Some things are just more important than getting the listing. I would have told them tommorrow the next day or so forth.

OK You asked for it......

I was sitting in my office talking on the phone to a client in Down Town Tampa.  We were discussing commissions and rates and all of the sudden there was an explosion about 1/2 mile from my office which shook the whole building and greatly disturbed my client.  He ended the call by saying I don't care what you charge me, I trust you and just email me the listing contract.

I guess that I failed to tell him that I was calling him from my office in the middle of a WAR ZONE.  I was deployed with the ARMY and the Explosion was simply our Explosives Disposal team getting rid of something that they had recently found.  There was an EOD disposal bunker 1/2 mile from my office and I had become so used to the noise that it no longer phased me.  

We got his office leased and it wasn't until I returned several months later and dropped in on my client that I knew what had happened.  He thought I was sitting in my "Tampa" office and when he heard the explosion and I remained calm, he didn't know what to think.

The Naked Italian

I had an appointment to show a multi-family listing with a wife her sister and a baby. I had the key, we knocked as customary, and entered the home to find a man sitting in his thong underwear in the living room watching tv with the sound off. The ladies were taken aback and backed out the door. I called the man's attention numerous times with no avail. I spoke loudly and waved my arms but he would not respond. I exited to contemplate my next move.

I entered again to find he man this time, in the kitchen holding a steak knife cutting watermelon. I spoke to him again, and again no response or reaction. Finally he looked up, surprised to see me, started speaking in a muted Italian. HE WAS DEAF. He couldn't hear the bell, couldn't hear me and his listing agent forgot to call him.

Needless to say we had to reschedule. The family I was working with ended up in contract with another home, and their mortgage was denied. They never bought anything. Welcome to the biz. We still laugh about the naked Italian.

This isn't really a "war story", but I think funny in its own right.  When I was deciding on a domain name, I just wanted my name and ".com".  Well, that apparently was taken and we added "realtor" to the end and it worked.  All's going great and we set the website site up yada yada yada.  One night my husband gets curious as to exactly what the website is that has the domain that I couldn't get.  He says, "You're not going to believe this. . . .  that website is a porn site."  I thought, only me.  I told my Brokers and they couldn't stop laughing.  

To add insult to injury, we all want to be high up on the search engines right?  Well, I'm #2 on Google and Yahoo.  Don't know how. So don't ask.  Guess who's #1?  The porn site.  I really hope people read before clicking.  But you know what?  You gotta just laugh.  The wonderful world of the internet.

Kathy

I have alot of war stories: the most recent though was another agent was trying to get his old listing back, it had expired 4 months previously and now he was trying to pick up some more inventory. Not a problem. But during the time he had the listing, my daughter had looked at the house and really liked it. She had to sell first and didn't want to get her hopes up by doing a contract with a contingency.

After his listing had expired, the seller called me and told me she was taking the house off the market for awhile becaused she didn't want to move in the winter. She told me when she listed again it would be with me because she felt she was lied to alot by the other agent.

So he is calling her and telling her he as a qualified buyer who had looked at the house during the last listing term and he wants her to list it again so he can sell it to them. She calls me, I tell her go ahead because if you have an opportunity to sell , sell it. My daughter will find something else. BUT he tells her, his previous listing is still in effect and he will have to charge the same %. So she is calling me for advise and I am not really in this loop so I am leary about giving her advise. But he is lying to her and I am getting mad. She is a single mom.

To shorten this story, she listed it with me after giving him 1 week of opportunity to take less %. I emailed him to please bring his buyer and lets work a deal. He lets me know that his qualified buyer is no longer qualified. Hmmmm. Happy ending, contract pending with another buyer.

On an open house I was working on with another agent our office, we took turns working with each family that entered to view the home. I took a latin american couple though the home and clicked well with the English speaking husband. The wife could only speak Spanish. They were looking for a home in our area and lived thirty miles away in downtown Los Angeles. He wanted me to list his rental which was a duplex. I was reluctant because the area was not in a good location of LA. Even though the man could speak English, is was broken and I did not feel confident working with him, so I had a Spanish speaking agent in our office work with me on the listing. I was tempted to just give her the listing with a referral fee, but she was a new agent and I did not feel she had enough experience to the listing on her own. I knew it could get complicated with rental laws, estoppels, reciprocal MLS listings, and different government retrofit laws in a different county.

We received an offer on the property after listing in the LA area MLS. Because it was tenant occupied, the offer came with a "subject to interior inspection". The potential buyers insisted on seeing the property at a time that was not possible for me or the agent working with me. Getting to that area of Los Angeles is very difficult because of traffic. The owners said they would be happy to show the prospective buyers the property. After the showing, I received a call from the potential buyer's agent letting me know how the preview went. She said the showing went well until the seller's wife said they had just bought and installed brand new BULLET PROOF windows!

Well, so much for that offer! We did eventually sell the property, but that is the last time I sell properties in downtown Los Angeles!