The Staircase Collapsed Under Them

Ben Garner is a Realtor out of Baltimore Maryland sharing his craziest real estate experiences. A staircase collapsed under them, A pool that lifted up out of the ground several feet like the titanic. Ground Leases that have been around a few hundred years and the mystery of the tombstones in the backyard.   

* A special thank you to Ben Garner, Realtor with 212 Realty in Baltimore Maryland.   www.homesby212.com,  240-216-7841,  Ben@homesby212.com

* Produced by: Brandon Pease, Linkedpreview.com (Real Estate centric multimedia company & Veteran Owned) 
This Podcast is a way to share your experiences. 
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Transcript

[00:00:00] David Haghighi: Welcome back to real estate is crazy. Hi, I'm David Hagi. I'm Christina Smith. And today we are going to watch and discuss with a wonderful side agent from 

[00:00:14] Christina Smith: Baltimore, Maryland. Yeah. Ben garner. He's amazing. Let's roll him. Hello and welcome. I have Ben garner with two 12 Realty from out in Baltimore. I'm really excited to have you here today.

[00:00:28] Ben. Thank you for coming. 

[00:00:29] Ben Garner: Yeah, I am super excited to be here. So thank you for having me. 

[00:00:33] Christina Smith: Yeah. So you're with the same company, but you have your own brand two 12 Realty. Yeah. And what area do you work out there in Baltimore? 

[00:00:43] Ben Garner: Really the greater Baltimore, uh, region. We go into Howard county, Baltimore county Arundel.

[00:00:50] Uh, we do a lot of business in Baltimore city and that's where some of my most extreme stories come from. Um but yeah, we, we really service anywhere in the [00:01:00] greater Baltimore metropolitan. 

[00:01:02] Christina Smith: Awesome. And you have several stories to share with us. The first was you were working with a buyer. Yep. And there was a pretty, almost good that could have been a serious situation.

[00:01:14] So why don't you share with us what 

[00:01:15] Ben Garner: happened? Yeah, this was very early on in my, in my career. I'd been licensed for like all of seven minutes at this point. Um, so I was working with a couple of investors. We were looking at some of the worst of the worst properties. Uh, this was in Hartford county actually.

[00:01:30] Um, we had six houses. We were seeing that day, we get through five of 'em we're on our last one and, and this place is it's a dump. Um, everything else was a dump, but this was, I guess, extra the worst 

[00:01:42] Christina Smith: dump of them. All exactly. A big steaming pile of dumbness. 

[00:01:46] Ben Garner: that's I think that's a polite way to put it. Um, yeah.

[00:01:49] So as a husband and wife, we did the main level. We went upstairs, surprisingly, everything was going well. Um, and then we walk into the base. So [00:02:00] as we're walking down, uh, the steps, the wife's in front of me, then it's myself and then the husband behind us. And I could tell the wife was getting a little nervous.

[00:02:09] So I tell her, I'm like, you know, don't worry about it. I'll go down first. The basement looked like something out of, one of the saw movies. So it was like super creepy and dingy and I'm walking down the steps. And as I walk down the steps, I, I turn to the wife and I say, you know, Hey, you might wanna be careful.

[00:02:25] These steps feel a little loose. . And as soon as I said that the staircase collapsed her and oh my God, we both fell. I'd say six to eight feet. I was one step ahead of her and I landed first and I kind of caught her, um, at least braced her fall a little bit. But yeah, we, we fell through the steps and the husband's standing at the top and he's screaming to see if everybody's okay.

[00:02:52] I'm just making sure, like nobody broke like a leg or anything like that. Yeah. Was everyone 

[00:02:57] Christina Smith: okay? Oh my 

[00:02:58] Ben Garner: gosh. Fortunately, [00:03:00] we were, she, she had a little bit of a limp. I think that might have been like shock. Fortunately we were okay. And this was about six years ago. So I don't know now that I'm six years older, if my, my bones would stand that kind of a fall

[00:03:15] Christina Smith: But yes, I don't think my bones can handle sitting on a couch when I'm on my computer for a few minutes, let alone falling through a 

[00:03:21] Ben Garner: staircase. Yeah. And, and it was just like, it was one of those moments, like what just happened and we look back. Like we're fortunate. Nobody got hurt. We really are. 

[00:03:31] Christina Smith: Yeah. Was this the first time you were meeting them or had you shown them houses before?

[00:03:35] Because that would've been a terrible icebreaker. This was the first 

[00:03:37] Ben Garner: time I met them. Oh no. And we did continue to work together. They, they appreciated the fact that like I offered a call, like an ambulance if they needed one. Yeah. Um, I did call the listing agent and I told her what happened. And as soon as I said, like, yeah, we're okay.

[00:03:56] She then said, all right, I'm gonna send you a hold harmless agreement. [00:04:00] 

[00:04:00] Christina Smith: what are you serious? Yeah. What a jerk. Yeah. What a 

[00:04:04] Ben Garner: jerk move. It definitely, definitely went the wrong way. I didn't know any better, better, you know, I called my yeah. Team leader and you know, he was, he, his first question was making sure everybody was okay and yeah, nobody need to go see a doctor or anything.

[00:04:18] Christina Smith: Well, of course that's the right thing to do you don't just, 

[00:04:21] Ben Garner: yeah, but I hadn't even heard of a hold harmless agreement at that point. 

[00:04:26] Christina Smith: Yeah, well, because I mean, that's an important topic is that if someone gets injured on your property, They could Sue you. They definitely could. And you'd have to use your homeowner's insurance.

[00:04:37] Yeah. So, and, and I mean, you were injured on their property because of the condition of the staircase. I mean, she definitely should have made sure that the house was safe before people were coming through 100%. 

[00:04:49] Ben Garner: And I mean, these were not. Abnormally large people these were, it was just three of us standing on a staircase.

[00:04:58] It's just, [00:05:00] nobody had been in that house for weeks. I'd say, and nobody had taken care of that house in probably decades. 

[00:05:07] Christina Smith: Yeah. Something for people to think about, man, if you're walking through a home and you can see that it's really dilapidated and you just gotta be careful, you just gotta watch yourself.

[00:05:17] Thank goodness you were in front of her. Yeah. And, 

[00:05:19] Ben Garner: and now I instilled this with everybody on my team. If we're gonna go look at a house, anytime it requires a hold harmless agreement, we get one of the other agents to go with us. Like yeah. Just to make sure that everybody's. Um, I also, I've called friends, family.

[00:05:35] I've called my wife. Hey, if I don't call you back in 20 minutes, like this house looks dangerous. 

[00:05:41] Christina Smith: Yeah. You know what? That's true. My husband has the GPS on my phone so we can see how long I've been at a property. And if it's been more than, like you said, 20, 30 minutes, that's a problem. 

[00:05:53] Ben Garner: And I've, I've also learned.

[00:05:55] And that was a good experience. It is also okay to say. You know, [00:06:00] there's, there are qualified contractors that know where to walk on Joyces and know where soft spots are that, you know what let's bring them in. You know, I'll, I'll open the door. I'll tell you everything about the property. I'll tell you what it's worth when it's finished.

[00:06:16] But you can have somebody else walk through it. , I'll walk 

[00:06:19] Christina Smith: up your, and you sent me a picture of these stairs, which I will have the producer share. Yeah. Like Bing right now . And then, um, and speaking of contractors, I mean, crazy stuff doesn't always happen with just the buyer side. You've had some crazy experiences when you've listed a home for sale.

[00:06:39] Yeah, 

[00:06:39] Ben Garner: this was, uh, definitely my craziest listing. Um, this was, uh, a, a couple in litum Heights. It's a little bit south of the city. Um, they had warned me about the pool before I arrived and they warned, they warned me, was it a 

[00:06:55] Christina Smith: soft warning? Like , 

[00:06:57] Ben Garner: it was like, oh, you know, we got something we wanna show you out [00:07:00] back.

[00:07:00] We got a 

[00:07:00] Christina Smith: couple issues 

[00:07:01] Ben Garner: with the pool. Yeah. And. You know, I, I walked through the house. They'd really taken good care of it. They'd lived there for 30 years and you know, it was, it was man, well maintained, maybe a little dated, but you know what, it, wasn't the worst I've seen. Yeah. And they kept saying, well, just wait until you see the pool.

[00:07:19] And I saw the pool, sticking out of the ground. 

[00:07:24] Christina Smith: oh my gosh, we're gonna post a picture of it so that you guys could get a good idea because when you described it to me, I couldn't quite. Envision what this was. And what do you think caused it? So here's the picture. and then you're gonna tell us, what did they say happened to the pool?

[00:07:45] Ben Garner: Yeah, so they, they said that they were asleep one night, about six months ago and they heard this loud boom in the backyard and they, they walked out back in the concrete. Now this was an inground pool. This is not an above [00:08:00] ground pool. The concrete had cracked in the middle of the pool. Their thought is water got underneath of it.

[00:08:07] Froze. Expanded and then caused the crack into the pool and then it just kept happening. Cause they didn't use it for a couple years and the husband went outside and it kind of looked like the Titanic. The pool was cracked in half and was sticking out. I mean, I'm about five foot 10 and the pool was over my head.

[00:08:26] Like the concrete was over my head and the gap. Oh my, like I could have fallen in between the gap between the concrete and where the pool originally was. 

[00:08:35] Christina Smith: That's so dangerous. Did you end up calling anybody? To take a look. I mean, it looks like a, like you said, a pit that someone could just fall down into.

[00:08:44] Yeah. 

[00:08:45] Ben Garner: We actually had to get three different contractors to go look and no one had ever seen anything like that before. And fortunately we found somebody who worked in concrete that was able to break the pool up and then carry it away in pieces and then fill [00:09:00] everything in with dirt. You know, you got a big, giant dirt mound in your, in your backyard, but it's better than a concrete pool sticking out.

[00:09:08] Christina Smith: yeah. I mean, especially if you have buyers coming through, I mean, what did buyers, did you fix it before the buyers came through or afterwards? 

[00:09:15] Ben Garner: Yeah, we, we had a buyer come through and it was in the condition that it was in, but they were working on. And okay. We had a big disclaimer and they signed all the proper paperwork.

[00:09:26] I mean, you, you couldn't miss it, but based off of the contractor's timeline, the seller's timeline, we got everything on the market. We were a little selective with some of the pictures, but we, we warned everyone and I made sure to reach out to every buyer's agent, just. Look, there's this craziness happening with the pool that's being taken care of.

[00:09:47] And we found a buyer that was able to look past it. They, they saw what the yard space would look like without the pool. And as long as we got everything in writing, they were good with moving forward and they made it to closing. [00:10:00] 

[00:10:01] Christina Smith: That's great. I mean, I didn't know this statistic. I heard it, but only 13% of people can actually envision what something can be.

[00:10:10] Mm-hmm , which is why it's kind of important to fix those things because the rest of them, they come through and they look at something they cannot see past. They can't see past the bright neon orange, you know, paint on the wall or the giant pool sticking up out of the earth. That's going to swallow them all.

[00:10:30] They can't see that as a fixable thing. And then they end up passing on a great house because of it. So, um, at least you were, you thought ahead and made sure you got the quotes and made sure that they knew it could be remedied. Yeah, that's crazy. 

[00:10:44] Ben Garner: And we definitely had the right buyer, you know, they, they wanted to be in this particular neighborhood.

[00:10:49] The buyer was a contractor as well, so, oh, that's good. He, he was comfortable. He knew knowing, you know, Hey, this is gonna be something that's fixed. And we were super above board with everything. So [00:11:00] that was, that was really helpful. 

[00:11:02] Christina Smith: Yeah. Cuz there's a lot of realtors that wouldn't be above board with it.

[00:11:04] They would just try to pass it off and be like, oh no, it's not a problem. And then next thing you know, you've gotta, what are those pits that are just people used to dump trash in them in like the 1950s? I can't think of it right now, but um, Oh man, have like a giant fire. I got brain fart back. I can't think of it.

[00:11:26] It's yeah, it's a sinkhole. Yeah, sinkhole. what if it's a giant sinkhole in their yard and, and you know, the agent's like, oh yeah, no big deal. You just fill it with dirt and then you buy the house and you find out it's a sinkhole. Yeah. That's the kind of stuff that realtors will do. And, 

[00:11:40] Ben Garner: and, and I've been on the other side of that, where, you know, look, this is a real issue.

[00:11:44] I, a situation where the. We're literally flickering in the house, cuz it wasn't getting enough power to the house and the agent's like, yeah, the house just kind of does that. That's not safe. 

[00:11:57] Christina Smith: so are you sure it wasn't. Because there was leg [00:12:00] ghosts or something in the 

[00:12:00] Ben Garner: house. I mean, we, we could have gotten like a lit some like mace and or burned some Sage and maybe make that round.

[00:12:08] Yeah. 

[00:12:08] Christina Smith: Mace mace the ghost. 

[00:12:11] Ben Garner: Yeah.

[00:12:15] Christina Smith: Some Sage, for sure. Anything with flickering lights, it either needs a light bulb or Sage. It's just one 

[00:12:21] Ben Garner: of the two things I was hoping it was just a light bulb, but yeah, that, that house did not get enough juice. And that was like a real problem. 

[00:12:27] Christina Smith: Yeah, well, but not everything in real estate is bad. There are some crazy situations that are actually really positive and really good.

[00:12:36] And they happen once in a while. And it kind of takes you by surprise when it does. And you have a similar story. 

[00:12:42] Ben Garner: Yeah. This is one of my favorite stories, cuz it, it has a very, very happy ending. And um, it also helps that these are for two of my really good friends. Um, mm-hmm so I'm happy that they were involved with such a happy ending.

[00:12:54] We were looking at a house in my neighborhood in Hamden, and they went ahead. They wrote an [00:13:00] offer. We were doing our home inspection and the buyer was talking to the neighbor next door. The buyer in, in my terms, um, has family that's OG Baltimore. and her mm-hmm her grandfather was one of the, um, fire marshals at one of the local, you know, jurisdictions 

[00:13:20] Christina Smith: and oh, and you know, people in those positions, everybody knows them.

[00:13:24] Yeah. 

[00:13:24] Ben Garner: Yeah. And we, we were talking to the neighbor who was a firefighter and recognized her last name and asked, Hey, is this your grandfather? And she was like, yeah, this's my grandfather. And oh, I such a great guy. So we, we finish up with the inspection. There was only a couple things, nothing really major.

[00:13:42] The biggest thing was like the fence was kind of falling down, but you know, that's not a deal breaker for these buyers. Yeah. We come back for the final walkthrough and the fence is gone. We're like what? 

[00:13:53] Christina Smith: everything. So I always say this realtor brain tries to figure out what happened and like, [00:14:00] what was my first thought?

[00:14:01] Would've been someone stole the fence 

[00:14:02] Ben Garner: E exactly. And everything. Someone stole the fence, everything was so smooth up until this point. I go into like full CSI mode. I'm like, Taking screenshots of like pictures and like pictures of the fence. And like you've got like schematics and looking for tracks.

[00:14:18] Yeah. I'm like dusting footprints. And we, we end up calling the, the listing agent and he, I guess, knew the neighbors or the sellers or sellers talk to the neighbors and they replaced the fence that was falling over as a, as a kind gesture to thank the buyer and her grandfather. 

[00:14:38] Christina Smith: Oh, I love that. 

[00:14:40] Ben Garner: Yeah. And they had this beautiful new fence and.

[00:14:43] Like everything just worked out to such a good feel, good moment. But for, for, for like a split second, like I'm like, we're going to court and like, we're gonna 

[00:14:52] Christina Smith: document. You're like, someone's going down. They stole the crappy fence that was over 

[00:14:58] Ben Garner: me. And I'm like, and I'm glad I did [00:15:00] that. And they, they give me a hard time to this day.

[00:15:02] Like she jumped right in the written action, but I'm glad I did that. Cause you know, my buyer. She, she was a first time buyer and, you know, yeah. Her, her husband, you know, wasn't there for the walkthrough and we just wanna make sure that, that last walkthrough, before you go to closing, you had that feel good moment of like, yes, I'm making the right decision.

[00:15:22] And then when you, when you don't like, it's kind of scary 

[00:15:26] Christina Smith: yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, I think the worst thing, and I've learned this out here. Sellers should never turn off their electric. And they do it all the time. Instead of transferring the service, they shut it off and they forget to empty out the ice tray.

[00:15:43] Mm-hmm so the first thing I do is jet over there and it's happened so many times water, you know, the ice melts it, leaks all over the floors. And, and ruins the floors right when you're supposed to close escrow. Yep. So that's like the first thing I do I say, please, don't, don't [00:16:00] shut off the power, cuz I don't wanna deal with melted ice all over these hardwood floors in this 

[00:16:05] Ben Garner: kitchen.

[00:16:05] Yeah. Yeah. Or even worse if they do it in the winter time in a pipe bursts, 

[00:16:11] Christina Smith: you know what though? That's we don't have that here. so, you know, Baltimore. Real estate is different from state to state. It just is. So what is something weird or crazy about real estate that people should know, especially if they're moving there.

[00:16:26] Yeah. And they're not familiar with buying a home. So 

[00:16:28] Ben Garner: Baltimore is one of like three areas that still has this. It's a, an archaic system called ground rent. Basically what it is is it's a system that was set up like a hundred, 200 years ago where the one percenters, the wealthy individuals, they were allowed to purchase land and they would lease it out to us.

[00:16:52] Common folk to build houses on. And you would pay a semi-annual rent, a [00:17:00] marginal amount. You know, I've seen some as low as like $25. I've seen some as high as $250 every six months. And if you didn't pay it, they could put a lien on your house. So that's been passed down generation to generation and it still exists.

[00:17:17] I'd say out of every, you know, 10, 20 houses we sell 1, 2, 3 of them have ground rental on. Um, even the first house that I bought had ground rent on it. So chances 

[00:17:29] Christina Smith: I've never heard of that 

[00:17:30] Ben Garner: ever. And it makes zero sense. I wish the state would get rid of it, but there, there are people that actually invest in ground rents and they buy them and they collect, you know, money each every six months.

[00:17:42] And if you don't pay it, you can still get a lie on your house. So, oh my gosh. 

[00:17:47] Christina Smith: Gosh, that's so crazy. It 

[00:17:49] Ben Garner: really is. And chances are, if there's ground on a house, the person that owns it either is dead or doesn't know that they have it. So [00:18:00] you, the solution to that is then the seller has to escrow money. It's this whole big to do.

[00:18:04] They escrow it for three years and then it's refunded to them. I just wish Maryland would get, get rid of it entirely. 

[00:18:12] Christina Smith: oh my gosh. That's weird. That's crazy. Yeah. I've never heard of that. I mean, of course we don't have things like that because, oh, I don't know. We're California and people came out here to, you know, find gold.

[00:18:23] Right. might invest in land and do ground leases, like smart people. like, we didn't have any of that. Yeah. It, wow. That's crazy. 

[00:18:32] Ben Garner: The there's. And then I'll take it one step further. There's one street in my neighborhood. where usually ground rent is by the address. Mm-hmm, , there's one street where it's one ground rent for the entire street and there's, there's one individual who owns it and he's still with us and he collects.

[00:18:52] So if you buy, so he must have inherited 

[00:18:55] Christina Smith: it. Yeah. It's probably been, so his ancestors own the land. Mm-hmm people [00:19:00] built on it and that's. Insane. Yeah. How old is he? Is he gonna pass on soon? Like , 

[00:19:08] Ben Garner: I'm, I'm sure that's something that he's got that he's gonna give to one of his heirs. I mean, maybe he'll give it to me.

[00:19:13] That would be nice. 

[00:19:15] Christina Smith: wow. That's that's crazy. Yeah. Wow. It's a, I don't even know what to say about that. I've never heard of that. And if someone's moving there, they would need to understand what that is. So if someone's moving to your area, how can they get ahold of you? 

[00:19:30] Ben Garner: Yeah, easiest way is to go to our website it's homes by two twelve.com and that's plural.

[00:19:38] So homes by two twelve.com. Uh, you can always give me a, uh, a call I'm at (240) 216-7841. Uh, or you can send me an email Ben homes by two 12 dot. 

[00:19:51] Christina Smith: Um, awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna put your contact information in the show notes, but I really appreciate you speaking with us and sharing your stories. And [00:20:00] Hey, if you come up with any other crazy situations, you know who to call.

[00:20:04] Ben Garner: Absolutely. No, there's plenty more. Baltimore is a very interesting town with lots of history, but I think with history comes. Interesting home sales 

[00:20:14] Christina Smith: with history comes great responsibility. Yeah. Do you have people who have like cemeteries in their homes? I know that's like an offshoot. 

[00:20:22] Ben Garner: I, I, I don't, but this is another crazy story.

[00:20:25] This was in a neighborhood called Westminster, which is like 45 minutes north, uh, Northwest of the city. And we're doing our walkthrough and we did find headstones on the property. And one of them said, Cody, Like C O D Y. And we're like, oh, no. Like we immediately felt the worst. Cody was their dog. 

[00:20:47] Christina Smith: Oh, right.

[00:20:49] Oh 

[00:20:49] Ben Garner: my God. Yeah, but we like for a second, like all of our hearts broke. It was like a moment. Oh no. 

[00:20:57] Christina Smith: Yeah. So was it one headstone or [00:21:00] multiple headstones? 

[00:21:00] Ben Garner: Uh, I think there was one for the dog, the cat, and maybe like a hamster. So 

[00:21:03] Christina Smith: was it pet cemetery with S yeah, they really loved their pets. Geez. Yeah, they really did.

[00:21:13] Well, thank you so much, Ben. It was a pleasure talking to you and we'll definitely have you back soon. 

[00:21:18] Ben Garner: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. It's been great. 

[00:21:22] Christina Smith: All right. Bye-bye. All right. 

[00:21:24] Ben Garner: That's it 

[00:21:25] Christina Smith: awesome. I'm so excited. That was so good. That's like, like five little sub clips. Yeah. They're 

[00:21:33] Ben Garner: they're quick. I mean, but I felt like I got on a roller.

[00:21:36] I'm like, oh, I got another story. 

[00:21:38] Christina Smith: yeah. You know, Hey, if you think of anything, like you message me and be like, Hey, I thought of another story. Or, Hey, my team member has a story, so definitely use 

[00:21:48] Ben Garner: this. I should connect you with Megan. Megan. Yeah. Almost had to go to the us embassy to get a seller to sign like from Pakistan.

[00:21:59] [00:22:00] It was a whole to do, I think Megan's now on like a list or something. Oh, Is that a good 

[00:22:07] Christina Smith: list 

[00:22:07] Ben Garner: or a bad list? I mean, I don't control the list but yeah, she was calling around like she on the naughty list , I mean, it worked out, she went way above and beyond for her client, but like, she was, wow. She called Pakistan to like, get this seller to sign.

[00:22:23] like, how do you call Pakistan? 

[00:22:26] Christina Smith: You know? I don't know, but it's kind of when you're put into it, thrust into a situation that's often when you have to like, figure this shit out. Yeah. And. Then will you end up doing weird things? And 

[00:22:38] Ben Garner: that was her first transaction. Oh no, 

[00:22:43] Christina Smith: I don't. And she's still in real 

[00:22:44] Ben Garner: estate.

[00:22:44] She's still in real estate. She's still in real estate. I had to promise her. I'm like, I promise they're not all like this, like, this is 

[00:22:49] Christina Smith: weird. You can't promise that though, because that was really, a lot of them are like the big majority of them 

[00:22:55] Ben Garner: are pretty nuts. Yeah. Yeah. She definitely dove into the, uh, deep end [00:23:00] very quickly.

[00:23:01] Christina Smith: Oh, wow. Well, I'm gonna let you go. I'm gonna stop recording boo.