Interesting House News
This past weekend the wife and I set out (with baby in tow) to once again find a new place for all our baseball cards, comic books, spare computer parts.We found a place in a fantastic neighborhood in the suburbs that was very reasonably priced. I knew there had to be a catch, and there is.
It is a stairless ranch (no basement, no attic), with no central air conditioning, and no garage. It did, however, have a huge, beautiful yard, an open concept floorplan with lots of classic/interesting interior features, a bath and a half, three bedrooms, a living room, office area, and a large sunroom.
I didn't pay much attention to it. No basement means no workshop, which I crave, and no garage means chipping ice off of my car all winter. My wife, however, loved it.
She cares about three things, in no particular order: Nice kitchen, open concept, first floor laundry.
You could build a dog house out of old tires with these features and she would love it.
The realtor showing the property, we'll call her The Pig, asked if we were working with any realtors. We said yes. She made a sour-pig face. We left. Overnight the wife said she was tired of looking at houses because I seem to find something wrong with all of them. She said is not going to look at any more houses. I can look at them myself and let her know if I find one I like.
Of course, it's a complete coincidence that she reached this point only after finding a house SHE really liked.
So, I realize that we're going to need to see this house again because I wasn't really paying that much attention to it. You know, because it wasn't close to what I wanted or what we discussed.
Here's where it gets interesting. My realtor is in Florida on vacation. She told me that if I wanted something I should call her cell phone and she would hook me up with a temporary replacement from her office. I decided to call The Pig first, just to see if the property had any offers on it yet. If it did, we would have to see it right away and I would need to tell my realtor to hurry. If not, we may be able to wait until my realtor comes back on Thursday.
So, I call The Pig. I remind her who I am and that I'm working with a realtor. I tell her we'd like to see the place again this week sometime. I wanted to know if there were any offers, she said no. I also asked if she could provide a sample heating bill for the property, and she said she would get that info for me. I told her my realtor would be in touch in a day or two.
She asked what day I was thinking about wanting to see it. I told her Tuesday night, idealy. She asked about what time. I said 7-ish. She then adds that SHE was the one who showed us the house in the first place, ...so there "might be a problem" with me trying to use my own realtor. I figure, ...whatever. I'll let my realtor deal with that.
About 5 minutes later she calls back. She gave me the heating info, looks good. She said she made an appointment for me to see it at 7pm Tuesday.
"Whoa. Wait. I didn't mean for you to set an appointment."
"Okay."
"I was just telling you the earliest we would like to get in there, but I haven't even talked to my wife yet."
"Okay."
"We'll let you know."
I get a hold of my realtor and tell her the whole story about The Pig trying to trick me into an appointment where she can claim I am her client and cut my realtor out of the deal.
She calls The Pig. The Pig gets really nasty with her and refuses to work with her. My realtor, being on vacation calls to tell me it's a mess and she can't really do anything about it until she gets back into town Thursday. If I want to go ahead without including her, she's ok with that. There's nothing she can do about it.
It comes down to this. Realtors can have their clients sign a contract meaning that they are bound to work exclusively with said realtor. My realtor does not like to hamstring her clients in that way. She is too nice and too honest and says she did not get into this business because she wants to hustle everyone for a commission. She's a rare realtor.
This has left her without a legal leg to stand on in this case. She has no real claim to be involved in the deal.
However, I do have some recourse here. My realtor has done a lot for us. She's spent a lot time on us and done a lot of work. We appreciate all her work and honesty. Although we do not have a contract with her, we do feel we have a committment to her, and we're refusing to deal with The Pig.
It may come down to some arbitration deal with the realtor's association, but we don't care. We decided to stick with our realtor and tell The Pig that if she wants our offer, she's gonna have to deal with our realtor.
That's where we stand now. Our realtor will call The Pig in the morning and draw the line in the sand.
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