The Realtor

At first, I figured we wouldn't need a realtor to sell this gem of a house. It was a great house on a great street with wonderful neighbors, a nature preserve and cool trails at the end of the block. It practically sold itself.

In my dreams. I put a listing in the neighborhood email newsletter at first, just a little test to see how hard it would be to monitor the flood of responses. None came. Uh-oh.

Almost overnight, I realized the amount of work involved in selling a house. The marketing, the legal details, the potential for scammers, the potential for lots of mistakes. What was I thinking? I could sell a house, do my full-time job, spend time with my kids, my husband, my friends. . . .

OK, I was a fool.

It was much easier to pretend the old house didn't exist once we started living in the new one last November. The only pesky reminders were those mortgage and utility bills that intruded on new-house bliss every month.

Once I realized I was not the realtor of my dreams, we set out to find a real one. A pro who knew all the right buyers, knew just what to say and most of all, who really loved our house.

The first realtor we checked out came with great street cred. Buyers loved him! Colleagues praised him! Neighbors raved about him!

Only problem was, he turned up his nose at our house. Not intentionally. And he covered it well, but there was a decided lack of enthusiasm about the very characteristics we loved. The carved wooden fireplace. The brick-enclosed front porch. The wide-open first-floor plan. The super cool new modern bathroom. Nothing impressed the guy.

So we wasted another month, or two, trying to make changes he suggested but we didn't believe in. It didn't work.

Finally, the calvary arrived. My in-laws spent two weekends plus doing a clean sweep of the place--they painted, they replaced ceilings and faucet fixtures, they cleaned like demons. Without them, we would already be in debtor's prison. Sometimes it is good to be from a family of seven. This was one of those times.

Then the unthinkable happened. The house next door to our new house went up for sale. In four days, there were seven offers on the place. Incredible! The time seemed ripe, and when the realtor for that house offered a friendly wave, it seemed like serendipity. This, we thought, could be our guy. Maybe he had the magic touch we needed. Just maybe. . .