[Music] Hello everyone and Welcome to the final episode of the year for Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in Greenville South Carolina I am Stan McCune your longtime host here and we are ready to end the year right I mean 2020 has put us through a lot if you guys listened to the last episode you know that it's put me through a lot personally and you know even though it's kind of an artificial thing right we're just tracking you know the Earth moving around the sun right you know and that's what determines when we have gone through a year it just this year just feels different that we are just turning a page and I am ready for that page to be turned but at the same time reflecting back on 2020 there's a lot that I'm grateful for we talked about that a little bit last episode today we're going to do part two of 2020 in review and I'm just going to share with you just a few stories from Real Estate this year what I went through What just what my year of real estate was like just a few quick stories I think you guys will find interesting gives you a little bit of a peak behind the curtain as to what my job looks like and and that's how we'll conclude the year and then we can go in popping corks having fun hopefully having some socially distan fun time you know whatever happens on on New Year's Eve I I don't know I don't know what's going to happen this year but hopefully we'll be able to turn a page and have 2021 be even better and and see us make some progress in some of these lifestyle changes that we didn't none of us wanted but we had to make because of Co all right enough of that quick little housekeeping as always my contact information is in the show notes reach me at any time for any of your real estate needs and please subscribe to the show whoops just pounded my computer subscribe to the show give us a rating give us a review so that people can see what this show is all about so they can get excited about it get excited about Greenville learn about Greenville learn about the real estate market the more people know what's going on down here and are educated about the real estate market the better it is for all of us here in the end okay so 2020 in review I've got a few stories for you guys all right and each of these will give you a little bit of insight into what my job is I know a lot of people think that Realtors don't do anything I don't know what Realtors they're dealing with and admittedly there are some transactions where I do more than others but by and large I am doing a lot of work I I don't I don't typically have transactions that are really simple and this year particularly it felt like every single transaction was just really difficult to get to the Finish Line and just every one of them involved a ton of work so here's a few examples let's kick it off with I had a listing at the beginning of this year that was under contract and the inspector that was obviously inspecting the house went into the attic everything up there was great right I mean it was a house that was 20 years old so not an old house newer roof the roof was in great shape tons of insulation up there I mean everything was great and somehow this inspector which kudos to him but he found a crack in a truss that was holding up the roof now the roof wasn't sagging there or anything and overwhelming odds are that there wasn't any indication that this crack in the truss had resulted from you know something recent the the crack was kind of along the the the grain of the of the of the 2x4 whatever the truss was so probably that crack had been there for basically the entire time that the home had been there but guess what when you have people buying a house they want everything to be fixed I had listed this home at the top of the market more than my clients even thought they could get for it and the people buying the house they deserved to have piece of find that their roof wasn't going to cave in on them and so what they asked for was they asked for the trust to be fixed and signed off that it was structurally Sound by a structural engineer well guess what Structural Engineers listen we we've got several professions that overlap with real estate where the people are just overwhelmed right now appraisers are overwhelmed right now a lot of inspectors are overwhelmed right now contractors are overwhelmed right now now and guess what well surveyors are another one guess what Structural Engineers are also overwhelmed I called probably 10 Structural Engineers my clients obviously they didn't know any any Structural Engineers so this is an example of where I am the one doing the work for my clients and that's part of my job I called probably 10 different Structural Engineers the vast majority of them didn't answer my calls didn't return my calls a couple did and were just like H sorry man I got bigger fish to fry and just wouldn't even take the job and I finally got through to one good old old-fashioned Greenville guy been you know he's Pro he's near retirement age has lived here his whole life and he was like you know what you sound like you're kind of desperate here I I'll help you out I'll do this one for you and and so he was willing to do it but under one condition and that condition was that I had to go up into the attic and take several pictures of the trust for him in order for him to see what the issue was so that he could then basically draw what needed to be done in order to Sister the trust and to fix it in a way that he could sign off on and then we had to have the contractor do that take pictures and then send it back to him and then he would go over once he was very sure that it had been done properly then he would go over and look at it himself and then provide a letter that it was structurally sound well listen I I don't have any problem getting up in addicts I've been in plenty of addicts before like I'm not claustrophobic or anything like that but in case you don't know it's addicts can be tricky to maneuver in they have you know there's all kinds of 2x4s everywhere that you have to duck under and whatnot and then there is the constant risk you've got insulation all underneath you and between you and the insulation or let me say it this way once you get past the insulation in most of the attic in almost any attic the next thing is just the ceiling that's below the drywall that is a part of the ceiling in the house below and so if you trip or you misstep and it's easy to misstep because again a lot of the the 2x8s and whatnot that are the joists that are running across the attic they're more or less covered by insulation and so it's easy to misstep easy to to to trip or or whatever the case may be and if you do your foot is going through the ceiling in one of the the rooms that is directly underneath that attic and so I was absolutely terrified I didn't know where this truss was and so I get up there in the Attic there's like very poor lighting I'm walking all around I could not find this thing anywhere finally after about 20 or 25 minutes of walking around and absolutely being terrified I finally found the truss and took as many pictures as possible and the long story short is that we were able to get it fixed we were able to get the structural engineer to sign off on it just in time we were able to get to closing on time everyone was happy and yeah everything worked out but let me tell you that is about as nervous as I get in real estate I don't really ever get nervous I'm pretty pretty levelheaded when it comes to real estate stuff but when there's something like that where I could damage my client's property just with a simple slip that really scares me I'm just grateful that didn't happen it all worked out all right that's Story number one here's Story number two story number two involves a client who was moving out of state to be closer to family had a job over in California and this client had a very large house that he was living in by himself and the house needed needed a lot of work to it let's just put it that way and when you've got a big house that needs a lot of work then you're you're really set back because I mean even a small house that needs a lot of work can be timec consuming and expensive but this is a big house that every space needed a lot of work and so he contacted me early on in the process he was interviewing multiple Realtors I've told this story before in the podcast so so I'm not going to go into all the details and apologies if you've already heard it he interviewed a couple of different realtors with me being one of them the one realtor I do not think wanted to list the house I think she saw how much work it needed did not believe it could be done correctly knew for it to be done correctly how much work she'd have to do and so she told him 180,000 is what you could get for this house I came in and I said you know I feel like you should be able to get between like 235 and 250 like I'd be willing to list this pretty close to 250 and I feel pretty confident that we could get close to that well needless to say between those two options he went with me but I was very clear and and he already knew this that a lot needed to be done so we put together a game plan I I we came up with a list of here are all the things that need to be done it was it was a long list and this had me going all over the place doing all kinds of different things I at the end of the day he needed help because he was you know by himself trying to do a bunch of things and then at some point he actually moved out of state prior to all of these things getting done so then I kind of found myself kind of managing the project for him which I was happy happy to do again as a realtor you have to be a jack of all trades you have to be flexible and so there was one point where I was in like a a shady area of of Greenville trying to locate a granite warehouse in order to find some granite or quartz that he could use and I had I had found a guy you know he had a we had a very tight budget to work with I'd found a guy through some of my connections who said that he had scrap pieces of granite and quartz that he could give us pretty cheaply and so I I found the place and then I called my client couldn't reach him was looking at the different options finally reached my client facetimed him showed him the granite and the quartz and whatnot we were able to pick that out then you know had to arrange for installation of that and and then Plumbing that was involved I mean there there were all sorts of things and then we had it a situation where for some reason his automatic payment on his utilities did not get paid and what we learned is that the utility company that he was with wasn't very helpful they they didn't give a warning or anything they just shut off all his utilities and at this point we were under contract and literally the utilities got shut off on the day of the inspection and let's just say I got a very angry phone call from a buyer agent who was already really on edge from the get-go with the transaction I had a bad feeling about this person from the get-go in the transaction that was the straw that broke the camels back that deal fell through in large part because well I I don't think that they ever really wanted the home in hindsight but the straw that broke the camels back was was not being able to do the inspection fully the first time because the utilities got shut off then we had to to kind of take that one off the market for a little bit their inspection revealed some things that needed to be done I arranged to get all those things done with a handyman contractor that I know we were able to to knock things out get it ReRe to list and so we do we we get it back on the market again in and immediately go back under contract this time even better this time for full price all right before we weren't even under contract for full price so so this time we get under contract full full for full price and it's inspection time and again we've had no issues since the last inspection which by the way was months ago at this point we we had a month a several month layover for a variety of reasons between when it fell out of being under contract and when it came back when we put it back on the market I get a call from the buyer agent on the day of inspection saying s the utilities are off what what's going on here and I was like you got to be kidding me it happened again a second time his payment got declined and they shut off the utilities again on the day of inspection I mean the utility company doesn't even know that the inspection's happening this day it's almost like they had boots on the ground that they and they knew okay this is going to be the time where we really stick it to him where we can just shut it off right when when he needs it on and I I just I couldn't believe that I thought here we go the time is a flat circle history is repeating itself we're going to go through all this again but gratefully he was able to I I was able to reach my client who at various times was not easy to reach different time zone and all that I was able to reach him he couldn't believe that it happened again he called the utility company it was related to he had a the card that they had on file he had had to cancel it and get a new card forgot to update it with them and remarkably the utility company was able to get out their same day and was able to get everything turned on we were able to get the inspection done that day it ended up just being a blip in the radar the transaction ended up being easy after that point all in all the amount of time that I spent communicating with him and helping him get his house ready it was a 10-month process from from the time that the process started until the time that we closed on the house and so I definitely I definitely earned my commission on that one nobody can nobody can say that that I've never worked on a real estate transaction I had to I had to do some work on that one not to mention it was 45 minutes away from my house and I frequently had to go over there to check on things to you know when you when you're not living in a house you don't realize I mean bugs and dust just accumulate every everywhere I had to constantly go in there to to sweep up and you know every time it was a 2-hour round trip I had someone call me about the house they wanted to look at it I went there waited for them they never showed up it it was crazy I probably spent you know 30 to 40 hours just in commute back and forth from the house or to places that I was going to in relation to that house so yeah I I earned my commission on that one and I'm just grateful that we were able to get a full price contract on on his house and he was so super excited it really made a a massive difference for him as as he was completely you know moving out of state and and had a lot of lot of different expenses and whatnot that were associated with that that's my second story these other ones will be a little bit quicker those are those are the two longest ones the third story involves me I'm I'm trying to help a client who is a kind of starting to get involved in flipping houses and again if you've heard this story I apologize but we're having a you know just a normal hard time it's hard to to find houses to flip right now in this market so we're having a hard time doing that and as I'm looking at houses on the market I I just happen to stumble on there's a house that I see that's under contract that kind of fits what my client is looking for but like I said it's under contract but it's been under contract for a while so I pull up the listing and and start digging into it starting I start looking at some of the details here and it turns out that it was already supposed to have closed I you can see in the in the listing the date that it was supposed to close and and there were some other dates in there that I was like hm this one might be problematic might be an opportunity here that this might be falling out of contract and so I called the agent the agent said you know it's it's really interesting that you called Stan cuz I have been on and off the phone phone with my client all day and and we this one actually may fall through we've had to extend multiple times this contract for this buyer and it's getting to the point where we're just not sure that he's going to be able to to close on it and we're just trying to figure out what our next move is and I was like okay that's great i' I'd love for us to be able to put a backup offer on this and if if you want more details on this I actually recorded an episode on backup offers and backup contracts so you guys can listen to that I go into more details specifically on on this deal but the long story short was that they ended up extending again with this buyer and that that they had it under contract for which is really disappointing we thought we had a good shot at it but they said we're extending it but we if you guys want to submit a backup offer we will entertain a backup offer offer and so we did we sent them a backup offer they got under contract as a backup contract my client did that is and guess what a few days later I called the agent and and was like hey you know what's what's going on here what's what's the latest and it was still kind of more of the same we we didn't know what was happening and having the backup contract in hand he I I pushed the listing agent hey man you need to just go to these other clients and just tell them not other clients but the other buyers the the ones that had the primary contract you need to tell them that you've got a backup contract in hand that they need to stop playing games either get to closing or just terminate the contract and let us have it and the long story short is he listened to me he did that and they the buyers that were trying to buy it they caved they they couldn't bring the money to closing they had basically shown that they had proof of funds prior to going under contract and then they took that money and spent it on something else and so then they didn't have the money and they were trying to come up with it and that was what had had kept the deal getting extended and so my client got it and it turned out to be a great house I listed it a few months later he did a great job flipping it made a nice little chunk of change on his first true flip and it ended up really being a a great sit situation all around and so yeah I I had an opportunity there which I've done multiple times in my career to use backup offers and backup contracts and in this case in a market where it's incredibly hard to find good houses to flip we were able to get the perfect house to flip under contract and and it ended up being really an ideal situation that we were able to to turn a profit for my client in a really quick turnaround time all right my fourth story and and I'm only doing two more of these my fourth one is I had a client that was under contract for a house out in the Duncan is area and for those of you that live in the area know there were a ton of hail storms that came through that area this year and guess what when they got under contract no sooner did they get under contract that a hail storm rolled through so we're like Great Is there going to be hail damage well it turns out those of you that know me well know this I used to be an insurance adjuster and I know how to read a roof I can get up there and I can find hail damage probably better than your average home inspector so I actually went over there got a ladder out got up on the roof and sure enough it was minor but there was hail damage enough hail damage that that roof needed to be replaced and so we had to go back to to the seller was very difficult to work with and that's a whole another story in and of itself but we were able to negotiate for them to replace the roof but then they this is where everything in 2020 was difficult you know most people can replace a roof in a few days well they hired a Onan crew and this is a large roof let me tell you they hired a oneman crew who doesn't even use a nail gun he he hammers the nails in and we it it becomes very apparent very early on that this roof is not going to be done prior to closing and so then we had a whole another disaster of well do we close do we drag this out you know it was the kind of thing where the seller was being difficult and you know if we played games with the seller and you know tried to get them to extend the contract they might say no and they might say hey with this new roof on here this house might be worth more money than than we have under contract for we might you know take a Gamble with putting it back on the market we didn't know they were very unpredictable and so we were able to to get them closed but we had to have some contingencies in there related to the roof being completed and whatnot and it took weeks for that roof to be completed but everything worked out it all worked out in the end and and the best part is that they had hail damage on the roof they don't now they have a a brand new roof and that's important not just because you don't want hail damage on your roof but insurance could this was why I was it was a big deal to me that they didn't just take the roof with hail hail damage because their insurance could decline a claim for the hail damage if they had a claim in the future their insurance could say well look this this roof yeah you had some wind damage from the roof but you also have some old hail damage on here as well and there hasn't been a hail storm since you've had this insured so we're not going to give you the full settlement we're not going to whatever the case may be we're going to deny your claim altogether there's a lot of things that your homeowners insurance can do in order to try to get out of paying you money and trust me you buy a property that has old damage your insurance is going to try to get out of that and so the good news is that with a lot of work including after closing I had to continue to to work for that one again contacting seller being like where's the roofer the roofer's not here just one thing after another but it worked out in in the end everyone ended up going home happy my last but certainly not least story is is one that just happened recently I had a a client that is looking to move looking to move out of a condo into a house but they have kind of a tight budget and this is a difficult time to be looking to buy if you have a tight budget and there are some other factors involved there but we found a house for them that they really loved and going into the process we didn't really know what what they wanted if they wanted a newer house if they wanted an old house well they found a house they that they really loved and it it became very clear I mean I know I know the market well and I knew that the the features that they liked about this house are unique to that price point like coford ceilings and different things like that and I knew if they didn't get the house it was going to be very difficult for us to be able to find a comparable house for them and so I encourage them to to put their best foot forward I thought the house was underpriced by probably close to $15,000 just based on comps that I ran and so I told them listen I wouldn't be paying attention to the list price you put an offer in that is the offer that you feel comfortable with that the offer that you feel like the house is worth well that it ended up that that the list price was what they felt comfortable with and so they put a full price offer in a clean offer not a lot of contingencies and not surprisingly they got outbid there were multiple offers on the house I don't know what offer ended up getting accepted but they got out bid well a few weeks later I get contacted by the listing agent and it lo and behold it turns out that the contract was that they had on the house was about to fall through that the buyer's financing had was falling through and she wanted to know hey are you guys willing to submit an another offer your client's still interested I and I talked to my clients they said yeah we're still interested we'll submit the exact same offer and so that's what we did well unsurprisingly as I'm getting ready to submit the offer the agent says just so you know we've had multiple showings already I have another offer on the table make sure that your client's offer is their highest and best offer it was my client's highest and best offer they did not want to go above the list price again and so we submitted the offer a second time and the second time they were out bid again and that's that's discouraging but you know again this is part of the job this is happening a lot right now in this market so I wasn't surprised it's just the way it is it's just it's just what happens so in the meantime between then and now we looked at you know a few other houses online not not even showing them and there were a few that actually could have worked for them but again they they were just going under contract immediately just as soon as they come on the market going under contract and right now you just have to if you're buying a property you have to expect a bidding war and they you know it it's it's just kind of exhausting when when you go through that process multiple times as a buyer to have multiple bidding wars and to keep losing it just gets exhausting and and they were already kind of at that point I could I could tell even though you know it had only been two times and every house that looks like it could fit what they're looking for it would just go under contract right away multiple offers and so last week I'm doing my my usual looking at everything that comes on the market every day my routine is I look at all the homes that have come on the market and lo and behold that house that they had put offers in on twice was back on the market the realtor hadn't told me she probably she's probably ashamed that about how it went down the last time it's back on the market so before I even called my clients I call her and I said her being the listing agent and I said listen well I we talked about that i' had fallen out of contract again due to to buyer financing falling through I was like listen my client is pre-approved they are not firsttime home buyers they've been through this process before they they want the house but I don't feel like it's fair if if you guys are going to string us out again I don't even feel like that they will even want to go through that I don't want to go through that if you can give me a commitment that your clients will just accept the full price offer I'm pretty sure that my my clients will do that we we'll submit another full price offer and we'll get the scene to closing I've never had in my career a deal fall through due to buyer financing that's a track record that I'm proud of that's because I bet my clients and make sure that they that they are pre-approved D and and that all that financing is in place and she really appreciated that and she said I'm I'm pretty sure my clients will be will be good with that they just want to get this thing to closing and so I said okay well let's do it this way as a token of good faith that your clients aren't going to string us out into another multiple offer situation I'll send you the contract but not with my client signatures you need to have your client sign it first and then and we'll put the deadline for us to respond by tonight and then after you guys have signed it first and have committed to it then I'll have my client sign it and she said you know what that's totally fair I'll talk to my clients about that but let's go ahead and move forward with that plan and I was like great I call my clients I tell them they talk they're very excited they they think they they can't believe it in their mind that house was dead to them and it got resurrected back to life and guess what the plan worked to a te I was able to get the sellers to sign first that it was just a formality having my client sign and we now have them under contract and we're a few weeks away from closing and and there's a lot more to that story that I could tell as well it it's it's a really good Feelgood story you know what we're ending 2020 on such a a high note here with this Feelgood story but I'm really excited about that one it's not I I told them listen it's not every day that this happens that a I mean for them to put an offer on a house three times I've never had that happen in my career something like this but it's it's the perfect way for me to end the year it it really it it was really exciting for me they expressed how excited they were as well the sellers are excited it's one of those rare situations where everyone is just excited that this happened that this worked out and it's almost like you know like a family reunion you didn't expect to happen and then everyone's together and it's like you know I'm just so excited that we were able to all get together this all worked out that's kind of what it feels like you know and so that is kind of the cap on my 2020 and there you go five stories to summarize for you what 2020 was like for me as a realtor this is what I do it is all over the map this job involves a ton of different skills it involves a you using your time a ton of different ways but I love it it's a it's a great job for the right people to do it I don't recommend it for everyone in fact I discourage people from Bec Realtors we have more realtors in Greenville than we have homes for sale so that that's a really bad thing in terms of you know the odds are against you if if you have one listing you have more listings than the average for a realtor here in Greenville and so that's not good but the job itself for me is great I love it 2020 for all of his challenges was a great year with a lot of good stories and and I hope that you guys can be a part of that story next year again as I always say my contact information is in the show notes make sure that you're subscribed that you're reviewing that you're rating this show I hope you guys have a wonderful New Year we enter 2021 we're turning a page and I hope as you turn that page that you see my name on there somewhere because I want to work with you I want to help you guys buy and sell real estate in the New Year reach out to me with anything you need with any questions you have but until then enjoy the holiday enjoy the New Year have some fun party a little bit don't get too crazy we are going to have a great 2021 and I am looking forward to it [Music]