Thursday, June 05, 2008

OMG, It’s Getting Real

It’s one thing to make the decision to move, but it’s a whole new thing once a Realtor gets involved. Today our move from Paradise became a whole new thing.

I started the search for a Realtor earlier this week by sending out a few emails to various firms across the island. This was part one of the test because, if you can believe it, email hasn’t really caught on down here yet. We found that out the hard way when we were in the process of moving here four years ago -- and to my great dismay, it seems nothing much has changed since we arrived. What’s annoying is that every Realtor web site includes information about how to contact them by email -- I mean why bother to include that info if you’re never going to respond to email inquiries?

Today, to my great relief, we received a call from an agent at a well-known local firm. Score one point for the man who reads email -- this gives him a leg up on his competition from the get go. We had a long conversation about the property, and he’s agreed to do a competitive market analysis for us, and then come out to look over the property, tell us what remains to be done before we list the house, and talk strategy (e.g. getting max price vs. making a quick sale). He’ll start his research by looking through island records on the property and his old appraisal files. (Did I mention he was an appraiser for 20 plus years? Score another point.) We’ll meet with him in two weeks, after he gets back from a trip off-island.

Even though we’ve talked about moving every day, and have devoted all of our spare time to getting the house (and us) ready to list, it just didn’t seem real until that phone call this afternoon.

We’re really going to move.

Yikes.

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