Blatherskite

the following may turn out to be a raving rant. Just so you know.

So we went to look at the house on Monday to see if the electrical stuff had, indeed, been fixed. We took my stepdad with us because he has worked in construction and maintenance all of his life. Our realtor told us that that everything was fixed except one little thing with the A/C. They would reduce the price by $250.00 to cover the cost of fixing the A/C. When we got there one other thing on our list of things we asked for did not get fixed (not including the A/C). My stepdad told us not to worry about it, that he would be able to fix the things that didn’t get done. Well, as the day progressed and we stewed on it, we began to get annoyed by the fact that they didn’t honor their commitment to do all of the electrical work, regardless of the fact that the work isn’t hard to do. Plus, we found out from our realtor that this has all been verbal. There has not been a thing signed by the seller. We were led to believe that this was all down in writing, but that was wrong. And then Raf found out that our realtor, after we had initialed the addendum that stated the seller’s agreement to fix the electrical stuff, had crossed out the two items that had not gotten done.

So that was kind of hanging over our heads and bugging us. We stewed on that some more and got irritated by it. So Raf called our realtor again and asked him if we got a copy of the addendum what would it look like? Would there be things crossed out on it? And this is when our realtor totally lost all of my respect. His customer service skills just went down the drain (If he ever had any to begin with).

Somewhere in the conversation Raf asked him if we could have a copy of the receipt from when the certified electrician came. You know, for our records. You know what the mother f–ker said? “Raf. Dude. you’re killing me with all of this minutia.” Excuse me. I don’t think having records of work that has been done is minutia (you bastard). I mean, what if this hasn’t been done by a certified electrician? Or what if it turns out something happens to the electrical system in the future? I just think it’s smart to keep receipts of important things that you fix on big purchase items. I keep receipts of work that has been done on my car..

Another thing he threatened us with is, “I’m not going to sell you the house if you keep asking me all of these questions.” What? Who the fuck do you think you are? YOu aren’t selling the house. This is between us and the seller. You are SUPPOSED to be working for us.

So now we can’t call our realtor and ask questions because he is a rat bastard that doesn’t have any shred of thought for the person he is supposed to be working for. All he cares about is the sale.

This whole thing has been so unpleasant.

The only thing that is keeping me focused is the house itself. The house is great. We had the inspection, and it’s pretty much fine. Our loan went through. FHA approved it. I love the house. I love the location. And we really do need to get into a house right now. We are throwing our money away on rent when we should be investing it. So the house is great.

I just don’t like being treated this way. I just want a little bit of honesty. I want to be treated with a little bit of respect. I mean, this is a huge purchase. The most expensive thing we have ever bought. And these realtors are supposed to be working for us. All I ask for is respect.

I don’t care if it is a seller’s market. That gives you no right to lie. That gives you no right to play headgames with me. It gives you no right guilt-trip me. And to threaten me. And I am not the only person who has been treated this way by realtors. This shit has got to stop. What kind of a profession allows this kind of unethical behavior?

Okay, End Of Rant. For now.

Okay, so I told you about how the seller is in Mexico and stuff? And that this is just about the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Well, Raf and I have been discussing, even before the whole Mexico thing, how we should file a complaint with the Board of Realtors. We really, really feel like we have been treated unethically since this whole thing started. I mean am I crazy for feeling this way? I have never bought a home before, so I have no basis for comparison. But I know that I would never treat anyone the way we’ve been treated. I’ve never read a Realtor’s Code of Ethics, but I’m sure that some of the ways we have been treated are not part of thier Code.

Anyway, Raf shot off an e-mail Saturday to our Realtor. This was one of the things we fought over. I am not a very confrontational person, and he is. And sometimes these parts of our personalities clash. Raf mentioned in there that we were thinking about filing a compliant. So, as expected, our realtor sent us an e-mail back wondering what we were so upset about, etc. So Raf laid it all out in plain english for him to understand. We also mentioned that we are very appreciative of all he has done for us (my husband put that in there to apease me) and that our complaint is with the seller’s realtor.

We got a phone call about a half an hour later saying that the electric work has ALREADY BEEN FIXED. The seller’s realtor stated that all of the electricians in town have been booked for three weeks. And now, all of a sudden, the work has been done? This is very interesting indeed.

We are going to go look tommorrow to make sure it is, in fact, done. I will update.