A Matter of Trust

As the sun rises on yet another week on the market, I sense cloudy skies ahead. Literally. The storms have been sudden and furious, mimicking the frustration that I started feeling when our realtor recommended a specific chimney mason to check out what he said was the horrible condition of our outer wall.

At first, I thought it was just convenient that this chimney mason just happened to be working on our realtor's home as well. I started to feel a bit queasy when our communications with said chimney mason came directed through our realtor's email account. Then my husband had a phone conversation with the chimney guy and was won over. But I felt even more sick when I added up the cost estimates, which again came through the realtor's email--more than $12K didn't even completely cover the cost. And this "expert" refused to guarantee the work less than his total. He swore our two chimneys needed to be completely torn down and rebuilt and that the entire side wall needed to be rebuilt.

I stalled. I denied. I did everything possible to try to avoid the fact that our only financial option seemed to be raiding our 401K plans. A few days passed and a few more opinions trickled in. Not only did they cast a shadow over the original chimney guy's honesty, it was like they cast a rain cloud. Not only were the chimneys perfectly straight, the wall was in decent shape, too. Tuckpointing, yes. Major surgery, no.

Sometimes stalling is good. Like yesterday. I was out with my friend who was running errands before leaving the country for six weeks. We stalled outside the dry cleaners as a torrential downpour, hail and all, slowed our day's progress. Sometimes moving fast is good, too. Like when we beat the aforementioned storm by dashing to the car just seconds before the downpour.

Beating the downpour may have been dumb luck. Getting a second and third opinion, on the other hand, is anything but luck. It may have stemmed from desperation, from wanting to hear better news, and from some inner instinct that chimney guy number one was a little too anxious to tear down our walls.

So we're weathering the storms of real estate, holding tight to what little money we have left, and, for the moment, keeping that 401K in check. Whatever the future holds, we'll be sure to keep our eyes to the skies and look for a break in the weather.