Should you call the listing agent, Stacy Haas-Goodwin of Coldwell Banker Previews, for a showing, be prepared to call your banker and have him fax over a current “proof of funds.”
Then she might walk you through the mansion, by far the biggest house in The Concession, with 17,756 square feet of air-conditioned space and a 12,000-square-foot pool plaza. She has it listed at $16.5 million, making it the No. 2 residential listing in Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties, behind only a three-house compound on Casey Key that is listed at $16.95 million. I got my own tour recently, and not because I had “proof of funds.” It probably had more to do with my access to an 18-unit Goss Metroliner color printing press.
For most everyone else, Haas-Goodwin isn’t shy when she tells buyers’ agents to “show me the money.”
“I had a Realtor say to me, ‘Well, I couldn’t possibly ask my client that question,” Haas-Goodwin said. “And I came back with, ‘Why not?’ If you do it in the proper manner, someone who really has the financial wherewithal to purchase a property such as this, they absolutely are not offended. They understand, because they would want the same respect if they were selling their home.
“I discreetly say that due to the nature of the property, that we would ask for verification from a bank of the purchaser’s proof of funds.”
If the agent is offended, she said, “then they are not used to that price point.”
Kim Ogilvie, who has shown and sold her share of high-end houses for Michael Saunders Company, said she relies on Google as her first tool in vetting potential buyers.
“I always require the buyer’s name, where they are from, what their background business is,” she said. “That gives us some ammunition to use on Google. If I can’t find them on Google, I employ a private detective to do a background check.”
She does this only on “really high-profile listings,” and if the seller “requests a really detailed vetting process. Anybody over $5 million usually does.”
Proof of funds?
“That is touchy,” said Ogilvie. “Yes, I have done that if there is any ambiguity. It is tough because some buyers will balk at that and say, ‘If you don’t want to let me see the house, forget it.’
“When I showed a managing partner of Goldman Sachs, I knew exactly who he was and that he liked rowing and how much he had given to Columbia’s rowing program. I knew everything about him before he came to town.”