Doug had just repainted the interior of his home in preparation to selling it. He changed his personal choices to something acceptable to nearly anyone, the bland, light colors. We found a buyer who needed to move in before the sale took place. He allowed that.They started remodeling right away, then left, leaving him holding the bag without a sale but with some terribly interesting colors - an awful robin’s egg blue, purple, and bright pink rooms. This was a high end home, too. Which mean, in this case, that the buyers did an excellent job painting - - - and were terrible in their choice of colors. Californians. So Doug ended up painting his home for the 4th time (these colors required 2 coats) inside of a year. But eventually he got their deposit (they had simply refused to come to the closing), so it was worth his while by the time all the dust had settled. But not worth the hassle.
Another case that comes to mind was a boxcar house that Mort had listed years before I joined the company (this had to be in medieval times, I’d been with him so long). By “boxcar style” , we mean that one room goes directly to another, with no hallways or common rooms with multiple doors. What’s more, much of the wiring was strung out on extension cords, from room to room. And, the icing on the cake - it was superbly overpriced. So, one Sunday, Mort got a call on it. That alone surprised him. No one ever called on it. These folks wanted to see it right away too. Inwardly groaning and thinking of his potentially spoiled Sunday plans, he described to the buyer just how this house was. He wanted to nip any disappointment in the bud before he screwed up his Sunday in a futile effort. But they would not be dissuaded. They arrived on time, he took them over ... and they loved it. They told him that theit was exactly what they had been looking for andhaad never been able to find (no wonder). They loved it so much that he wrote out a Purchase Contract then and there and took it to the owner who promptly accepted it. Sold! And he is still scratching his head.
An then there was the “Pitchfork Special”. It seem these folks had rented this barn but did not have enough dairy cattle to fill it. Normally, there would be 2 long rows of cattle, standing tail to tail. These goofuses had one long row instead, real unhandy for milking. And they had filled the other half of the barn with manure. Now, they could have used the barn cleaner, a long, slow-moving chain that makes a circle of the gutter behind the cattle and moves the manure to a spreader, after which you can spread it on the fields where it will do some good. Its all mechanized - you never have to shovel shit. But, being goofuses, they shoveled it and didn't use their labor -savings devices. By the time I got there., the east half of the barn was filled 6’ deep in manure. The goofuses were gone, out of business (how surprising) and a new dairyman there would never get this one past the inspectors. He would have to shovel it back out to the barn cleaner, a horrible task to contemplate. And it all had to be done before you could start earning money there. So, Mort advertised ti as “The Pitchfork Special”. When life deals you lemons, you make lemonade, right?. You would never believe how many calls we got on that place - and it sold readily.