It’s always been sort of common to hear kind of “off” questions at open houses I would hold. Actually, stupid questions really. For the house that’s completely empty of all furnishings, “Is the house vacant?” For the fixer upper that needs a new roof, furnace, plumbing, electrical and has a foundation problem, “Will the seller fix all that? How about the seller in 2009 who asks ” Can’t the buyer just let us live here rent free for 30 days after closing?”

You know what? I can get on a roll with this! The buyer that says “Hey! The Title Company cashed my deposit check! Are they supposed to do that?” The agent who asks, “Did the seller accept my client’s offer?” when said offer is $150,000 under the asking price when we had 8 other offers. Then there’s these, “Can we go looking at houses at 8:00AM on Sunday morning?” or “I’m only interested in a house with at least 2000 minimum square feet inside and on a 10,000 sq ft lot, at least 4 bedrooms…can I find that for under $600,000 in Foster City?..and can I buy it via a contingency offer on my home in Redding?”

I’ll bet you think I’m making this stuff up, don’t you? I’m not, I promise! Well, here’s a common question heard at almost every open house…and I used to think it was kind of “off” too. “Where are the sellers going?” That question get’s asked alot! Honestly, there’s usually a very finite amount of answers to that question too. Most likely it’s because the house became either too big (kids grown and gone)or too small (kids not grown and home), there was a job change or a life change (marriage, divorce) or the family’s liquidating an asset. I’ve frequently had to laugh though at this question because it’s seemed that the question comes with an expectation of some weird answer. When someone asks me that they look at me waiting for me to say something like “well, the sellers just got tired of living on top of all the toxic waste under the house” or “Mr. Smith went bananas and shot poor Mrs. Smith right there by the fireplace…after he went to prison the family needs to sell the place”.

You know what? I ask this question all the time myself…because every once in a while the truth is exactly one of these crazy sounding answers! It’s really a very good question! When I was a kid my Dad had this routine every time we went out to eat. He always asked the hostess “How’s the food here?” It used to really embarrass me! Typically they would chuckle and rave about the food. One time when I was about 14 he asked a young girl that question and she looked around and told him “It stinks!” Hmm, I guess my Dad wasn’t so dumb after all!