Realtor to the Rescue: How I Saved the Transaction
Real estate transactions are complicated and fraught with road bumps. These agents navigated tough situations to save the transaction. Inspiration at its best!
While plenty of real estate transactions are stormy, in 2017 Lauren Krawczyk, a Realtor® with Douglas Elliman Real Estate in St. Petersburg, dealt with Hurricane Irma’s impacts to get a transaction past the finish line.
“The closing on a two-story Mediterranean-style house was scheduled to happen the day Irma hit,” Krawczyk says. “My clients, the sellers, were moving to North Carolina and all their furniture was packed in the truck. I encouraged them to leave for North Carolina a day early, and we delayed the closing.”
Krawczyk and her husband spent five hours putting hurricane fabric over the windows to protect their house on top of doing their own storm prep.
After the storm, Krawczyk took all the hurricane fabric down, dragged the outdoor furniture out of the pool and hired a truck to haul away storm debris. Fortunately, the house wasn’t seriously damaged. “We didn’t have power for nine days after the storm, but I checked on the property every day to prepare for a re-inspection,” Krawczyk says. “I sent photos and Facetimed with the sellers and the buyer’s agent and explained that the sellers would pay for anything an inspection found.”
Thankfully, the transaction closed without any other issues, and Krawczyk is thankful that she kept a level head and presented a positive outlook to everyone. “People can handle good news or bad news, but they can’t handle no news,”
she says.
Savvy Realtors make heroic efforts to save every transaction and to keep their clients happy. Here are some other stories:
Eager buyer rushes renovations
Cristina Menendez, a Realtor® with Brown Harris Stevens in Miami, worked with an extremely enthusiastic buyer who wanted to surprise her sister with a house when she relocated from Texas to Florida. She chose a vacant townhouse owned by an out-of-state investor.
A couple of weeks before the closing, Menendez stopped by and discovered a contractor’s trash container outside. “I found the whole kitchen torn apart, new appliances in the garage and freshly painted rooms upstairs,” Menendez says. She quickly called the buyer.
“My client was defiant and said she had thrown the kitchen cabinets in the trash and that she would keep going with the renovation so it would be ready when her sister arrived in a couple of weeks,” Menendez says. “I explained that she was not the owner yet and that she was in breach of the contract. I asked her if she could close faster, which she was able to do.”
Fortunately, Menendez reached the seller’s attorney and the title company to move the closing up by more than 10 days.
While that situation is extreme, it’s not unusual for a buyer to want to get inside a house early, or for sellers to “leave” items in the house after closing to pick up later.
Here are Melendez’s tips for handling tough situations:
- Establish a good team. She worked with the title company frequently, so they were willing to help her in this emergency.
- Communicate with other agents. Menendez and the listing agent worked smoothly together through all the inspections and negotiations.
Connections count
While nearly every real estate professional in Florida found themselves scrambling to meet buyer and seller demands in 2020 and 2021, Shelly Newman, a Realtor with The Corcoran Group in Palm Beach, faced a time crunch and a supply chain emergency.
“I was the listing agent on an $80,000 a month property when I got a call from a prospective tenant who wanted to rent it for the whole season,” Newman says. “He wanted to move in within two weeks, but he wouldn’t sign the lease unless the property had blackout curtains. It was impossible to order custom curtains and have them ready that fast during the pandemic.”
Fortunately, Newman has an interior design background and knew of a workroom near Palm Beach that might be able to accommodate her. She paid to have the curtains made and hung in time for the new tenant, who was thrilled.
Newman’s transaction strategies include:
- Nurture your local connections. Newman’s previous experience in the interior design industry helped her identify a local connection who came through for her.
- Never overpromise. Newman confirmed that she could get the blackout curtains in place before letting the tenant know. “The worst thing is to promise something and then disappoint people,” she says.
Keeping a deal afloat
When Adam Grenville, a Realtor® with RE/MAX Premier Group in Wesley Chapel near Tampa, says he’s been in hot water in a real estate deal, he means it.
“I was working both sides of the deal on a vacant listing. When the buyer had the water turned on for an inspection, it turned out there was an uncapped toilet in a large workshop in the house,” Grenville says. “The water was gushing for a while before anyone noticed it and could turn it off.”
Grenville immediately grabbed towels, a squeegee and a fan to dry out the space. “This was a week before the closing, but I was able to take care of it and get everything dried out before the final walk-through,” Grenville says.
Grenville’s transaction strategies include:
- Do what’s quickest. Sometimes it’s faster to just clean up a situation yourself.
- Pay for someone else’s mistakes. Depending on the issue, Grenville says he’ll often hire a cleaning crew and pay for it out of pocket for a smooth on-time closing.
Client care for all creatures
Suzanne Stoll, a Realtor with Sotheby’s International Realty in Palm Beach, made an unexpectedly big commitment when she listed a rental property in Miami for a friend who was living in Europe.
“I normally don’t take listings that far away, and now I know why,” Stoll says. “The new tenant’s agent called me during their walk-through and asked what to do about the dog. I thought she meant a big plush toy dog and suggested she put it in a closet.”
The dog turned out to be real.
“A patio door was unlocked, and someone had put a chihuahua inside with some food,” Stoll says. “The tenant was moving in the next day, so I dropped everything and drove to Miami to pick up the dog and bring it to my house.”
Stoll drove back to Miami the next day to drop the dog off with a chihuahua breeder who could care for it temporarily. After a few days, Stoll’s office administrator decided to adopt it, and Stoll drove back to Miami one more time.
Stoll’s transaction strategies include:
- Always be ready for the unexpected. Nearly every real estate transaction requires some creativity.
- Handle issues yourself. With the tenant moving in and an animal needing care, Stoll decided to take care of everything herself.
Solving an appraisal chasm
While many real estate professionals navigate an appraisal gap, Richard Santiago, a Realtor with FI Real Estate in Miami, had a bigger disparity than normal to manage.
“My buyers and the sellers agreed on a cash offer for $3.2 million,” Santiago says. “The buyers decided to have an appraisal for peace of mind, but the appraisal came in at $3 million.”
Santiago and his broker, Filippo Incorvaia, jumped in to renegotiate the deal, with the added pressure that the buyers were leaving for a cruise within 12 hours.
“We immediately made a list of all the upgrades in the house, which included furniture valued at $60,000,” Santiago says. “We have new-construction experience, so we knew the cost of items like the electric blinds, exterior lighting and smart-home features.”
The house also had “as much AstroTurf as a baseball stadium,” Santiago said, which cost $100,000.
“The appraiser hadn’t included any of this in his valuation,” Santiago says. “He brought up the value to $3.1 million, and we were able to get both sides to agree on that price.”
Strategies Incorvaia and Santiago employed include:
- Know the details. Gather evidence of upgrades to provide to an appraiser.
- Recognizing cash deals can be volatile. While cash buyers rarely choose an appraisal, transaction glitches can be common, Incorvaia says.
Whatever the situation, you can be sure of one thing: There will be a situation. And, when issues do arise, you can count on real estate professionals to jump in and tackle them head on. #
Michele Lerner is a Washington, D.C.,-based freelance writer.