Sharon and Karen, The Agent, and A Dilemma

Once upon a time, not so long ago, a lesbian couple – I’ll call them Sharon and Karen – lived in a small house just a block away from Linden Green with their two adopted sons. After many years together, Karen met someone new – I’ll call her Marion – and she ended her relationship with Sharon and moved into Marion’s apartment some considerable distance away, leaving Sharon and the boys, now 7 and 9, behind. While Sharon and the boys were not happy about this when it happened, Sharon and Karen ultimately arrived at an amicable arrangement. Sharon bought Karen’s interest in the little house and the two of them agreed to joint custody of 7 and 9. But when 7 and 9 traveled to visit their other Mommie, the distance and logistics became troublesome to all. Sharon urged Karen to invest her share of the equity in the little house in a larger one nearby so 7 and 9 could visit more easily, a house with enough bedrooms so that each boy, now sharing a room, could have his own. This plan especially appealed to Karen when she and Marian, new to their relationship, were having interpersonal problems. But when things were going well, Karen was ambivalent about Sharon’s entreaties.

Enter Phil and his house on Linden Green, just a block away from the little house where Sharon and the boys lived and large enough for 7 and 9 to each have his own room. Enter also, Phil’s real estate agent – whom I’ll call Agent – who was friendly with both Sharon and Karen and recommended Phil’s house as the perfect answer to Sharon’s (and, as it turned out, to a lesser extent, to Karen’s) quest. Agent urged Karen to take a look at the house on Linden Green but Karen, who owned her own business, was scheduled to go out of town and couldn’t squeeze a visit to Linden Green into her busy schedule. By way of encouraging Phil who was beginning to feel that his house was never going to sell, Agent told Phil about the Mommies and their dilemma, suggesting to Phil, and to the Mommies, that his house was the perfect solution. While Karen was away – according to Agent’s description of events to Phil – she asked Sharon to take a look at the house on Linden Green to see if it was satisfactory. Sharon came to the house with 7 and they fell in love with it. Agent was pleased. So was Phil. But when Karen returned from her business trip, she didn’t rush to see Phil’s house herself. Phil was not pleased – this delay did not auger well - and by way of explanation, Agent told him of the facts recounted here. Still, after what seemed like sufficient time for Karen to signal her ambivalence about the plan, she came to the house on Linden Green and liked it. However, Agent reported to Phil that Karen wasn’t at all sure she wanted to buy now. Her relationship with Marion seemed to have improved. Perhaps it’s true that even a short separation does make the heart grow fonder. Or perhaps Karen had invested her equity in the little house in her business.

Meanwhile, Phil is scheduled to move into his new apartment in The Fitzgerald in the middle of August, by now obviously impossible. Without a sale – or even a contract for sale – Phil doesn’t feel comfortable obligating himself for the new apartment. This is what we call A Dilemma. Phil called Agent for advice and was urged to lower the price of the house on Linden Green by $10,000.00 in order to bring the listing into a lesser category on real estate search engines. Everything else, Agent said, had already been done to promote the house and there were no takers: only the African-American doctor with a child and nanny who had found the ceilings of the house too low, and who had (strangely) bought another house just like Phil’s in the same community; and the young couple who loved the house but had to sell their condo first. Phil hesitated. $10,000.00 less was his absolute low number, which left no room for negotiation at a time and in a psychological environment where everyone wants to tell their friends they got A Deal.

Phil called The Fitzgerald and asked for an extension of his occupancy date to the end of September, hoping that Agent was correct in suggesting that although August was hot and no one was buying, September might bring a bump in the market, or the couple would sell their condo, or Karen might fight with Marion and want to move out. Any of these could solve The Dilemma. The property manager at The Fitzgerald answered Phil’s request by saying she had the authority to extend an occupancy date for two weeks but not for six. She would have to go higher up for her answer.

In reserve, the owner of Agent’s agency, a friend of Phil’s, is also a friend of the builder of The Fitzgerald and should the Property Manager’s answer be negative, he has offered to call the builder on Phil’s behalf to plead Phil’s case for the delay.

The story of Sharon and Karen, The Agent and The Dilemma will be continued. Stay tuned.

Wating, Waiting

When I put my house on the market in mid-May, everyone – my real estate team, my friends and neighbors, even I – expected the house to sell quickly. “Your house shows so well. And it has great curb appeal,” one agent proclaimed. “It’s the beautiful, mature garden that will sell this house,” prophesied another. “Be careful what you wish for,” said their manager. “This house will go immediately. You’re planning to move in mid-August? That’s not soon enough. We only need 60 days for settlement.” Also anticipating a quick sale, several of my neighbors told me how sorry they were to see me go – “your house is so gorgeous,” they said, as though my leaving would somehow diminish the value of their own property. One of the officers of our association even called me a “traitor,” for abandoning him. And as for me, I’d already talked myself into my new apartment, readying myself to leave a house I’ve loved for 20 years, willing to give up my fireplace and some of my beloved art, begun picturing myself living in a smaller, newer, less complicated space. It’ll change my life, I thought, and give me new direction, not a bad thing as I approach my 75th birthday.

A professional photographer came to document the spaces in my house with an extreme wide-angle lens that helped produce a beautiful brochure that made the rooms seem huge. My agent scheduled an open house for other real estate firms, and a day when home-seekers themselves could inspect (or curious neighbors see how I live). I put away all the objects that proclaimed my house “mine,” so that prospective buyers could imagine making their own memories in their new rooms. I had the carpets cleaned, the windows washed, planted new flowers in the pots in the garden. But after an initial mostly desultory response – only one agent came to the agents’ open house and no prospective buyers flocked to the Sunday my house was open to all, the carpet-cleaner guy who seemed enthusiastic about owning the house couldn’t raise the necessary cash, the single lady doctor with a child and a live-in nanny thought the house too dark and the ceilings too low, the mixed-race couple frowned and passed, the young couple who want the house have to sell their condo first – the interest and action so optimistically predicted has trickled to a halt, like water from the end of a hose that’s recently been turned off. The timing hasn’t helped: first it was Memorial Day, then Father’s Day, then the Fourth of July. And the weather here, breaking records at over 100 degrees for each of the last ten days, is not conducive to house-hunting. Even our mayor, in daily phone calls, is urging everyone to stay at home.

While I’m not yet desperate, I am discouraged. A house across the street, similar to mine but smaller and listed for slightly less, sold after only 30 days on the market. A house in my own complex, built exactly like mine but with some interior alterations and listed a week after mine for $15,000.00 more, sold in three days. Odd that It was purchased by the doctor who found my ceilings too low. And two townhouses in a complex just south of mine sold immediately, one in the same day it was listed. So I know there’s activity. And I’m convinced there’s someone out there in the world just dying to live in my house; we just have to find him, which brings me back to my agent, whose job it is, I feel, to rustle up that person. But the agent is back-peddling, giving me all the reasons why “this is a bad time, a tough market, a very particular house, needing a very particular buyer.” I’ve suggested that I send a personal email to all the real estate agents – some of them friends of mine – listed in the back pages of the gay paper. Maybe I could feed them lunch, or dinner? No; not a good idea, says my agent. Well how about a sign outside advertising my house for sale, even though our association bylaws prohibit that? You wouldn’t want to upset your neighbors, my agent tells me. I’ve even schlepped to the Catholic book store in Towson, parking illegally while I purchased a St. Joseph medal to plant upside down in my garden. But so far, none of these efforts has paid off.

At the beginning of this quest to sell my house I talked myself into moving, imagined living in a new space, looked forward to a major change in my life. How odd it now seems that I find myself moving in the opposite direction, preparing myself for the now possible letdown of remaining exactly where (and how), at nearly 75, I already am.

Stay tuned.