Nassar Team’s Six Craziest! Real Estate Stories

I love being in real estate. Most successful realtors, including myself and my team, will tell you that we eat, sleep, and breathe real estate – it is what we do. Much of the time, we get to help people achieve their dreams – from the first-time homebuyer that has been working toward this goal for years, to the empty-nesters that are moving on to the next, often bittersweet but exciting stage in their lives.

We celebrate top-dollar offers, new homes, expanding families, and job promotions, and just as importantly, we grieve alongside them when the time comes to sell their late parents’ homes or when they experience a sudden job loss or any other life-altering event that unexpectedly rocks their world. We experience the highest highs and some of the lowest lows with our clients and we do not take a single moment for granted.

It is as fun and exciting as it is complex and challenging – and we would not change a thing. Here are our top six best (and craziest) experiences in real estate – enjoy!

When the House Comes with Unexpected and Uninvited Guests…

We sold a house in Southeast Portland a couple of years ago that belonged to a man who was a jack-of-all-trades and a collector of, well, everything. He had a house full of prized possessions he had gathered over the years, a basement full of tools, and ten – yes TEN – sheds in the back and side yards. We helped the family renovate the hundred-year-old home and had multiple offers on the first weekend it was listed. The buyers and their agent did a final walk-through of the property the day before closing so when closing day came, it was no surprise that everything went smoothly and completely according to plan. Until it didn’t…

When the buyer showed up to get the keys to his new home that afternoon, he found that he had been locked out of three of the sheds on the property. There was a note left for him, with the initials of all three of the sheds’ new occupants, explaining the legal right they had to stay, complete with citations to specific state laws and city ordinances, and wishing him the best of luck ever getting them to move.

Since the transaction had already closed, there was not much our seller could do to help, especially after the buyer expressed a desire for a peaceful resolution and refused to call the police. For all we know, he might still have three additional houseguests – or rather, shed guests – to this day.

When You Loved the House So Much, You Buy it Twice…

We helped a sweet couple purchase a home several years ago. They reached out a few years later and sadly, would be enlisting us to sell their home as they were being relocated out of the country. When the time came for them to relocate back to the U.S., the home they had sold previously was back on the market and they were so excited.

We did a Facetime showing with them, put in a competitive offer right away (with a fun letter about how this would be their second time owing the place, which of course the sellers and listing agent loved!), and secured the home for them again! It was a fun story to be a part of and truly unique, as the entire transaction was done remotely – they didn’t ever see the inside of their ‘new’ home until they had already purchased it and were moving in! 

When a Fully Paid Off 2nd Mortgage Comes Back to Haunt You 35 Years Later…

We had the sweetest couple come to us for help selling their home so they could move across the country with their parents and be closer to their kids and grandkids. We worked with them to list their home, got a wonderful offer, got all the way through inspection negotiations, and then found out from our escrow officer that there was a second mortgage listed as still outstanding to the tune of $40,000 or so. When asked about it, you could see the color drain from their faces.

They explained that when they bought the home back when they were very first married, they were super tight on funds and just short of the home’s asking price. The seller at the time offered to carry a private second mortgage for their down payment (this would not be heard of in today’s world but at the time, it wasn’t an issue) and wrote out what wasn’t much more than some chicken scratch on a napkin. Fast forward all these years, and the then-seller had since passed away, and when her grown children in charge of her estate were contacted about the 30-something-year-old loan, they demanded that our clients pay them in full before they would sign off to allow them to close on their sale… a loan they had long-since paid in full, but had only received verbal notice that it had been paid off more than two decades prior and before they were old enough to know better, to their own admission.

We got our real estate attorney involved immediately who jumped in and helped solve the issue for our  clients so they could close, but it did delay the closing by a couple of weeks. Despite the issues we faced during this transaction, they are still to this day some of our favorite clients! In fact, we ended up selling their parents’ home for them just a year or so later and we are still in regular contact with their whole family!

When the Home is So Desirable, People Just Start Randomly Moving In…

We were listing a foreclosure property for the bank in East Portland. The first day we showed up at the property to check it out, someone jumped out of the back window. We could see lots of stuff laying around the house and to say it was unsettling was an understatement. We called the bank rep, who told us to call the police, who came out to walk through the house and check things out. The police  confirmed there were squatters living there and ended up finding more than 30 drug needles. They said we should secure the house, so we called our contractor to come out. While we were waiting for him to arrive, we left to get lunch and when we got back a short time later, we opened the door to the sound of people in the back of the house. They jumped out of the window again.

Our contractor boarded up the back window and door and screwed all the windows shut to secure the house. The next day, we went over to the house to gather some information for the listing and when we opened the door, we saw a plastic cup filled with soda sitting in the hallway. As we were knocking on the front door, we heard someone going out the back door. Turns out they had entered the house through a  tiny window up high in the laundry room. We had to get our contractor back out to secure that window and back door again. We put the home on the market and one of my team members made sure to drive over each day and pound on the door to make sure nobody had gained access again. Luckily, we got multiple offers the first weekend and it was back in good hands after we closed.

When the Furniture is So Great, the Movers Have to Move it Back In

Recently, we sold a beautiful luxury home in Lake Oswego. Within just a couple of days on market, we had an over-asking-price offer that included all of the furniture, which had all been selected specifically for its space within the property, both inside and out, across the three years the seller had owned the home. The seller felt that the furniture was worth much more and was prepared to reject the offer  entirely.  We stepped in and opted to separate the home and furniture so the home could get under contract while the furniture was negotiated separately. Throughout the transaction, the buyer and seller remained hundreds of thousands of dollars apart on a final price, so when we got to the final week of closing, we decided it was time to call in a favor with our movers and get everything in the home moved out and into storage.

When the very last truck of this 5,000 square foot home was loaded onto the truck, we got a phone call saying they had finally come to an agreement on the furniture and to please put it all back. Three days and a six-person-moving team later, we did just that and allowed for the deal to close with just a one-business-day delay from the originally designated closing date!

When Today’s To-Do List is 1st, Buy a Home and 2nd, Have a Baby…

One of our favorite stories over the years involves the sweetest family who had recently relocated to the Portland area from California for a first-year optical surgeon, his wife, and their four-year-old little boy. Mom was pregnant with their second baby and we had been in touch with them for a year or so since Dad finished his residency program and relocated to Portland for his first real surgical position at OHSU.  The day they found their dream home, Mom called our team wanting to see a home in West Linn, convinced this was ‘the one’, but had a very tight timeline to see it because she had to get to the hospital to deliver their baby right after. No joke, this supermom saw the home, fell in love, then arranged for Dad to get us the details of their offer from the delivery room of the hospital!  

That drive and determination resulted in them moving into their dream home that summer with their two beautiful kids, just in time for Big Brother to start kindergarten that year in the school district they had worked so hard to get into. These are the stories that will forever keep us going in this wild industry! 

If there is ever anything my team or I can do to help you or someone you know buy or sell a home, no matter how wild the scenario, do not hesitate to give me a call so we can discuss how and why we are the very best option to assist!