Weird Real Estate Stuff: My First 45-Day Escrow

This is a sad, but true story about my first real estate listing.

It was 1974 and I was brand-new to residential real estate in San Jose, California..

I had taken my first listing and it sold quickly with a 45-day escrow despite the fact that we could’ve closed sooner.

Thanks to a lack of training and being brand-new in real estate, I thought it was necessary to use all of the specified days of an escrow.

I thought a 45-day escrow required 45 days to close.

All went well until the 42nd day of my escrow when I got a phone call from the buyer’s agent, informing me that his buyer had died in a car accident on the Bayshore Freeway during the morning commute.

That was the day I learned that short escrows are a good thing!

If it’s possible, and both buyer and seller agree, it’s best to close escrow as soon as possible.

 

Weird Real Estate Stuff: My First Day

It was my first day in residential real estate, in San Jose, California 40 years ago.
On that day, I attended the weekly sales meeting, which included the requisite motivational pep talk, a review of new listings/haves/wants, and then we headed out on the weekly “office tour”.
Office tours are a relic of the past now, but back then it was a way to impress sellers by parading agents through new listings and telling sellers “you have a lovely home”.
It didn’t accomplish much, but it made our sellers feel good.
We toured a couple of typical subdivision homes before coming to a property that had an abundance of, shall we say  .  .  .  “character”.
The home was down a muddy, potholed dirt road beneath a couple of scraggly old oak trees at the base of a hill, under the San Jose Airport approach path.
Some would have said that the property had some “deferred maintenance”, but it would be more accurate to say the place was a dump!
Since I was the new kid in the office, I got to lead the other agents through the house, starting with the kitchen, then down the hall to the back of the house.
As I opened the door to a hall bath, I was stunned to see a duck floating in a bathtub full of brackish, black water, cheerfully quacking at his new friend (me).
Taken aback, I made my way through the rest of the house and out the back door to check out the back yard.
Our office manager followed me as we walked out onto a rickety wooden porch behind the house.
As we rounded the corner, I heard a screeching sound that drew my gaze toward the tree limb above me.
To my amazement, there was a monkey hanging upside down, by his tail, in one of the old oak trees.
And, he was gleefully masturbating! 🙂
The little guy had a big grin on his upside-down face and seemed to be having the time of his life!
I turned to the office manager, speechless.
Without showing any emotion, he simply smiled and said “Welcome to real estate, Phil!”.
I’ve had many interesting experiences during my real estate career, but none as memorable as that one!