LeadingLane Podcast

Steven L Burch (00:00)
All right. Welcome to the leading lane podcast. I'm going to throw a quick question at you, Ash. Ash. don't know where I got that. Like Ashley, my bad. All right. So what is the funniest? I'm sure there's multiple, but what is one of the funniest moments when showing a house? What kind of crazy experiences have you had?

Ashley (00:06)
You're lucky, only certain people can say that. ⁓

⁓ that's a lot. That's like 13 years worth of thousands of showing. ⁓ I think the one that comes to mind and it's only because it happened like numerous times, ⁓ this younger couple, he, ⁓ and he'll love it cause we still, we still bring it up today. name is Brian and super like outgoing, eccentric, like makes you laugh all the time. but.

probably two things. I think it might've been like two different days, but we were sharing properties and he fell down the stairs. ⁓ It was one of those like slow mo things like that you're watching from afar of like how you can stop it, but can't. And then he kind of like did like a tuck and roll at the end. ⁓ And I mean like we laughed for a very, very long time. And then I think it was like,

Steven L Burch (01:04)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Ashley (01:18)
two days later, we had to look at another property and he tried to walk through a screen door. And so same thing was like full force, like he was in conversation and like, we must have been like right behind him and like just be automatic of like seeing someone come like all the way back. And so it was just an ongoing thing. Like we were in the next houses that we'd go and we try to make sure like there wasn't anything that Brian could hurt himself or others. But you know, I think it's that just

Steven L Burch (01:36)
Ha

Ashley (01:49)
when you're so in tune to what's going on. right? Like, they're looking at the house. Like, they're not necessarily thinking about the steps in front of them or anything like that. So those are probably the two funniest I can think of off the of my head. But what about you?

Steven L Burch (01:52)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

I had an investor that I showed me just the most crazy properties to him. But we went to a eight flex, I believe, and the majority of the building was vacant. So now let me set the stage that this guy is like macho rides a Harley right. So just tatted, shaved head, beard, like super nice guy, though.

⁓ so we go to the, this unit and we're, looking at it and we're just kind of looking around and definitely run down property and we're standing in the kitchen and all of a sudden we saw something came rushing through the freaking kitchen floor and just like bouncing. It was a ferret and it scared the living shit out of both of us to where like each of us both jumped on south of the counter.

And we like both screamed because we had no idea what it was. And then when we figured out, you know, that it was a ferret, we're sitting there like laughing on the top of these countertops. And he was like, let's not ever talk about this again. Like, let's never say anything that happened. I mean, it was just, it was so freaking funny just in every single time that we showed a house after that, or we talked, like he brought up the ferret every single time. So I just think, you know, there's.

Ashley (03:13)
just going to say no one ever knows.

Steven L Burch (03:28)
multiple other things that have happened and ⁓ it's just a wild industry. You never know ⁓ what's going to come about. So what about on the sell side, in general, in real estate, what are some unique ⁓ experiences that you've had that are definitely memorable for you?

Ashley (03:48)
⁓ There's a couple. mean, so one, I think like, don't know if phones have changed or whatever. Maybe they used to lag, but I think that like people would go to like text message their last contact, but it would be like stuck on who you were texting last. So these clients, which they're very sweet clients. I had sprained my ankle at a volleyball game. So I had this big boot.

I had to wear it for weeks and it was during winter. So that's always fun. And they wanted to look at this house that had, I swear a mile long driveway and it was vacant. So it was unplowed. So I was literally like, probably had my edge back then. So was like, I have no idea how we're going to get up the driveway. And so they like legitimately, no joke, offered to bring a sled and they were going to pull me up the driveway to get to the, thankfully somebody plowed it out.

But anyway, so we had been texting about this house and their thoughts about it and stuff like that. And I think it was the next, it was later on that day. So we must've looked at it like two or something. And I think it was like six o'clock and she text messaged me and she's like, I can't wait to smack your ass later. And I was like, I didn't think we had that type of funny, funny,

relationship and then there was, and I don't remember what was after that, but I was like...

I don't think that those were meant for me. So I think I'm just going to, I'm just going to leave it. I remember Ben saying like, maybe you should write her back and be like, think you text the wrong person. And I was like, no, cause I think she's going to be like mortified once she actually sees it. ⁓ and then I think it was like 45 minutes later and yeah, it was like, ⁓ my gosh, I can't believe I sent that to you. Please know what was meant for my husband. Like I understand if you don't ever want to work with us.

Steven L Burch (05:47)
too sunny.

Ashley (05:48)
I was like, no, totally, totally fine. It's, it's, you know, no big deal. Um, so that's a funny one, but one that sticks out to me is, um, you know, I think that like, when you see someone from like different sides of transactions, like you only get to know like one side of it, right. Or I think sometimes realtors, uh, like portrayed their emotions as what the seller's emotions or the buyer's emotions are. And nine times out of 10, that's probably not the case. I had a.

seller and, um, didn't meet the buyer, but there's a whole bunch of like home inspection things. And it just seemed like really difficult. And that other agent kept on saying how that buyer was extremely difficult. And I was like, okay, whatever. Go to closing. Like things are fine, but in my head, like in my head, I remember the name and whatever. was just like, oh, he seems difficult. Right. I think it's like maybe five years later, I get this call and this guy says he's, he was referred to me from.

lender and he was looking to buy a million dollar property like within a half hour martial, know, parts of you think that it's kind of a scam too, because it's not common in this area. ⁓ Seemed super nice on the phone. So was like, well, you should stop in some time. I'll send you a couple links. Then I started doing some research and I'm like, my gosh, it's the buyer from five years ago, like strange, right? Like that he'd call me or whatnot.

So I send him a couple of properties. He stops in one day, just at the office randomly and says, yep, yep, we want to look at this one. And it was like a 40 minute drive. I might've brought this up one other time, but, um, again, like I had only met him that one time and he seemed like nice guy, but you could also tell like he was very prompt and proper. And sometimes when you're driving 45 minutes away, like you don't know if you're going to be a couple minutes later whatever. So I text messaged him that I was on my way and I should be there by.

noon. And it turned out to be some of like the best clients I have ever had. You know, think I've sold four or five properties with them now. Great friends call them. I mean, we have funny stories. I'll come back to that in one second. And his wife told me one time that it all started when I text messaged him that I was on my way. Because he had said that no one ever took the time to

be that much attention to detail. So I this ongoing joke because every property that I sell, there sells in a week. And I was like, this is not common. Not, but each time I would be like, don't expect it to be a week. And then it was a week and I'd be like, my gosh, you guys like setting me up for failure here. Cause one of these times it's not going to happen, but they had closed. think it was maybe November or something. So this was like,

Steven L Burch (08:28)
Thank

Ashley (08:44)
Just before COVID, they had asked us to come over to help celebrate. And so he had this huge beer and wine collection. And so he had a couple drinks. And then I think he went to walk us out, but his bet, his wife had already gone to bed. Well, here it was like mini snowstorm or whatnot. I think we saw him like two weeks later and mind you, cause like they hadn't been there that long. They hadn't changed little colds or anything like that. So when he walked us out.

He actually locked him and the dog out of the house. And his wife was like full on asleep. So it was an ongoing joke. Cause then he actually only knew the code to the shop. So him and his dog slept in the shop that night, but it was an ongoing joke of like, well, when you hang out with Ashley and Ben and I was like, no, no, no. But it, right. So to me, it's like, you just never know who you're actually going to meet and you never know like.

Steven L Burch (09:18)
no.

Psst.

Ashley (09:41)
who they were before or who someone made them out to be versus who they actually are. And I could call him on a dime and they would help me with anything.

Steven L Burch (09:43)
Okay. ⁓

Yeah, that's awesome. I think it's great to see what kind of relationships that continue to evolve and continue after the transaction because I mean, it's you're in their personal life here, you're helping them through all of that. And so I think that those who, you know, are your people like definitely stick, but also there's the people that you don't want to stick like to the loo. I'm done with you, right? Like

And not that there's that many of them, but there definitely are those people that we did not jive. We don't need to be, we don't need to pretend it's okay. Got you to the table, did my job. Thank you for your business. So ⁓ adios.

Ashley (10:28)
Adios. you had any

other, besides ferrets, have you had any other random animals here?

Steven L Burch (10:36)
Ooh, random animals. So we had a rental that somebody skipped out on and it actually is or was our director of operations, Kim, her brother's rental that we were managing. And this is before Kim even came to work with us. So this is seven, eight, nine years ago. Yeah, it's been quite a while. So we go into the house and it's a little two bedroom.

One bath bungalow, cute little thing. And it was trashed, like trashed, trashed, trashed. And we're standing in the middle of the living room and all of a sudden both of us started itching. And we're like, what is that? We had fleas all over us to where we both like, we ran out and I was like, see, I gotta go, like, I gotta go home. I can't handle this. I have to go shower.

Ashley (11:25)
Micah.

Steven L Burch (11:35)
I legit parked in the driveway, was stripping down, running into the house, making sure that I did not take clothes inside with me. I had to go shower, like, ugh, and I still even get chills. So now we always joke ⁓ when we go to properties, like, how bad was it? Is it Casey, her brother's, ⁓ bad? Were there fleas, or is this just like, okay? So that's kind of our judge of how bad things really are. But other animals, I don't know.

Um, we had a raccoon this year, um, chew through the roof on a rental. And so we said, what? Like that's wild. Can you send a picture? And no shit. This is probably one of the cutest fucking pictures ever. This raccoons little head popped up out of the roof and the tenant actually got a really good picture. Well, come to find out that it was a mama and she had.

all her babies in there. So she went in there to, you know, yep, protect and everything. So we had to, of course, call in the specialist to come through and make sure that they handled them properly and all of that fun stuff because she had her cubs in there. but that was a really freaking, like, I actually thought it was AI. I was like, there's no way that this tenant is telling the truth. And that's the real picture. No shit, really was. So, wow.

Ashley (12:59)
That reminds

me, when you say properly removed, I think I mentioned it, but there was the time that the inspection discovered like 35 pounds of bat cats.

same thing like you can't just you can't kill them you like you have to have someone come and take all of them and yeah someone yeah the exterminators said they removed yeah I think that's like 30 pounds of that scat and I was like I just

Steven L Burch (13:25)
That's wild. I feel like there's a certain type of breed of bats that we have here in Kansas that there's only certain times of the year that you're allowed to actually remove them. So we had another rental that bats were up in the attic and the tenants were furious with us, which I mean, I understand like they're loud, whatever, you know, like you want them out and get it, but.

Ashley (13:39)
Yes.

Steven L Burch (13:52)
We can't do anything. mean, it's mandated. It's a federal law that, you know, or state law, I don't know, whatever. It's a law that we can't have them removed. So the exterminators actually had to leave them there and then schedule out, I think it was like three or four months into the future of coming back to actually be able to properly remove them when they're allowed to, when that band was lifted. I mean, animals, like we have no control over all of that. Like I wish I did, but.

I can't help you there, man. I'm sorry.

Ashley (14:23)
We'll do the best that we can. We'll find you someone to get rid of them.

Steven L Burch (14:26)
Yeah, I'm like, let me get you a professional, because I'm sure shit not going up there. Like, let me be real with you on that one. Like, that's not a me thing. Uh-uh. Not today. Not ever.

Ashley (14:38)
I think the other one was we were in a rental and I think it's a, is it like a Komodo dragon? Like it was like a decent size and it like rings out or whatever. And like we opened the door and it kind of reminded me of like Jurassic Park, like where they do the little things that come out or whatever. like we closed the door and we like ran like literally like right out of the house. And I was like, no, I'm good. We're good. Maybe should have been a heads up before we went in there.

Steven L Burch (14:49)
Like a massive one. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

That would have been nice. Another one that I remember is actually it was my one of my parents first home. So like full circle, like my whole family went through, know, lived in that house or whatever. And my aunt, Diana and her family lived there for the longest time. So then they sold and et cetera, et cetera. So fast forward. And I don't know what these people did to this house. Never looked the same.

but I think it went through or was about to go through foreclosure and went to go show the property. And, you know, of course, you're walking through there and you're going through memory lane yourself with like, I remember growing up here, you know, like coming out here and, you know, the pool and all of this fun stuff. But going to the basement and there are rows of fish tanks and there are, I mean, like,

It was almost like what you see in the movies for like a grow house, right? But this is for fish. And so they were breeding some sort of fish and there were just like six different rows, I think all the way through like end to end and just filled with a whole bunch of freaking fish. And I was like, what are they going to do? if it actually goes into foreclosure, like are they going to get all these fish out? What happens? And I was more worried about the freaking fish than I was trying to sell the freaking house.

⁓ but that house was disgusting. my God. No clue what they ever did with the fish. ⁓ and it definitely went into foreclosure.

Ashley (16:41)
think we had a couple of those pork

closure where they kept chickens in the basement.

Steven L Burch (16:45)
Mmm. ⁓

Ashley (16:46)
I mean, also,

like, I'm not sure I get that smell out. Like some of those are just not. So yeah, I mean, it, everyone sees all the, you know, shiny stars and everyone, you know, posts the pictures about these beautiful granite countertops, et cetera. But there's a whole nother realm of not so nice that we probably don't post a whole lot about for numerous reasons, but it's not all a shiny granite.

Steven L Burch (17:13)
No. I wish. The last one that I had, what didn't happen to me, but it happened to one of our agents. He was brand new. He showed a rural property to a family and they had a little kid and the little kid had to go to the bathroom. He had to go number two. And they did not know that the water was not on, so left everything in the toilet.

Um, he called the other agent and said, Hey, I'm going to run to the gas station, which is 20, 30 minutes away, whatever. Um, but I have two more showings for this family, but I'll go back. Well, in the meantime, there was another showing of an age for an agent. Uh, they went through the property, whatever the case may be. The listing agent went out to the property and couldn't get into the lockbox. And so they called, um, Ryan and not me for.

whatever reason, I don't know why. But we're talking to Ryan about how, or they wanted our agent to replace the lock box, pay for a locksmith to go out there, have the entire house professionally cleaned because it was completely unprofessional of them to allow somebody to use the restroom. And all of the stuff that basically went on about how all of these issues were our agent's fault because the kid went to the bathroom in the toilet.

And let me tell you, there's probably been two times in my career with Ryan that I snatched that freaking phone out of his hand because what got me was we're going to go ahead and tell all of our sellers that this is how Next Home agents will, you know, they will, this is how they handle their transactions. And I grabbed that phone and said, let me tell you right there.

Ashley (18:57)
Nope.

Steven L Burch (19:01)
Yeah, you can't do that, but if you want to play the game, let's flip the script because we do a lot of freaking deals together and she didn't know that I was in the room. So of course she had a backtrack and, you know, try to peddle back and, know, if we need to pay for a locksmith, like at the end of the day, no, because you should have another freaking set of keys. So our practice for our company is we have a set of keys for every property, just in case for those different things.

⁓ so that's all on you. Another agent went and showed the property, closed it up. This has nothing to do with us. We were going to go out there, but it can't have to go to the bathroom. My gosh. Like, you know, mean, yeah. So people are wild, wild stories. Not everything is so glamorous at all. Like it is what it is, but it always keeps you on your toes. And that is one thing I do enjoy about real estate.

Ashley (19:42)
What are you supposed to do?

Steven L Burch (19:57)
No two transactions are ever the same. No two days are ever really the same. It's just wild, wild west sometimes. It's fun. Cool. Great topic. is always good to go down memory lane with those things. So thank you guys for listening today and make sure that you tune in next time. We appreciate you.