For this weeks article I have decided to tell the story of my first escrow. Back in the spring of 2017, I was working with a first time home buyer who was looking to buy a home with the financial assistance of her grandparents. After viewing seven or eight different homes we landed on a nicely refurbished three bedroom home which had an awesome game room, and made an offer. After a quick round of negotiating we had our after accepted and I found myself in the middle of my first escrow! As you can imagine I was extremely excited to have our offer accepted and was a little anxious to navigate the unknown waters ahead. First things first, I scheduled all of our inspections for the following week and then walked the property with my broker to get a better idea of the things to keep an eye on. When the following week rolled around I meet each inspector at the house and shadowed them to try and pick up as much info as possible. Halfway through the General Home Inspection we came to the realization that game room addition was un-permitted (which I later found out is more common then not in Humboldt County). The step leading down into the game room from the living room was too tall and presented a tripping hazard, plus the roof wasn't steep enough given the roofing material that was used. These issues ultimately killed our deal because my client had no interest in buying something that came with so much irregular baggage. At this point I felt like a bit of a failure and was very disappointed because of how excited I let myself get after having our offer accepted. The day after we turned in our cancellation papers, I got a call from my client that they wanted to meet up. After driving over to my clients grandparents house, we sat down at their kitchen table where they delivered the single biggest teaching point of my young career; they had come to agreement with a family friend to purchase a house off the market, which cut me out of the process entirely. As I drove home from their house that day, I finally realized what it meant to manage expectations, most of all my own. I let myself get so excited about writing the offer, then again when the offer got accepted, not truly understanding all the twists and turns of buying a house. That experience served as a true blessing in disguise because it permanently corrected my expectations but also taught me the importance of managing my clients expectations.
