Funny foreclosure stories

[Francois D.]

Hello to the community, 

I am an experienced pre-foreclosure buyer in the Houston area and I have a team of bird dogs knocking on doors in the weeks before the auction. That team is always growing and over the years I have had tons of funny stories, and I will start with one. Feel free to post your own so we can all have a good laugh.  

I was climbing into the attic, of a house without power, I had my high power flash light (very proud of it, the biggest one you find at home depot). As  I was scanning my light, I became nose to nose with a huge snake! I almost fell off the ladder and got a bit scared, after all I was alone in a dark house with a snake.  When I came back to my senses I realized the snake was dead and had been preserved in a jar. 
I later found out that in certain Asian culture, keeping a snake like this is a sign of luck. 

I did ok with that house, so I would say yes, it is a sign of good luck.

To this day I have kept this snake in my own garage.

Cheers.

[Matthew Olszak]

@Francois D. Great Topic and great story!

My craziest foreclosure story:

I'm showing a vacant REO 3 unit in a rough neighborhood. Totally remodeled, looks beautiful in the listing. I unlock the front door that leads up to stairs for the 2nd and 3rd floor units and door to the first. I loudly announce myself, "REAL ESTATE!", and hear scurrying at the top of the stairs. We look up and see someone holding a monster-sized water heater, and he goes tumbling down the stairs with the water heater in tow. Me and my buyer go running down the front porch stairs literally tripping over one-another as the water heater goes flying out the front door in-between us, breaks through the wood fence, and lands on the sidewalk.

We both took off running back to the car and had a good laugh. About 30 minutes later we went back and found the heater was hacked off the plumbing, and the bum didn't bother to shut the valves. Water was pouring down from the 3rd floor unit. It was a shame to see $15 worth of scrap (if that) cause $10s if not $100s of thousands in damage. That part wasn't too funny.

I've also seen plenty of animals like raccoons set up their home, and plenty of houses with a scattering of needles, liquor bottles, baggies, and graffiti, and a couple times the occupants were actively using when I arrived. But this one was so far the best just because of how wacky me and my buyer likely looked falling over one another to avoid getting flattened.