Complaints from the public happen when you are in business and I've been lucky in my real estate career to not have one, until today. Now, this complaint really isn't against me, but more against the seller for not disclosing something in the contracts, and the buyer wants to blame the seller and I for not disclosing what he considers very material, and says he wouldn't have bought the house had he known.
You see this buyer wasn't mine, I didn't know anything about the buyer besides he liked the home and the area. But, what I didn't know, that might have brought up this material fact, was that he ran a business out of his home. But, the buyer's agent never told me or the seller this. He just said he was moving from central Oregon to be closer to most of his clients.
Now, the title of this of this post had I actually said it, would have just sent this buyer off the deep end, because his complaint is there is no mail service in this town. You have to have a PO Box and drive to the post office to get your mail. I didn't personally think there were places like this anymore, but apparently this little town doesn't have mail trucks and mailboxes.
Not having a mailbox in front of a house is very common for this area, usually you just have a common box at the end of a street where you pick up and send your mail from, so the mailman can just stop at one place and drop off and pick up everything. But, this town went one step further and has only one common place, the local post office.
This has made the buyer very upset and this isn't something that is on the disclosure forms. If he didn't tell us that this was important to him, how were we supposed to know? Now, I'm guessing, like me, he assumed that it was just a common mailbox at the end of the street somewhere. Lucky for me, one of my other clients has a mail forwarding service, that they will pick up and deliver your mail from the post office twice a day for a very reasonable rate and then take any mail you have back to their business and ship it out for you at no charge. The other agent and I picked up the cost of this for one year and this has made his client very happy, but it may not have been that simple.
So, please if something is important to you, please ask. I will always answer truthfully, even if it loses me the sale, but if I don't know what is important to you, then there is no way I can tell you everything about a property.
Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739
Photo #1 courtesy of evelynhoff
Photo #2 courtesy of sibaudio
Todd Clark and the Friendly Home Team
Knipe Realty
Todd@IFoundYourNewHome.com
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)746-9573
I am a licensed Realtor who specializes in Washington County, Oregon and also work in both Clackamas and Multnomah Counties including the cities of Aloha, Beaverton, Canby, Clackamas, Gladstone, Gresham, Happy Valley, Hillsboro, Milwaukie, Oregon City, Sherwood and Tigard. All information contained in these posts are copyrighted and cannot be used without prior written approval authorization from the author me Todd Clark. If you are looking for an outstanding agent please give me a call I would love to help you with all your real estate needs.
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C'mon! You need to disclose mail delivery? Makes no sense. If it's that important to the buyer, he needs to do a little on his own behalf. I'm glad I just do the mortgages, but I feel for you realtors and your dilemas.
I remember those distant locations for mail pick up and delivery! It should be clearly obvious to anybody that there is NO mailbox at the door or driveway!
It sometimes gets overlooked when so many details are being assessed, the most simple and obvious get overlooked!
That's just crazy. This is a discovery item that the buyer and his agent should have addressed during the discovery/option period. If the buyer and his/her agent fail to address those concerns, then it's their cross to bear. I think you were more than generous to split the cost for a year.
Todd - You need to brush up on your mind-reading abilities. Start with Taro cards to get the feel of it and progress to Carnac. Good luck with that.
Did you say buyer? Did you say the other agent? Is this buyer the other agent's client? Isn't this the other agent's responsibility? If it is my buyer, it's my SOLE responsibility to find out what is important to my client; what he needs and doesn't need; and it is my client's responsibility to TELL ME that mail service is absolutely important to him. The seller or the seller's agent are not to blame (at least, they wouldn't be, here, if the buyer was someone else's client).
We need to buy new crystal balls. :)
That's an interesting topic that I had not thought about - thanks for bringing it up, I'll keep it in mind.