Reprinted from the Wall Street Journal
Some houses have skeletons in their closets. For Jessica Mack, the skeleton was hanging by the front door.
A first-time buyer in the Philadelphia area, Ms. Mack, 26 years old, had been browsing property listings for months before finding one in September that looked just right: a cozy Cape Cod, with a nice lawn.
“It wasn’t too big, it wasn’t too small. It was cute,” she says.
And yet for years, the house’s owner had hung a fake skeleton outside her front door in all seasons, regularly swapping out its attire. Some days it wore a white blouse, on others, a green bodysuit. The owner said she would accept Ms. Mack’s offer if she would maintain the tradition, 365 days of the year.
It was the third house Ms. Mack, a local utilities worker, had bid on. She said yes.
A typical sales contract comes with various contingencies, such as ones that allow buyers to back out if they can’t obtain financing or if issues come up during a home inspection. Now, amid a historic housing shortage that gives sellers the upper hand, some buyers are finding themselves confronted with the oddest requests.
“I’m selling a house right now that is being sold with the cat,” says Eli Karon, a real-estate agent with Karon Properties in Santa Cruz, Calif. The orange tabby has lived there for years, he says, and its owners don’t want to move him.
The house has attracted six offers and is currently under contract. “It’s definitely a seller’s market,” says Mr. Karon. (He says the cat is friendly and up-to-date on shots.)
In Chicago, Ill., real-estate agent Jamie Lemmons once sold a home in which the owners, a pair of retirees, asked for the right to continue visiting the backyard grave of their beloved golden retriever, Buffy. The buyers agreed and lawyers added an addendum to the contract stipulating Sunday visiting hours between 12 and 2 p.m.
While refrigerators and light fixtures are standard fare, some buyers demand more exotic add-ons. In one recent house purchase, Ms. Lemmons’ client said he would buy the house contingent on the seller giving up a neon Chicago Blackhawks sign he had seen during the house tour. “He said, I’m telling you, if you don’t get me that Blackhawks sign, that deal is off,” she says. The seller was willing.
Real-estate agents say often they prefer to keep unusual agreements off contracts involving financing to avoid having a lender look askance. Many are verbal and unenforceable.
Such was the case when Greg Gasior, 52, sold his house in West Palm Beach, Fla., in September and asked the buyers to assume responsibility for the feral cats that frequented his backyard, fearing they would otherwise go hungry. He bought the new owners multiple cases of canned cat food along with paper plates, which he asked them to use for serving so the cats wouldn’t cut their tongues on the cans.
“They were like, um, OK,” says Mr. Gasior, who works in property management. The buyers have sent over a photo showing they are fulfilling the obligation.
“So long as it isn’t harming anyone, I don’t see why not,” says Sabina Dinescu, a real-estate agent with Douglas Elliman in Pinecrest, Fla., of odd seller requests. Ms. Dinescu sold a house last year for a widow who made the sale of her house contingent on the new buyer keeping her husband’s ashes in a safe in a partitioned area behind the master bedroom’s closet, a requirement the seller drafted into the contract.
To Ms. Dinescu’s astonishment, the buyer agreed to the terms. “They didn’t seem too bothered,” she said. “The house had a lot of natural light, and it was at a great price point.”
Brokers say they have to walk a fine line in dealing with offbeat client demands, not wanting to alienate either side of a deal. In one recent transaction in San Diego, Calif., Raquel Benguiat said her buyer fell in love with a seller’s pair of dog statues outside the entrance and repeatedly asked for them during negotiations. “I told them, you gotta stop it with the dogs, because the owner is getting very upset,” she recalls. Ms. Benguiat bought her clients a replacement set.
In central Oregon, real-estate agent Chris Sperry has also played peacemaker. Ms. Sperry represented a buyer and seller in a transaction where the buyer insisted she wanted the seller’s cat along with the house. The seller balked.
“It really got into a heated argument on both sides,” she says. The seller finally agreed to leave her cat, and Ms. Sperry bought her a replacement kitten.
A few years ago Monica Lara, a government employee in Roseville, Calif., bought a home from an owner who was downsizing and wanted to leave his pet beagle behind. It had been the family dog, and his children had grown up and moved away. Ms. Lara and her husband, who have two young sons, said they would let the dog stay.
The seller said the dog was housebroken, which proved to be untrue. But the beagle was affectionate and the kids loved to walk him around the neighborhood. The family featured him in their Christmas photos for several years, until he suffered renal failure and passed away.
Ms. Lara, 51, has no regrets about taking him in. “The dog got a family that loved him,” she says.
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Appeared in the October 24, 2020, print edition as ‘In Tight Market, Houses Can Come With Skeletons or Cats.’
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