It was 2019.
Our buyer wanted to purchase two high-value properties at the same time.
There was just one condition:
either he could buy both of them, or he didn’t want either one.
Each apartment was priced at around HUF 400 million .
That is serious money even today.
But back in 2019, a simultaneous HUF 800 million sale was the kind of transaction that could have put an agent at the top of the sales rankings even at the largest real estate networks.
And we were just a relatively small, 17-person agency at the time.
So yes, it was rather exciting. 🙂
One of the selected apartments was just about to be rented out. A tenant had already been found, willing to pay several million forints a month, but the owner was also open to selling if the right offer came along.
At the other property, a commercial lease worth several million forints a year had just expired.
Everything seemed to be falling perfectly into place.
We prepared both offers.
Since the two completely unrelated sellers needed to accept them at practically the same time, we invited both of them to our office for the same appointment.
Two separate rooms.
Two colleagues.
Doors open.
And me running back and forth between the two rooms, trying to make sure the signatures happened virtually simultaneously.
We simply couldn’t risk one seller accepting while the other refused.
Because then our buyer would have wanted neither property.
We were almost there.
Pens ready.
Documents on the tables.
And then one of the sellers suddenly asked:
– And what happens if the tenant exercises the right of first refusal in the lease agreement?
...
THE WHAAAAAT????
Until that moment, I had never heard a single word about it.
The sales colleague had somehow forgotten to note this “tiny” detail in the listing agreement.
And had also completely forgotten to mention it to me — the person responsible for closing the transactions.
SIGNING STOPPED.
I spent the following week trying to do two things at once:
while finding out whether the tenant of the other property intended to exercise their right of first refusal.
while finding out whether the tenant of the other property intended to exercise their right of first refusal..
And if they did…
how I could persuade them otherwise with the least possible collateral damage.
It wasn’t easy.
But I found a way.
Both sales went through successfully.
Our buyer got both properties.
Both sellers sold.
And we successfully closed the HUF 800 million transaction.
At this point, I could probably offer some profound professional wisdom about how, in a complex real estate transaction, every tiny piece of information matters.
But there is another memory from that day that has proved far more enduring.
That was the day the walls of my office — and my “forgetful” colleague — discovered the particular glass-shattering pitch of my scream that nobody had ever heard from me before.
Not once in 58 years. 😇
Sometimes real estate is surreal.
And we love it.
Thinking of selling your property?
Let’s talk. +36-30-940-0839
