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If I wasn’t the listing agent, we would not have bought the house

Tammy Jo Budzynski • June 26, 2022


There are 4,000 realtors in Grand Rapids and I was selected to sell/list the home. I remember getting the call. Sitting at my desk, Ann, the seller had reached out to me. She said her mother had passed away and she had to handle the estate. She gave me the address and I pulled it up on the computer and my jaw dropped. I told her that even if she didn’t select me as her realtor, that I would be honored to meet her and see the inside. 


Touring the home, I was mesmerized. There was so much to take in. I was now walking through the house that I had always put on a pedestal. It was dimly lit, curtains were drawn, but you could tell that it once held magic. 


We sat down in the kitchen at a small built-in table. Her family's attorney who had been handling the estate told her she could let the house go back to the bank or try selling it in the hottest real estate market we have ever seen. Ann said she didn’t know any realtors, but liked and trusted Dave Ramsey, so she went onto his website and was given a few realtors to check. I was one of them. 


Once we finished strategizing about her options, she said, “I trust you, you are the right person for this.'' Honestly, I was in shock. I went back to the office in disbelief. I turned to my husband Max, “We got it”. “You're kidding,'' he replied. 


Max asked me 3 times before we listed it if we could buy the home. I told him, “No” every time. “Babe, we are not paying $700,000 for this. The home needs way too much work for this size of property, we can’t afford it. As the listing agent, it is my job to get the seller the highest price she can get in this market.” And that is where I honestly thought my story with this home would end. I would sell the house and we would be done. 


But fate intervened. 


The house hit the market in May 2021 and it became Zillow’s top property in a matter of hours with over 50,000 views. Seeing what was happening I reached out to WZZM, the local news channel to see if they wanted to cover the story.  I felt there was a news story here. Everyone seemed to want to know about the mansion that had been locked away behind a gate for years. The Mystery Mansion as they so named it. 


As the listing agent it was my duty to protect the house and the sellers objectives. I therefore required POF (proof of funds) OR a preapproval letter before a showing could be scheduled. I didn’t want a free for all. I had agents calling me to let me know they didn't have a buyer but could they join me when I showed it. They just wanted to see it! I had agents call me pissed off that their clients were insulted that I required proof of their ability to buy. In this market, most homes sold in a few days, but the days began to pass by. I was perplexed. What I knew was an amazing house, no one seemed to be making an offer on. We even had a couple of 2nd showings, but no one pulled the trigger. Either way, in the hottest real estate market to date, we had 22 showings on the home in two weeks. No buyers. 


It was in that second week that the calls that I was getting started to change, and with it, so did my perspective.  The calls were no longer from buyers interested in it for themselves, but from investors. Investors that wanted to tear it down. They seemed to crawl out of the woodwork. Now when my phone rang and the voice on the other end said, “Yeah, calling about 2615 Plainfield” my hand would start to quiver and I could feel my body tense. It was the last call that I received that put me over the edge. 

My phone rang, “Hello, Tammy Jo speaking, how may I help?”

“Calling about the house on Plainfield” he said

“Yes, what questions may I help you with sir?”

“How many lots?” he responded.

“Six.” I replied, as I took a gulp of air.

“What can I build there?” 

“I am sorry sir, I do not know. The seller isn’t looking to have the home torn down, so I have not researched in that direction.”

“So? They can’t tell me what to do with it after we close. I will do my own research. Good bye.” Click.

I put the phone down. I took a breath to calm my racing heart. 

“‘MAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I screamed, “Come Here!!” 

“What?” he said.

“I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t. I can't field these questions anymore from these investors. The property is worth more than the house. Buyers don't want to live in it. Investors tell me there is not enough money to make any money on a flip. All that is left now is to tear it down. It is time to step it up! You tell me you love this house. You have asked me 3 times to buy it and I have turned you down. We just can’t let it be torn down. It is just not right. We have to buy it. We have to do something. I just can't take any more of these calls.” At that moment,  tears began to flow freely. The anxiety that must have been building with all the calls that I had been fielding had finally been released. 


So I want to be clear. We didn't have a plan. At that time, we didn't even know where the down payment was going to come from. We just knew that this was now our path. A path that we didn't plan, but that we were going to follow. 


If this property had been listed by another realtor, it would have been WOW, COOL, what an AMAZING home, and then it would have faded back out of sight into the busyness of our lives,  where you then wonder months later, hey what happened to that?  But because I fielded EVERY call, I began to take it personally. The fight to save it became ours’ to carry. 


We took a leap of faith. 




I called Ann, the seller. I told her that Max and I had chosen to write an offer on the home. She agreed to meet me so that I could present it, but told me upfront she would not do anything with it until after the weekend so she could talk with the family. 


We met for lunch. I told her I was going to be “wearing” two hats. One hat was the buyer and one as her listing agent. I presented her the offer and that at that price, I would NOT take any real estate commission on either the buy or listing side which amounted to a total of $37,500. 


I then said, “Okay, now it is time for me to put on my listing agent hat!” She laughed. I pulled up statistics on every showing, the dates of the showings, the feedback from the showings, how many we had and that most showings took place the first week and already that was going down to barely any in the second week. I told her that it was my recommendation that we then notify ALL realtors that have shown the property that we have received an offer to see if anyone else was interested.


I remember it like yesterday, Ann paused. Looked up and said, “No, you have shown me all the data. Your offer is good. If the other buyers that have had multiple showings were serious, in the hottest market that people keep telling me that we are in, then they are either not serious or going to make me a lowball offer. No, it is your’s.” She then leaned down, grabbed a pen and proceeded to sign the offer. 


She didn’t take it home as she told me and she caught me off guard. I remember saying, “Are you sure?” 


“Yes,” she responded. “It is your’s.”


The home was now safe. We posted the home as Pending on the MLS. The home was no longer for sale. The following week a backup offer came in. I met with Ann to present it. The offer was slightly higher in price, but because it didn’t remove real estate commissions it was a LESSER net proceeds to the seller. I relayed to Ann that this was a great backup plan. Max and I were still navigating costs on the immediate repairs that were required (the boiler had just died a week into the listing) and we were not sure if we could “swing’ this yet  and to have a back offer was nice to have. Seeing that just a couple of weeks before we closed, a large white pine tree that we loved was struck by lightning and split from tip to root. Another $5,000 had to get added into our ever growing budget.


Ann was just so worried for us and kept asking, “Oh TJ I don't want you to be stressed out, this house is so much work and so much money to maintain.” 


I assured her that it would be okay. Our new joke became that repairs were not just an extra Zero on an invoice but an extra Three Zeros!! LOL  When we started to plan on that, we never seemed to get surprised on “estimates” anymore. 


For closing, our daughters Addison and Natalie were excited. They dressed up in dresses and danced around the closing room giving performances. Ann and her daughter were all smiles. We laughed as we told and shared stories about our journey together. 


It was during one of these moments that I looked at Ann and asked her a question that had been on my heart since the day I met her.


“Why Me? I blurted out. 

She looked at me and smiled, “I knew it from the moment I met you, the house chose you.”


So that is how it came to be. 


How me, a realtor,  became the owner of  The Vander Jagt. 


Ann said it best, “It was providence”. 

The Boys are Back on the Block

By pdspages • June 12, 2022
Inspiration comes from the “wildest” of places. With each step of this restoration, we have learned not to rush, but to listen to the house. What does it want, what feels right? It may sound silly, but for us, the house seems to reveal to us what it wants us to do next. Not sure what to do with the space, give it a little time, and all of a sudden, the house will tell you. It was Max, my husband that had the initial idea. “Lions,” he blurted out of nowhere. And then he got lost in his head again, thinking. “Yes,” I replied, “It has Lions. So??” “No, it needs them to greet you. At the entryways. Lions that will flank either side.” I smiled, “Yes, It does need Lions”. It happened just like that. The idea then began to fester, the house was now calling for lions, but not any lions, the right lions, the ones that embraced everything that this home was and wanted to be. Elegant, Magnificent, Stunning. A lion that when you saw it, that when you entered, you knew you were in a special place. So I began searching, googling concrete lion statues, and constantly hit dead ends. Max started to search, and would find something, but I would then look at it and immediately turn it down. We called landscape companies, scoured every lead we could find, only to be disappointed. It then happened, one day I was on the internet and I came across the Lion that captured my heart. It had the “feeling” that I was looking for. But the $5,000 price tag did not match our limited budget. It just so happened that fate came to our aid. Our friend Lisa stopped by to see the house. Over the course of our tour she mentioned to me that she has a “way” of finding things. She had just found a boat at an estate sale out of state for half price and now had to figure out how to get it to Grand Rapids. But she found it for half price, so if there was something I was looking for, to let her know. I told her I was looking for Lions, but not just any lions, the “right’ lions. I opened up my ipad and showed her the images of the ones that I loved, but couldn’t afford. The lions that were supposed to be at the house. I didn’t think much about it after that, until…. A week later she texted me. “Tammy, I found the lions! Had to pick up the boat I bought. On the way home, I found these 2 concrete lions on the side of the highway at a Concrete statue place. I did a u-turn!!! Pulled the truck and boat right in and here are the pics!!. I couldn’t believe it! Here they were, the Lions that I had been looking for for months!! But in our budget!! Max and I were so excited, I couldn’t wait. We coordinated borrowing a trailer and headed for CJs Barn an hour south of town. We were told the lions were 300-500lbs a piece. They were lowered into the trailer and the trailer shifted under its weight. We strapped them together and we didn’t breathe for the entire hour drive back to the house. Nervous one wrong turn could put all of us in a ditch. We pulled in, parked and smiled. They just fit. Max said, “woah, these are big! Are you sure?” “They are perfect,” i replied, “Just perfect” But perfect doesn’t mean easy!!! Max, pushed with all his might. The lion didn’t budge. “There is no way that I am going to move this. This thing is NOT 500lbs” he said, not amused. “How are we going to get it off the skid?” I responded. “No idea,” he mumbled, already sounding agitated. “You just had to get the big ones. We will need to deal with this tomorrow” He left to go work on a project, and I headed to the mural I had been painting. It was then that I said a little prayer. “Dear Lord, please help. I don't know what to do, please help us get these lions off the trailer, I don't want this to turn into a really big problem tomorrow.” Fifteen minutes later, a loud knock at the back door startled me so much I jumped. Our neighbor Adam stopped by to ask for a contractor referral which I gladly relayed. I then took a big gulp of air, nervous of the answer, and asked if he had any idea of how to get the lions off the trailer. He said it was not a problem at all! He had a palette jack\ and could be back at the house at 11am the next morning to help move them!! I was just in awe. A stopping point for one, was as easy as 123 for another. The next day arrived with much anticipation. Adam arrived on time and so did our neighbor Ethan (whose wife willingly volunteered him for the extra man power we needed). It took all 5 of us to slide the skid of Lions off the trailer. The men strapped on shoulder straps to move the lions to each side of the garage while they awaited transport to their final destination, only to find out that 2 men couldn't move them. Manpower simply didn’t work. They stayed where we left them. The scale of these lions are so large, that they were deemed to now need their own footings! Which meant, even more concrete was now required. And a few days later, Tyler, our concrete guy came to take a look. He chuckled out loud. Looked at me and said, “Tammy Jo, you are one crazy lady! These lions are easily 800-1000 pounds.” I replied, “Yep. But I always get it done!” So the boys, our Lions, are now waiting for their final position, their place at the house to greet you when you approach. A place where you smile and you know that you have arrived. The boys are back in town. Appropriately named, John and Sid, in honor of the 2 men of this estate.

Everyone has that one moment in their life that takes your breath away.

By pdspages • April 6, 2022
Everyone has that one moment in their life that takes your breath away. You remember every detail – where you were, what you heard, what you saw, and how you felt. That’s what it was like for me when I first saw The Vander Jagt. I was a young girl riding in the car with my family, sitting in the back seat painfully oblivious to everything as I looked out the window watching the world go by. Suddenly, it just seemed to appear out of nowhere. I saw the brick piers first, then the chains that boasted the lion heads, and then the house seemed to rise out from behind. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. A moment, frozen in my memory. Years passed and it wasn’t until I was an adult and heard people talk about “that house with lions on it,” that my thoughts started to whirl. A cherished memory plucked from the past that catapulted me into the present. I later learned that my husband had the same experience in his youth. It is a home that is like no other that holds a special place in our memories. That is what this house was for both of us! As a realtor, I was in disbelief when I received a call from the owner of this home to talk about selling it. I was so honored not only to represent the house in the sale, but that I would be able to physically enter this home and see the inside. A house that had always seemed so out of reach. In the hottest real estate market that our city has ever seen, weeks went by without receiving any offers. It was at that time that I, as the listing agent, started to receive calls from investors wanting to demolish this home. That the 6 lots that it was located on was far more valuable than the house itself. My hands started to tremble and the anticipation of each call made me anxious. My 20 years in real estate had not prepared me for the emotional attachment that I would feel for this home. I turned to my husband and said, “Well, it's time to step up. We need to save this house.” I don’t know if it was just sheer luck, or blind stupidity – but we feel that restoring this home became our calling. The seller once told us, we were the ones the house had chosen. What we have learned since we started restoring this amazing piece of history, is that this house is not only a memory for us personally; it is a memory for many members of our community. Residents of our city who have also loved and cherished what lies beneath the slate roof. So please, come follow along and join us, as we restore The Vander Jagt.
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