There’s been some pretty good discussions popping up lately on the subject of maintenance on homes that are listed for sale. Wether it’s maintaining the stock of flyers in the flyer boxes, putting the price on those flyers, or the actual maintenance on the property for sale, I’m sure there are strong opinions on both sides of the equation and hopefully this post will bring some of those opinions to light.

In this scenario, we’ve got a listing that has been on the market for approximately six months, and in that time, nobody has done any upkeep to the property.  The situation is similar to one that I discuss on my Roseway Neighborhood site in that the lawn has now turned into a field of weeds that is literally 2 feet tall (see the image to the above right).

What makes this scenario a little unique is that it happens to be 2 houses down from my house which we’re in the process of doing a complete remodel on.  So, as I was outside  the other day admiring the new front porch and walkway that the contractor had just finished, one of the neighbors struck up a conversation which eventually led to the discussion of the property for sale on the corner.

During the conversation, the neighbor brought up some good points about the mosquitos that seemed to be breeding in the jungle that was once a front yard, and that it would all be dying soon due to the heat wave that is currently hitting Portland and could be a potential fire hazard.  Both valid points.

After expressing our general thoughts about the property, the neighbor says “I’d mow it myself, but I have a little electric mower that just isn’t powerful enough to tackle something like that”. Then he turns to me with that “I know you have a massive gas powered beast of a mower” look on his face.  At first I thought to myself, “just mow the damn thing and get it over with” but that thought faded away about as quick as it came to me.

You see, I believe that in cases where the property has been vacated prior to taking the listing, that the listing agent needs to be ready to deal with this as it becomes a problem.  So, being the problem solver that I am, I told the neighbor I would get in touch with the listing agent and let her know it was becoming a problem to the surrounding neighbors.

Here’s what I wrote on her “contact us” form (since there was no email address on her website) yesterday:

Good morning!

I know that this listing on NE 74th is probably a short sale/REO or whatever, that you don’t want to put much effort and $ into marketing…  but I’m wondering if it would be helpful to at least spend the $25 or so to have someone mow the field of weeds that used to be the lawn?  In another week or so, they will be taller than the flyer box on your sign post!

Almost daily we (the surrounding neighbors) see people walking or driving by, who stop to look at it. But, judging by the look on their faces, they’re less than impressed with the maintenance of the property and never even take the time to look at it more closely.

I know you may be thinking… “if it bothers you guys so much, you should just mow it yourselves” but after discussing it we decided to contact you, the listing agent, instead because it’s not OUR job.

Thanks in advance for taking care of this in a timely manner.

-Jeff

Here’s the response that I got in my inbox today (minus the agent’s contact info and gargantuan “Oh by the way… ” mumbo jumbo at the bottom:

Hi Jeff – we received your note and appreciate your concern. This home is indeed a short sale and the seller has no funds to maintain it. In all honesty, the inside is worse than the outside! And unfortunately maintaining the property is a seller/owner responsibility. Our role is to keep this home from going on the auction block. We have multiple offers on the home and are working with the seller’s bank to get an approval and we hope to see this close in the next 30 days.

We run roughly 35 short sale listings at all times – these are very time consuming, labor intensive properties and they take anywhere from 3 months to over a year to get an answer from the banks. When that answer comes – with it is always a reduction in what they are willing to pay for commissions to the Realtors. In addition, by the time the answers come – there always seems to be a gap of what they are willing to accept and what the offer will net them…again that generally ends up being deducted from the Realtor’s commission in order to get these to close. By the time these homes sell and we’ve paid everyone on our staff who have worked on these – we’ve made very little, and in some cases – nothing. What that means is that there’s no money in our budget to do any maintenance on these properties and that’s why we’ve not had the lawn mowed ourselves as you asked about.

There are so many homeowners in distress right now and our goal is to help as many as we can get through this and back on their feet again. Having a successful short sale means that this home owner has the potential of getting creditworthy again in 2-3 years, rather than the 7 years a foreclosure will hurt him. It’s kind of our own private mission to help put some balance back in the Portland Real Estate market again.

If you could please be patient for a short while longer, you will hopefully have a new neighbor soon who will get that property cleaned up again. Please feel free to check back in with me with any other concerns or a status if you’d like.

Thanks.

Not a bad response.  A little more detailed than what I was expecting, but then I remember that this agent has no idea who I am, since I had to use the “contact us” form and couldn’t email her directly.

The part that gets me going is when the agent says “unfortunately maintaining the property is a seller/owner responsibility. Our role is to keep this home from going on the auction block.”

Is that really the role of the listing agent?  Kinda weird, because I thought the listing agent’s job was to market and sell the property.  Now I know the agent has a point, since it is a short sale, there will be reduced commissions, blah blah blah…  BUT, if that’s the way you truly run this part of your business, WHAT’S THE POINT?

See, here’s the deal… (this being MY opinion on the subject)  When you take a listing, and stick that sign post in the ground, you’re basically saying “I represent this property” “My company represents this property” and I was raised from a young cub with the notion that if I’m going to put MY name on something, it better be good.  It better look as good as possible. It represents who I am, how I run my business, MY values and those of MY BROKERAGE.

So, I ask my readers this – what are your thoughts on this subject?  Do you spend the $25 every couple months to maintain a property like this?  Or am I completely out of line in my thinking?  I would love to hear your thoughts…