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?