste - from completely crazy situations when buyers left the deal for a reason that looked incredibly petty in the eyes of the realtor, to fierce disputes between spouses, where both sides flung arguments, and only at the last moment the deal fell through. It’s likely that if Netflix decided to make a series about the everyday life of real estate agents, it would be an undeniable hit.
#4
Former Realtor here. Had a couple that wanted to live in a specific neighborhood and wanted a rectangular pool with a small pool house and covered patio. There were exactly 3 houses in the neighborhood that met these requirements. I spoke with all 3 owners and one said they would sell and they were generous on their pricing.
Why, you ask, did the couple decide not to buy? The house next door was yellow.
* * * Being_Cori * * * 10 months ago
did you tell them that the world does not .. I repeat.. DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND THEM
#5
Sort of related. My wife and I looked at buying a house and the owners said that the 12 chickens in the garden coop came with the property. I laughed and said fine - we'll just eat roast chicken for the first 12 weeks we live here.
They refused to sell the house to us.
Karen Krause 10 months ago
I guess the owners couldn't take their chickens but didn't want to have anyone eat their pets.
#6
I didn’t buy a house once because the realtor was a dips**t. The house was perfect except for one thing. In the kitchen there was a crack in the middle of the granite. When my wife pointed it out, the realtor told us “it raises the value of the home because that’s unique and considered art. No other home will have that crack” and he did NOT say it in a joking manner. For that dumba*s statement, we left and didn’t buy the home.
“In fact, there’s another fairly logical reason why the deal could fall through,” says Yulia Shurinova, a real estate agent from Odessa, Ukraine, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment here. “It is quite possible that the buyer has already chosen another property and came to look at this house simply, as they say, ‘to clear their conscience.’ And at the same time they don’t want to upset the seller and agent with a direct refusal.”
“At least in my practice and the practice of my colleagues, there were many similar cases - and we learned about the true motives of the buyers in retrospect, when the deal to purchase another property had already been signed. And sometimes the buyers themselves admitted this later. Somehow no matter what, I believe that some of the stories told here also have precisely this background,” Yulia ponders.
#7
When we were house hunting my husband and I found a listing for a duplex unit at 69B Jay St. Unfortunately it wasn't the right fit for us, but I hope whoever picked it up is making the most of their raunchy new address.
#8
Not a realtor, but used to work for one. Had a client who was ready to close on a house, then backed out at the last minute because the neighborhood DID NOT have an HOA. I was stunned. My family was driven from the first house I grew up in by a psychotic HOA president who happened to be our next door neighbor. Harpies from hell, all of them, except maintenance-only ones, but pretty much all of those exist because someone got out of control.
#9
I had one experience while we were looking for a house where we were the ones that came across as weird for our reasoning to not buy it.
We had found a really nice house and everything about it seemed great. I had one concern about a tree that was planted extremely close to the house and I wanted to look into it because you don't want foundation problems. Not all trees have roots that will damage a foundation if they're planted close though, so I found out what kind of tree it was to see if it would be a problem. In the process of learning about the tree, I found out that it was a Yew tree, and that the pollen of male Yew trees are chemotoxic. Meaning it is toxic to cancer cells. However, it has this effect by functioning in your body as if you were taking low levels of chemo basically. So people end up with low grade symptoms of chemotherapy from exposure to the pollen of this tree, and most of the time have no idea why they feel sick. So we told the real estate agent that we were interested in the house, but needed to know one thing: is the tree in front of the house (right up against the large window) male for female? She asked the owners, and they said they didn't know, but I imagine they thought that was a weird question, lol. Since they couldn't tell us, we decided not to buy the house.
* * * Being_Cori * * * 10 months ago
I learnt something new, this is very interesting as cutting down a tree that is close to the house can have adverse effects on the structure.
On the other hand, buying a house is, in any case, a situation that causes stress, because you are making a purchase for a long time, if not forever. And it’s not surprising that a person wants to avoid possible negative factors such as poor infrastructure or entitled neighbors. After all, they have to live there. So, when a choice of this degree of importance is made, hesitation and vagaries are almost inevitable. Well, or the new residents become entitled neighbors themselves... This option also cannot be discarded.
#10
Not a Realtor but potential buyer, our realtor brought us to a house listed as a 3BR, 2-1/2 Bath.
After going through the house, we liked it a lot, until something clicked for us - there were no bathrooms to be found. We went through the house again, and upon opening a closet door in a Bedroom, we found inside the tiny closet a single Toilet. No lights, sink, tub, nothing. The house wasn't even a 1 Bath, it was like 1/4 bath.
The realtor, very seriously, told us if we knocked down the wall, ran some pipes, we could convert one of the bedrooms into the bathroom. We laughed thinking he was joking. He wasn't.
SnackbarKaat 10 months ago
I bought an old house, in the era were toilets were in a shed outdoor and bathing was done in a wooden barrel. I'm talking about the fifties here rural area. Anyway as modern times came by they installed a shower in the hallway between two stairs. Toilet was still I the sehd outdoor. We used a small bedroom and turned it into a modern bathroom. We needed to redo the pipes and electricity anyways
#11
Found a dead body in the bathroom.
Apparently a contractor working in the house decided to shoot up before he left on Friday and OD'd. Nobody was in the house all weekend and he was found by Monday afternoon during a showing.
Donkey boi 10 months ago
Wouldn't be hard to clean up. And I'm sure you'd be able to talk down the price after that.
#12
Not a realtor, but I worked in finance at an RV dealership a few years back. I had a couple fly in from out of state to look at a brand new $400,000 unit that had specific features they were after and they put a deposit on it.
I got them approved and scheduled a time for them to sign, but they backed out at the last minute because they weren’t sure their cat would like it. They flew back home.
Either way, even if you've never bought a home, we highly recommend reading all the stories on this list. At least for two main reasons. First, the vast majority of these tales are really amusing. Second is that perhaps when (or if) you buy a house yourself, you will probably remember one of the stories you read today and in time refuse the dubious purchase. And then the alarming music behind the scenes will end in confusion - who actually knows?
#13
The reason I didn't buy one house was my realtor was running late, so I was parked in my car near the house I was going to look at on the side of the road fir about half an hour. About 2, maybe 3 blocks away in a rural area of Washougal, Washington. About that time this a*****e pulls out of the driveway of the house I'm scheduled to see, pulls up along side my car, rolls down the window, takes a picture of me with their phone, then flips me off before they peel out the tires and drive off at high speed. Turns out it was the homeowner that was trying to sell. So yeah, I didn't even bother with seeing the inside of what was an otherwise good prospect because I was so irritated at the owner. My realtor later gave their listing agent a call about it because they were annoyed about missing out on a potentially large commission, and I later found out the owner thought I was "[an addict] trying to steal wifi from him" . Not sure why, as I was in a pretty nice car wearing a suit that day... but yeah, I did not buy that house.
R.A. Haley 10 months ago
Oh, I'd have taken the tour and met the owner, just to throw it back in his face.
#14
Not me but my dad did some residential and commercial back in the 70. Lady came in and loved the house until they got to a guest bedroom that was painted yellow. She instantly switched and said " I can't buy this house because this is yellow."
My dad says "We'll paint it. Any color you want." Her response drove him to do strictly commercial after that. "But I'll know it was yellow once."
#15
I’m not a realtor but one of my childhood friend’s mothers was and she told me this story when I was in 4th grade and I still think about it nearly 20 years later.
She came home upset one day after school and we asked her what’s wrong. She said she just lost a sale because of a toilet seat. During the initial walk through her client pointed out an epoxy toilet seat that was filled with sea shells and how much she loved it. She made an offer on the house. Later they do the final walk through right before going to go sign the closing documents and that toilet seat is gone and replaced with a normal white one. The woman is pissed and refuses to close without the toilet seat. The sellers refuse to give her the toilet seat. The sale falls through.
Can you imagine buying a whole a*s house because you want an epoxy toilet seat?
This was the 90s so there wasn’t the whole internet of things at our finger tips to just up and get a replacement. But still.
#16
There was a house we looked at that met most of our criteria, but when we went back outside, we noticed that the next-door neighbor has all these signs on this porch posts: KEEP OUT; NOT TRESPASSING; BEWARE OF DOG, etc., and piles of junk furniture and machinery on the porch.
Not who ***I*** want to live next door to.
#17
not a realtor, but when I was trying to sell my condo, someone found out I had cats and didn’t want to buy for that reason alone. There was no carpet. They had no allergies. They just didn’t like cats. The cats were coming with me when I moved and they didn’t open up a portal to hell in the living room floor or anything.
#18
My family home was bought by a young man in the military and his very quirky wife. They had already ruled out dozens of houses and settled on ours because it had adequate chi flow from the front door.
When they saw that the bed was directly under a window in the bedroom, the wife freaked out and said that it was sucking out our brains.
#19
Literally happened to me last week. Showed my home off market to a couple from Minnesota. They flew into my area for a weekend specifically to see my house because they liked the photos I sent them of the place.
They wanted a home with five bedrooms all on the second floor, and at least 4k sqft. My house is the only one within 130 miles for sale fitting that description and we put a lot of work in to unf**k what the prior owners did to the place. The prior owner thought he knew how to do his own work. He did not. We spent tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours fixing stuff he DIYed poorly (and sometimes dangerously).
They come and spend two hours meticulously going through everything. They loved the house and their realtor said on the side they’d put in an offer within the next day.
Then they drove off.
The next day my realtor calls me damn near in tears laughing saying that he just got off the phone with their realtor.
The couple decided not to put in an offer because a full street over and down a hill there are above ground power lines. They thought those power lines were 5G cell towers in a cluster and they were terrified that it was going to beam COVID into their kids’ heads if they played outside.
They said it with a straight face to their realtor, apparently.
The kicker is that there’s actually a 5G tower two doors down from my house that they didn’t even notice. They ultimately bought a very small house two towns over with no above ground power lines but *with* 5G towers in the vicinity.
Frank Russell 10 months ago
The fact that you didn't offer tin-foil hats with the house killed the deal.
#20
Some old friends of mine were buying their first house and was sitting at the bank together with the seller when he told them that with a minor raise he would leave the wiring in the house. Then they understood it was time to leave.
#21
Not a realtor, but a coworker lost a sale because the inspector was an idiot.
I don't know the exact details, but when pouring foundation, sometimes the pourer runs out of cement in one truck, and finish pouring it with another before it comes close to drying. Similiar to how you would pour the rest of milk from one carton before adding milk from a new carton. Apparently, that can leave slight discoloration line, but that's about it.
The buyer cheaped out and got a newbie inspector who saw a line discoloration and thought it was a huge, symmetrical, foundation crack that looped around the foundation. The buyer's real estate agent basically went WTF, told him to find an experienced inspector. She,herself, hired an experienced inspector who came in and explained the exact situation to her client. But the client, understandably so, got spooked and walked away.
Coworker sold it a month later at the same price to another buyer who had a qualified inspector, so it was more annoyance than anything else - but don't cheap out on the inspector - they're important.
#22
This story goes back to around 1960 but my parents found it so stupid they told me. A family friend and his young wife found a home they wanted to buy. The wife’s mother was going to give them the down payment. They were super excited about the house and said it even had a breakfast bar, i.e. a counter with bar stools underneath, in the kitchen. The mother said no way would she ever allow her money to be spent on a house with a bar. They tried to explain it to her but ultimately could not buy the house.
#23
My elderly parents were looking to buy a house in the city where I live. One house met all of their criteria, and the furnishings inside even matched the furniture in their own home.
Unfortunately, they were concerned that the arrangement of the kitchen would make it difficult for someone in the living room to hear the TV if someone in the kitchen was running the garbage disposal.
I don't think they really wanted to move.
#24
When we were looking at houses in the early 2010's, we went to see what we thought was a realy nice house. The listing did not show any pics of the finished basement. We toured the upstairs and were very happy. Then we went downstairs. The stucco on the walls was the hard icing kind, which had been pulled outwards into sharp points so that, if you had fallen down the stairs, you would have impaled yourself. There was a wet bar made of thousands of pieces of tacky "cowboy" kitch that had padded faux leather (with buttons) on the three surrounding walls. Everything was glued/screwed/nailed to the wall, including the animal heads, and was listed as 'included' with the sale. It smelled....odd. There was a giant shrine to Mary with a water feature, and a ton of plants, embedded in a divider wall. It took up the whole wall and we couldn't figure out how they had run the water supply. There was a bathroom off the wet bar. It was purple. The walls were purple. The floors were purple. All of the porceline was purple and had Russian Oligarch style gold fittings. It matched nicely with the all teal master bedroom ensuite. After about ten minutes of looking at this, our realtor glanced at us, said, "This is too bizarre", and suggested we leave. The house was still on the market a year later.
#25
Loved the house. It fit all our needs. We were pumped. As we were leaving, we stood in the porch to take in the neighborhood. The house directly across the street had built shelves into the windows facing the house we were viewing. The shelves were filled with old creepy dolls staring at the house we were looking at. Hundreds of dull lifeless eyes waiting for you to go to sleep so they could [end] you. They were Sun faded. We noped out of there with our realtor’s blessing. It was 20 years ago and it still freaks me out. Why? Just, why?
Frank Russell 10 months ago
Yeah, why? As if you couldn't just ignore the strange neighbor's house.
#26
During home inspection, one of the bolts that held down the master bedroom ensuite toilet was not installed into the floor strait, thus the bolt holding down the toilet wasn't sitting flush with the base of the toilet. The wife was uncomfortable" sitting on a bent toilet". The husband was furious with the reason. Cancelled the deal anyways. Second home she cancelled because we couldn't confirm if anyone had died in the home. Husband was going to lose his s**t. She ended up liking another home, which I thought was worst than the last one. And in a worst neighborhood. Husband signed quickly incase she changed her mind. Good times... Lol
Tucker Cahooter 10 months ago
I presume statistically most people die in their home rather than, say, dropping dead on the street but in any case how they would expect to be able to establish the exact whereabouts of each previous occupant's demise boggles the mind
#27
We had an offer come in for an apartment in Park Slope, NY. Great apartment. Great location. Guy puts in an offer slightly over asking and we're stoked. THEN - he pulls it back because he was freaking out about there being TWO working fireplaces. Apparently, this was causing him anxiety so he went to his therapist to talk about it and they made the decision that it would cause him too much ongoing anxiety to have those fireplaces.
I have no idea why fireplaces would cause anxiety. I saw them as a positive. But anyway - we sold it for slightly less someone else and the guy didn't have to deal with knowing there were fireplaces in his apartment.
Win win.
Forrest McCanless 10 months ago
We bought our cool old house years ago BECAUSE it had a dozen fireplaces. We relined them all, and converted the upstairs ones to gas/coal setups. Kids have memories of reading by their personal fire in their bedrooms.
#28
Buyer loved the house until they opened the upstairs storage space. They screamed and ran downstairs because they found a dead bird. It was a large piece of pink insulation that had fallen down.
#29
My partner was a bit more superstitious than me but not to the point where I ever thought it was odd or obnoxious. Enter the downtown house we both looked at. It was small and old and “quirky”, which I was ok with. It had a pond in the backyard, and I love ponds. So we get to the house and go in. It is extremely segregated- there are many oddly shaped rooms and lots of doors and no hallways and no flow. We get to the kitchen and there is a very narrow and small door leading up to the attic access (I realize now that’s pretty normal for old houses but at the time, my reaction was more “oh neat, like a hidden passage!”) My partner however saw that hidden doorway and got very spooked and just bluntly and suddenly told me and the realtor “I’m Sorry, this house is a no for me, I hate it. I’ll be outside.” We both looked at each other like ??? And I followed him asking him what was wrong. He totally had the heebie jeebies and was almost shivering and was like “I’m not going back in there, there is something really wrong with that house.” I asked him if it was ok if I finished looking at it and he said that was fine, but there was no way in hell we were buying it. The realtor and I finished the tour just fine. I didn’t find anything odd about it at all; it was just a bit of a weird layout, it needed some fixing, and the house had no flow. The pond was neat.
My partner never was able to articulate further on what creeped him out so bad about the house.
Tiny Dancer 10 months ago
I really need a follow-up where the next owners found bodies in the attic.
#30
We were buying a house in Buffalo while living in Florida. So long distance shopping, with an in-person trip to see the final contenders.
When we arrived, we had about 5 houses on our list. The realtor took us aside and said I have to tell you that a [crime] has been committed in the houses you picked out.
We're like, well which house?
And he said this house and this other house.
Two houses? How did we manage that?
Well, there was a man, and one of the houses was his parent's house, and the other was the house with his wife and kids.
Apparently he [ended] his mom at the one house, [ended] his wife at the second house, and was stopped by a cop for speeding, which saved his dad's life (Dad was at work and he was headed there). Kids were fine, at school, never saw anything. We did tour the houses. They had like big sections of the carpet missing in one of them.
We bought a different house altogether but I still think about one of those houses, bc it was a good house.
What do you think ?
Ken Beattie 10 months ago
I wonder whether some of these are basically the buyer not being able (or willing) to articulate the reason why the don't like the house, so they use whatever is in their eyeline as justification to back out? Maybe it ticks the boxes, but they just don't like the neighbourhood, or the "feel" of the house. Maybe the aesthetics are just a little off.
Sonja 10 months ago
I think sometimes people just don't feel at home and don't want to explain that.
Load More Replies...
Alyssa Phillips 10 months ago
We live in a cul-de-sac, and when one of our neighbors was moving out we decided to throw a circle party. Brought out the bounce house, outdoor movie projector, ordered lots of food, kids running around everywhere. We scared off at least three buyers, but the family that joined the party during their tour ended up moving in and we love them.
weatherwitch 10 months ago
It would scare me off too 😮😂 But you got exactly the people you needed and you were exactly the set up they needed as well. Perfect for you all ❤️
Load More Replies... SnackbarKaat 10 months ago
Went to see a house, the family of the deceased owner showed potential buyers around. Pretended they didn't know where the door to the basement was.. which was filled with water lol. Also went to see a house where downstairs was inaccessible due to.. I can describe it as a dump of dirt and stuff... from the tenants. I saw a dead, flat mouse there, to give an idea. I thought it would be a fit house if we had some professional cleaners clean it out, but the seller wanted a higher price than what i wanted to give
Ken Beattie 10 months ago
I wonder whether some of these are basically the buyer not being able (or willing) to articulate the reason why the don't like the house, so they use whatever is in their eyeline as justification to back out? Maybe it ticks the boxes, but they just don't like the neighbourhood, or the "feel" of the house. Maybe the aesthetics are just a little off.
Sonja 10 months ago
I think sometimes people just don't feel at home and don't want to explain that.
Load More Replies... Alyssa Phillips 10 months ago
We live in a cul-de-sac, and when one of our neighbors was moving out we decided to throw a circle party. Brought out the bounce house, outdoor movie projector, ordered lots of food, kids running around everywhere. We scared off at least three buyers, but the family that joined the party during their tour ended up moving in and we love them.
weatherwitch 10 months ago
It would scare me off too 😮😂 But you got exactly the people you needed and you were exactly the set up they needed as well. Perfect for you all ❤️
Load More Replies... SnackbarKaat 10 months ago
Went to see a house, the family of the deceased owner showed potential buyers around. Pretended they didn't know where the door to the basement was.. which was filled with water lol. Also went to see a house where downstairs was inaccessible due to.. I can describe it as a dump of dirt and stuff... from the tenants. I saw a dead, flat mouse there, to give an idea. I thought it would be a fit house if we had some professional cleaners clean it out, but the seller wanted a higher price than what i wanted to give
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