Realtor

I’m having an existential crisis that makes me envy people who can say no to anyone anytime.

When we bought our house 12 years ago, we used a Realtor from my previous church. A guy I sang next to for years in the choir. I loved him and respected him and he proved to be a top-notch Realtor. He ended up contributing his wonderful singing voice to our wedding ceremony.

But that guy retired and delegated his clients to a new one. For years, our calendar has been coming from the new guy. So when we thought of the possibility of putting the house for sale, I called him, and never having met him, I made the regrettable mistake of pretty much giving him the job.

I said, “We are thinking of putting our house for sale sometime next year, and since it would be you selling it, I wonder if you could come and tell us how we can improve the house to make it ready for sale.”

He did come, in a hurry, because he had to get back home before rush hour. He found the bridge’s traffic scary—obviously he lives on the other side.

We took him around the house, pen and paper in hand, asking for suggestions. He would say, “I don’t know.” or “I’ll pay for a staging consultation, and she will tell you that.”

He never did even sit down, his phone was ringing constantly, and he provided very little information. He said that it would be hard to sell our house given how terrible the neighbours retaining wall looked, and he said we should call the city about it.

The next day, we went to an open house, and we found a home we loved: a 100-yeard-old, English-cottage style home sitting on an acre of land with lots of trees and a huge driveway for six or seven cars.

Naturally, we told that Realtor how we felt about the house, making it clear that our house wasn’t even in the market yet, and that we had issues with the neighbours retaining wall. “I’d be happy to come over and have a look,” she said.

After telling her that we didn’t want to waste her time, I finally agreed to let her come over and made an appointment for the following week. But when we came home, my husband said that he needed to build a sundeck before we could move. “If I don’t build one here, I may never have the chance again.”

“I brought up the issue of selling to stop you from throwing money into this house,” I said. But he continued to make plans to build the deck. “It’s only $2K. Big deal!”

I told the newer Realtor not to bother coming because the house wasn’t going to be up for sale until the fall, but she decided to come anyway.

She came last Friday. She had called the city herself. She had numbers of recent sales in our neighbourhood, she CONVINCED my husband not to build the sundeck, and gave us a list of small, cheap changes we could make to give the house more appeal. She presented us with a marketing plan and offered to take us around to see houses currently in the market, just for us to see what’s out there. She was here for three hours and did not answer the phone the whole time.

How do I tell this woman that I’ve decided to stay with the other Realtor, when she’s already given us much better service? How do I tell the other Realtor that after giving him my word, I now want to go with someone else?

I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want to let go of any of them. This is terrible.

The woman has been in Real State for only 2 years. The guy has been selling for 25. But he seems technologically challenged, and she has the latest technologies, and works for a company where the head guy has 35 years of experience. Also, her people’s skills are superior.

I feel that because she’s newer and has fewer clients, she will give us much more time and effort. Plus, she has seen exactly what we like, a 100-year-old house.

Ah, shoot me, please. Shoot me. Husband won’t help. He just says, “I don’t think you should go for a Realtor you’re not comfortable with.”

But how do I tell him? How?

Home for Sale

I live in a beautiful home. Well, it does look beautiful when we put away all the stuff that hangs around on the hallways to have people over. My husband is a pack rat who rarely throws anything out. He also likes to shop in bulk. The other day, for instance, a liquidation store had umbrellas for $1. He bought six.

All the stuff needs to be stored somewhere, so we have all kinds of shelving and cabinets and places where to keep stuff. But we’ve exhausted the house’s capacity. We really have.

Of course, he isn’t the only one to blame. I, too, have my bad habits. I like to make 100% home made food. So, I must have a juicer, a deep fryer, a sausage stuffer, a grain mill, a bread maker, a heavy duty mixer, a hand mixer, a blender, all kinds of baking sheets and pans, a counter top oven to save electricity, a pressure cooker, a pressure canner, three slow cookers (yes, three), etc—all that is my fault entirely. So I have a large kitchen with an island in the middle, and I still need more room. And only two people live in this professionally decorated home.

But that isn’t the only issue. We live in a soft soil area. That means that in some distant past, a river went by here, and through the centuries, an island appeared made of sediment created by the river currents. What that means in practical terms is that it is “sinky” here. The soil was preloaded before building the neighbourhood, and the houses are sitting on a concrete pad, so they aren’t sinking. But we live on an earthquake zone, and I’ve read horrible stories of what happens on such areas during disasters of that nature.

When we bought the house, we needed to live close to the big city, because we both worked there. In fact, his job was right downtown—and this is a major North American city, so we needed to stay close.

Now however, he works two cities away from downtown, and I don’t work. Also, incredibly enough, the house has appreciated to almost double its purchase price. So I’m thinking that it is time to get the money from our investment and get the heck out before something terrible happens.

We would move further away from the city, hoping to get more square footage for the same money. I’m thinking of a house with a large basement where my husband can keep all his trash. And an extra room where I can keep my cooking toys. Our thousands of books should also fit in that basement.

So yesterday, We talked about it in the morning (vacation day for him), I called the realtor, and he was here within two hours. We discussed the situation and decided to work towards putting the house in the market by early spring. We are thinking that after the Winter Olympics bring people from all over the world, the housing market may boom even more than usual. They will experience first hand the incredible pleasure of living close to the ocean surrounded by snow capped mountains, parks, lakes, and rivers. Let me tell you...!

I’m nervous about leaving my treasured nest, of course. When I look around and see all the window treatments that I so carefully chose. All the storage space that my husband added with hard work, and just how beautiful the house is when clean and tidy, I feel like saying, “To heck with moving, let’s stay.” But my brain still says go.

We will see what happens in the next few weeks.

To dramatize or not to dramatize, that's the question

I just figured out one of the problems I have with social interactions. I’m opinionated. I know that. But the problem is that my husband enjoys it. Our life is a sitcom. I express my opinions outrageously, and he laughs about it.

We were watching House Hunters on HGTV just now, and I saw a kitchen with ugly green walls. I grimaced and loudly said, “Ohhhh…that’s terrible.” You would’ve thought I saw someone puking. But it was just ugly paint colour on a kitchen wall. I’ve grown accustomed to overly dramatizing and to having my husband laugh his heart out.

When I do that in front of others, however, they seem bewildered, as in they can’t believe I can express myself so freely.

The problem is that there is only one of me. I can’t be one person at home and another one with strangers. It just isn’t possible. We are creatures of habit. Our responses are automatic. Had I married a prim and proper guy, I would be used to behaving, but that isn’t the case.

My sister, however, married a prim and proper guy. She has trained herself to speak quietly and to have fine manners (or so she thinks). I think she reserves all her nastiness for me, especially when she is trying to train me to be like her husband. One of these days she’ll get tired of my nasty retorts and will give up—I can only hope.

Anyway, there is my dilemma. It kind of sucks.