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My role with my clients — and I take it very seriously, almost like a responsible head of household — is to be their safety net in a market they don’t know. Everything is new to them, and whether they’re buyers or sellers, my mission remains the same: to protect them, advocate for them, and ensure everything goes smoothly.
Being a safety net also means seeking out potential problems, even those that aren’t immediately apparent. Sometimes, you have to lift the stones to check for hidden pitfalls.
I’m thinking of a client whose friend had suggested a superb house : three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a swimming pool, and direct access to the canal with the dock to park his boat behind it. Excited, he called me to start the paper works. I calmed him down for a moment while I went to thoroughly investigate.
And thankfully so. The problem was quickly identified :
The seawall — the retaining wall that plunges into the canal — needed complete reconstruction. It was impossible to see at first glance because of the dock and the owner’s boat completely obscured it. Estimated cost : $80,000.
Next, we discovered the pool was leaking and the pump needed replacing. Another $8,500 to $9,000.
Then came the electrical panel : a makeshift job, not up to code, and it too needed replacing.
And that wasn’t all. The owner had benefited from a Florida state program to insulate his roof. Nothing was visible to the naked eye, but by digging through the land registry, we discovered that the remaining payments — paid through property taxes — amounted to another $15,000. A sum my client, as a potential buyer, would have unknowingly inherited. His friend had “forgotten” to mention it.
In the end, my client didn’t buy the house and instead I redirected him to a safer bet.
As for whether he remained friends with the seller, the story doesn’t tell.
