Josh Sanders, Founder of Shiloh Street
I’ve heard some crazy open house stories about homes for sale in Bothell Washington, and the surrounding cities, but this was one of the more mind-boggling ones. 
One of our real estate agents was holding an open house for a client this weekend. It was super sunny here in Seattle (this home was in Bothell, WA) so of course everybody was outside soaking it in.
Not too many buyers tend to tour open houses on these kinds of days in the Puget Sound area. When we get one of our 13 days of sun here, we take advantage!
So our agent held this open house for 3 hours and the only person to walk through was this 14 year old boy. Yeah, a 14 year old! He expected a slow day but not a young teenager by himself!
Was he looking to buy his first home? Was he just running ahead of his parents who were close behind? Was he casing the joint for his friends later that night?
These were all the thoughts running through the agent’s mind. Of course, he wanted to protect the seller’s home so he followed and peppered this kid with questions, trying to figure out what in the world he was doing there.
The scary thing was this teenage “first-time-home-buyer-wanna-be” seemed to know the layout of the house already, the dog’s name, where she would have been, the owner’s names, etc. That just made things more confusing. How did he know all this?
When kid finally left, the agent gave me a call in a bit of a panic to tell me the story. I relayed the info to the sellers with the name of the boy (at least it was the name he told our agent).
Fortunately, it turned out to be a neighbor boy the sellers knew and for whatever reason, he wanted to tour some open houses that day! I guess he was just getting a few year head start on shopping for his first home.
So this time turned out fine but here’s the deal for you home sellers out there…..
DON’T LEAVE YOUR VALUABLES OUT! This 14 year old neighbor boy could have been a 14 year old aspiring thief or a 35 year old professional looter. Don’t give people a reason to come back and try to steal anything!
Strange people come into open houses at times and there have been some especially funky stories here in Seattle, Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond and South Seattle. Yes, they’re rare occurrences but still a reality you need to be aware of.
The last thing I want to see are homes for sale in Bothell Washington, or any area, getting looted for grandma’s china or Hank Aaron autographed baseballs at 3am!
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