Saturday Morning with Tessa

 

100 percent accurate

In my second venture into the real world after this awful illness, I met with Tessa Saturday morning. Tessa, you might remember, was my real estate agent when I moved here. I worked for her for six weeks. As a consolation prize for hanging out in her office and dealing with the unholy shrews totally delightful women who worked there and welcomed me with open arms and didn't sabotage me a teensy bit, Tessa introduced me to the Coronas. 

Tessa also happens to be besties with Her Majesty, Queen of Life, Deb (who really is a true delight, unlike the majority of Tessa's horrible agents). Also for the record, Tessa is also pretty awesome and I really like her. 

Anyway, Saturday morning, Tessa needed to vent about her real estate woes. I listened like the friend I hope she considers me to be. Unfortunately, I understood everything she was talking about. The antics of her clients brought back enough PTSD that I have zero interest in ever thinking about selling houses again. EVER. Every story of clients thinking Tessa was some sort of concierge, lawn service (the woman is in her 70s) or dog babysitter made me laugh as I commiserated with the nuttiness of her situation.* **

When she finally breezed through all that, she looked at her phone and said, "I'm going to have to go in about five minutes." 

I countered with, "That's just enough time to tell you that you are listing my home in early June. And please let me be the one to tell Deb." 

Tessa wasn't surprised, but she was surprised if that makes sense. I've been alluding to this particular thing for months. Even Deb won't be totally surprised. (I did tell Tessa the reason Deb hasn't heard yet is I don't want to deal with the Deb-guilt. Tessa said, "Good luck with that."). Honestly, nobody should be surprised, though my pal Joy--who is my first local friend to get this news--took it pretty hard yesterday. She raised a leery eyebrow and asked, "So, you are saying you are moving in a year or two?" Um... no. 

Anyway, Tessa wanted to come over and "evaluate" what needed to be done. No deal. I told Tessa we have four adults, two cats and a senior dog living under one roof. Our house looks like we have three households and feline chaos living there. Before Tessa comes over and tells me to move a table to the other corner, I need to find the other corner. Unless she's got a buyer wanting a 20 year old starter home in Wake Village and will give us a long escrow, sit tight. We'll meet up again before she lists it. Maybe by then she'll have saner real estate stories to share with me. 

*Note to anyone thinking of buying a house: unless your seven year old is on the mortgage, he doesn't have a say in the property. Thank you very much. 

**Note to anyone thinking of selling a home: if your real estate agent says, "this cash offer is a good deal and you should consider it," please do and don't blame your agent if the next offer is $40,000 lower, takes a month to get, and is in line with the current market prices.