Tips

I am the only one who bothered to show up for work today. As a result, I have spent the better part of my morning answering the phone, which, as I have mentioned before, is never a good thing. However, this glimpse into the psyche of the Public At Large has induced me to share the following with you:

Tips for the Home-Buying Public

(& Others Who Have Irritated Me Today)

• If you call a business for information, it would seem wise to have a writing implement within arm's-reach, or at least within a quarter-mile radius. It is entirely possible that the Nice Lady who answers the phone may have another line or three ringing and may not be able to wait for FIVE FULL MINUTES for you to find a pen. Strangely, she also may not care that you are irritated about being put on hold.
• If you do not have a writing implement & decide to enter a phone number directly into your cell phone, perhaps you may want to warn the Nice Lady you are speaking with so that you do not permanently damage her middle ear with the 130-dB key strokes.
• Similarly, please turn off the television / radio / power tools before making a phone call. Not only is the background noise deafening, the Nice Lady on the other end of the phone does not particularly enjoy having you scream at the top of your lungs into her ear.
• When calling a real estate office, please try to have at least a general idea where the property you're calling about is located. Believe it or not, we have more than one property listed with our company. (Oh, yes, I have had clients actually say to me, "Oh, you have more than one listing?") It is very difficult to ascertain which property you are referring to based on "Um, yeah, it's a white house near where the Quik-E-Mart used to be."
• I understand that the Public At Large has a compulsive and pervasive need for Instant Gratification, and that you are, of course, The Most Important Person on the Face of the Earth. However. It might be prudent to make an appointment to view a property rather than calling the agency once you are already sitting in front of said property and being stunned that there isn't anyone available to show it Right This Very Second. I understand that waiting an hour for someone to clear their schedule and drive 40 miles out of their way for you is simply unthinkable. Obviously, we should have Realtors stationed at all 200+ properties, just in case an interested party should happen by. We apologize for our lack of foresight.
• If, for some reason, you do find yourself in front of a listed property and cannot wait for someone to show you the property, please do not cuss at the Nice Lady on the phone who will not give you the lockbox code so you can just let yourself in. That's what's known as a "no-no" in this business, as well as a huge insurance liability.
• Also, if you have received a notice that you are going to be evicted from your home, please do not call and cry to the Nice Lady at the real estate office that will eventually be listing the property. Neither she nor anyone else at the company has any control over the situation. And while she sympathizes with you and agrees that the timing is unfortunate, and she's sure that you fully intended to "get back on track" after the holidays, the fact remains that you have not paid your mortgage for the past 19 months, you have received innumerable notices from the bank that now owns your property and surely you could have guessed this was coming.
• "Ax" (or "axe", as you prefer) is a tool used for chopping wood, not a verb meaning "to question". Please make a note of it.
• By the same token, "I seen" is never, ever correct. The proper past tense conjugation of the verb "see" is as follows, repeat after me: I saw, you saw, he saw, we saw, they saw. Notice a pattern? Not that difficult, is it?
• If you call & ask to speak to the person in charge of, oh let's say insurance, and upon speaking to this person, do not get the response that you would have liked (i.e., thank you but we are quite happy with our coverage at this time and do not plan on switching to another provider), it will not help you to say, "Well, darlin' maybe I should speak to the man in charge." Because the Nice Lady will likely respond, "Maybe you should, but since the man 'in charge' does not, in fact, run the company, but I do, you have now guaranteed that we will never, ever use your company. Darlin'."
• And finally, Realtors, please do not think that because you have been in the real estate business 25 years that you can call another real estate office and demand information that it is inappropriate, unethical &, in some cases, downright illegal for you to have. The Nice Lady there does not care how long you have been a Realtor, although she is stunned that you still have your license.

By the way, "Nice Lady" is shorthand for "Formerly Nice Lady Who Is Now Disgusted and Weeping for the Public At Large".

In other news, I spoke to the Realtor who is (supposedly) selling our house. During the course of conversation, she remarked that she wished that this would close before the end of the year (just a few days away, in case you hadn't noticed). Since we still don't have a place to go once this does close, I was not very excited about that prospect. I wasn't too concerned about it though, since the appraisal hasn't even been scheduled yet. Good thing I didn't waste the time worrying. I just called the loan officer who is handling their mortgage to find out if we were on schedule for closing. He didn't even know what the contract closing date was since he never received a copy of the contract, which is required to schedule the appraisal and move forward with financing. AND the contract is in the wrong name, which pretty much makes it null and void anyway. So. Have I mentioned how much I love Realtors?