give me a fucking apostrophe key

[sanpaku_backup]

Four and a half hours to kill in Charles de Gaulle... why didn't I bring my computer? (How many of you know that the Frog keyboard is subtly different from our own in ways that make it complicated to type?)

Anyway, Internet access is expensive like everything else here, so I'll try to be brief. Much to think about. The wedding was very nice and my brother's wife elicits the usual comment: She's nice. What is she doing with you? Serbia is pure Borat-land, though I suppose it's paradise to my brother after Kabul. My brother is still amazingly juvenile for a 43-year-old -- one always waits for him to grow up, without success.

I'm gonna take that job, but you knew that already. Not without some regrets. My brother advises me to sell the house as soon as possible, and on this subject, he does know what he's talking about.

All this and more in a real post after my flight, jet lag, etc.

Comments

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

Yay for the new job!

I am sure you do not need my advice on this, but if I may: do yourself a huge favor and find a *good* realtor. No, a GREAT one. Get a recommendation from someone who has actually used that realtor to sell a house successfully. A bad realtor costs you a lot of money both in the number of extra mortgage payments you have to make before you manage to sell the house, and in steering you toward bids that are too low, not to mention in also getting commission that they don't deserve in the end. I have a friend whose house languished on the market for almost a YEAR because of a bad realtor. Eventually they switched realtors and finally sold it, but at a loss. :/

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

No, I certainly do need advice! We'll need the realtor of all realtors. I really have no idea how to find one. I am pretty much resigned to it taking forever to eventually sell the house at a loss. This would be hard enough if it weren't for the market.

finding a realtor

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

I guess I would start by asking around at shul--surely someone there will have sold a house sometime in the recent past. We learned from experience that it's bad to take someone's recommendation of a realtor they have not personally used to sell a house. Just being a nice person or someone's friend doesn't make a good realtor. I think you want to know how long houses they have listed have stayed on the market and how much they sold for and what concessions the sellers made, like on closing costs or repairs, because the sale price alone doesn't tell you everything.

Re: finding a realtor

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

It's a good idea, but it involves telling people at the shul... which I haven't done yet. Also out of the people I know well none of them have sold their home, and I am afraid that they will mention this one woman who is kind of a macher at the shul and is a realtor, but to judge by her work at the shul, is not someone I would trust with the house.

I have the questions you should ask a realtor and all that kind of thing, I'm just coming up blank on how to get personal recommendations since, of course, anyone I know who has sold recently has been to move far away.

I make it sound like I'm an expert.

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

If you don't have anyone to recommend a realtor, another good way to find one is to go to open houses where they seem to be doing a good job of marketing--paying attention to curb appeal and other details. The realtor that we plan to use whenever we sell told us that open houses do more to help the realtor get new clients than to help sell the house that's open. We found our excellent mortgage broker through the realtor of an open house we went to, and we would have used that realtor too except that we were already committed to a realtor we didn't like that we found through an acquaintance's recommendation.... :/

Punk!

[flw.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday, Punk... enjoy the next three weeks that you have to Lord it all over me how much more mature you are than me.

Re: Punk!

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Lord lord lord.

Re: Punk!

[flw.livejournal.com]

That is so like you, to lord it all over me just cuz I told you to.