Make Cakes Not War

I’ve never liked the cheap shots that are taken at lawyers, car salesmen, and contractors, but real-estate agents have really got me thinking. It’s like a little mafia.

If you are selling a $250,000 house the real-estate agent gets 6% or $15,000. Now I’m not naive- I realize that there is some work involved in selling a house but is there $15,000 worth? That’s a lot of money for putting a sign in the yard and unlocking a door. But really what you are paying for is to have other realtors show your place and getting on the MLS- if you try to sell yourself they generally wont show your house.

As you probably suspected we hired a realtor, Sandra, to sell our house. K and I both really like Sandra and have worked with her before. On Tuesday she wants to have an open house for other realtors in the area-, which is a good idea. “Will you have refreshments?” She asked me. Since we will be paying them a great deal of money I think they should be stocking our fridge but neither here nor there I said “probably not.”

Sandra: More realtors will show up if you have free food.

Me: That’s pathetic.

Sandra: That’s how it is.

We managed to talk Sandra into taking a lower percentage but were hoping that she could pass that lower cost to the other agents if they sell it.

“No” she explained. “The other agents wont show your house if they only make 2 1/2 % instead of the standard 3%."

Me: They wont open the door to the house if they make $6,250 as opposed to $7,500?

Sandra: No.

Me: That’s pathetic.

Sandra: That’s how it is.

So tonight after my French class I’ll be making a Spice Bunt cake for the little piglets but Kelly and I will cut off 6% of the cake to share between the two of us. It’s sad and passive aggressive that we would do this but it’s better then ending up in a bell tower with a high-powered rifle.

We had our first couple check out the house today. As I mentioned, we are not going through a Realtor. We did when we sold the rental property but our home is in such a great location that we should get a fair amount of traffic- a year in Paris without working is expensive and we need all the money we can get. If we had a Realtor we'd be paying close to $16,000 for someone to open the door.

A Realtor called and asked if she could show it to her client, in cases like that they get 3%, I don't want to pay them that either but what are you going to do. She came busting in- very aggressive those Realtors, with a contract for me to sign asking for 3 1/2% of the sale of the house.

Misplaced: Yea, we aren't comfortable with 3 1/2%.... 3% is pretty standard.
Realtor: Well- standard for me is 7% so I split the difference.
Misplaced: We'd actually like to only give you 1% so 3% is a pretty nice compromise.
Realtor: Ok, 3% is is.

But she wasn't happy. Then she looked at me in a disgusted manner and said in an incredibly condescending tone "Have you ever tried to sell real estate?"

What the fuck is that about?- granted I did have to look up "real estate" in the dictionary, but that's only because I have a mental block on the word and I'm "special" as we discussed. I'm certainly not disrespecting any ones profession but yea I think I can open the door to the house for $16,000. I'll even throw in a "why, here's the kitchen....ooooh nice flow" and not only that but I wont insult the seller. How's that for earning my commission? She makes it sound like she's a coal miner worried that I might get black lung- so she bugged me the rest of the day.

Anyway, I did like the couple that walked through. Although the first thing the guy said to me was "I recognize you from your picture on the Internet" It didn't really register immediately with me because I was checking out his wife -they were a Billy Joel/ Christie Brinkley couple- you would have looked too. So my time to respond was lost but now I can ask, What pictures of me on on the Internet???? I suddenly had this mental picture of me being passed out and naked while being shaved by fraternity guys. If I was part of some "hazing incident" I'm going to be pissed.