What if We Could Return Homes, Like Clothes? Like Neimans Maybe Did With Patricia Walker?

The pool is so close to the home, I may want a return

Have you ever bought a home you wanted to return? I have. Two. Our first house was such a mess, but it was all we could afford. Three days after buying it I wished we hadn’t because refinishing hardwood floors was killing me. And much harder than I thought it would be. Yanking up carpet, cleaning cat-stenched baseboards, painting inside cabinets, all that I could do but after five days we were getting bids from wood floor guys.

Once that house was re-done, I was happy. So I guess if I could have returned it, I would have made a terrible mistake.

Maybe we should have 90 day cooling off/no return policies, then return?

Our second home was a dream and I was deliriously happy the moment we signed the contract. We almost doubled our square footage! No return on this one.

7704 Jacksboro Highway

Our third home was a disaster from the moment I turned the doorknob and it broke off in my hand. While cleaning floors and baseboards, I found a hole in the floor in the closet. We had an open sewer pipe under the house. We had a leak in the wood panelled library one Christmas because that room had once been a kitchen but pipes had not been removed/sealed below ground so they sprang and ruined shelves of books. Let me tell you what comes in handy to find leaks: a stethoscope. No drain pans under the a/c unit located in a stupid closet in the family room — damn thing starts leaking during a party! Three months in and I thought we bought a lemon. I would have returned her and even paid a re-stocking fee.

We camped lived in that house ten years.

I think I might want to live in a condo downtown, but not sure I can stand communal living. The best thing to do would be to rent, right? But can you really rent in condos primarily occupied by owners? That’s why Museum Tower is so smart offering the two year buy-back deal: buy a condo at Museum Tower, live there for two year, if you don’t like it, they will buy it back at the same price you paid.

In any case, Pamela Walker sought to return $1.4 million in merchandise to Neiman Marcus because Neimans “sold it” to her husband with the help of her personal shopper/sales clerk at the NorthPark store who also happened to be sleeping with her husband. (Um, don’t think they were snoring.) While she was recuperating from a car wreck, her hubby Robert Tennison was super busy “shopping” for her with the clerk.

Neimans said no to the returns. So the Highland Park heiress sued after they refused to take back $1.4 million in clothing, shoes, handbags and jewelry purchased over several years.  I mean, come on, we all know Neimans and Nordstrom have the best return policy in retail. 30 day return policies don’t work with folks who are often out of the country, at second homes for months on end, or in between personal assistants. My Macys card is so brittle from non-use it cracked the last time I touched it. Of course, some of Pamela’s stuff was a little dated. You must, simply must read the whole delicious story in FD Luxe, the luxury lifestyle magazine of The Dallas Morning News, which chronicled the story spectacularly in its September 2012 issue. 

$1.4 million. That’s a lot more than many homes cost. In fact, that’s like seven average-priced 180,000 homes. Pamela has settled with Neimans, the terms not revealed, as they never are. But I am still liking this “try before you buy” concept.

Except, of course, when your spouse tries it.