Real Estate

Last fall, we went to a party for Merv. A retirement party.
The girls hung out on the patio. "So, what's the plan, Bernice".
"It's time for us to move on" I said.
"Move on?"
"Yep, we're going to just sell everything, get into the car and head for parts unknown. We should have done this long ago. And time's running out. If we don't do it now, we won't have the health or energy to unload a 30 year old house and get it ready for sale."
We spend the summer sorting, junking, repairing. Our tentative time frame is to put everything on the market in the fall when the leaves are gold and everything looks good.
But when we start with the realtors, they say "You should be sub-dividing. You're going to leave a lot of money on the table."
The sub-division takes forever. Measurements, maps, surveys. With a lot of waiting in between.
It's the winter of our discontent.

Spring comes. Finally, we're getting closer.
But the assessor doesn't like our house. "Well, I suppose it would be easy to just dry wall it".
The realtor doesn't like our house. "European cupboards? Hmmm, no one has seen these for awhile."
We gather with him at the kitchen counter. "See this number, Merv? This is the most you can get for your house."
Merv tries to hang tough. "Damn it all" he says "this is a special house. I know it is! It's worth more than that."
And I'm whining in the background. "Everyone who has walked into our house has loved it."

But still. We watch BNN. We're caught up in the "recession" scenario that is coming from all sides. And it's gloom and doom. The realtors tell us that not much is moving. We think "Omigod - no one is going to even show up." And we want to get out of here. It's become too difficult to maintain and it's no fun anymore.

So Merv goes part way with the realtor. "Okay, Merv, we'll start there but you'll have to come down in price. No one will pay that".
As he drives away, he posts a sign at our road.

For the next 3 days, every vehicle in the neighborhood comes to a screeching halt when they see this sign. The phone starts ringing "What's the deal? We didn't know you guys were serious about selling."

On the 4th day, people start coming to see the house. The realtors don't want us around. We're supposed to leave the premises. There seems to be a lot of
appointments and we're scurrying around frantically cleaning up the house over and over again.

The second couple who looks at the house puts a bid on it! They're from Fort McMurray. Had been looking for 2 months. "There was not one thing about this house that I didn't like" she told the realtor.
It's a good sized bid, but we hang back. The realtor suggests we come in with a counter bid, very close to the asking price. They go for it. Suddenly our house is sold, and we don't know whether we're happy or sad.

Then two days later, 2 other couples put in bids! One of them is $5000 over the asking price. Our realtor seems dumbfounded. "I've never seen anything like this" he says.

The couple who bid more than the asking price buy the next parcel of land. They bid low, and we say we want the asking price. They go for it. They will build a house on this land and have already been tramping about in the forest checking possible building sites. They're from close here, and we are glad this has happened.

We ask another one of the realtors why there has been so much interest in our house when she has a list of farm stuff that no one is paying any attention to. She said "You priced your property correctly. That's why there's so much interest."

And we thought "Correctly"? For whom? The realtor? - or us?