We received the following missive by mail today. Non-italicized comments are mine.
Dear Mr. & Mrs. _____,
My name is [xyz]; I am a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Preferred in [swanky nearby suburb]. I am currently working with discerning clients with specific criteria. [Whoa! Specific criteria! I'm so impressed!]
My clients would like to live in a historic 150+ year old farm house in the [my town] area. [Wow, you mean there are OTHER freaks like us who don't want to live in a new development tract house?]
I have researched the public records [STALKER!! And don't you have anything better to do?] and your property might be a good fit for my clients [Oh really? Have they seen our ONE upstairs bathroom? The rotting window frames? The warm spring in the basement?]. If you would consider selling your home [Didn't I just buy it?], I would like to discuss this opportunity with you.
I have a website with [blah blah blah info about himself].
Thank you for your consideration,
[xyz]
Are you freaking kidding me?? Can someone tell me why Realtors send out these letters? Like I'm suddenly going to decide to sell my house, especially in this disaster of a market, just because you sent me a letter saying your picky clients might like it?
And it really disturbs me that this dude is poring through property tax databases looking for old houses that aren't already for sale. I can think of at least eight houses in my town that meet the same criteria and have been sitting on the market for months. Can't you and your discerning clients go pick on one of those owners instead? Because if you can find records saying how old my house is, you can also find records that we bought the place less than four years ago and probably aren't tired of it yet. Honestly.
We must have a knack for picking desirable houses, or at least houses in a desirable neighborhood, because in our former house (cute but tiny and completely unrenovated), we used to get these same kinds of letters from area Realtors at least every few months. It was invariably a real turnoff. The vulturish, stalkerish vibe of it really rubs me the wrong way. Am I supposed to be impressed that they're targeting my house? Are they driving past and scoping the place out? How much more do they know about us? Are they schlepping their client around and the client points at our house and simpers "I want that one, Daddy! Get me that one!" like that spoiled girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
And do they really, truly, honestly think people who get these letters are actually going to call them? "Wow, it never occurred to me to sell my house, but boy, your letter just got me thinking! What a great idea! Thanks! Will you represent me?"
As if.
Dear Mr. & Mrs. _____,
My name is [xyz]; I am a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Preferred in [swanky nearby suburb]. I am currently working with discerning clients with specific criteria. [Whoa! Specific criteria! I'm so impressed!]
My clients would like to live in a historic 150+ year old farm house in the [my town] area. [Wow, you mean there are OTHER freaks like us who don't want to live in a new development tract house?]
I have researched the public records [STALKER!! And don't you have anything better to do?] and your property might be a good fit for my clients [Oh really? Have they seen our ONE upstairs bathroom? The rotting window frames? The warm spring in the basement?]. If you would consider selling your home [Didn't I just buy it?], I would like to discuss this opportunity with you.
I have a website with [blah blah blah info about himself].
Thank you for your consideration,
[xyz]
Are you freaking kidding me?? Can someone tell me why Realtors send out these letters? Like I'm suddenly going to decide to sell my house, especially in this disaster of a market, just because you sent me a letter saying your picky clients might like it?
And it really disturbs me that this dude is poring through property tax databases looking for old houses that aren't already for sale. I can think of at least eight houses in my town that meet the same criteria and have been sitting on the market for months. Can't you and your discerning clients go pick on one of those owners instead? Because if you can find records saying how old my house is, you can also find records that we bought the place less than four years ago and probably aren't tired of it yet. Honestly.
We must have a knack for picking desirable houses, or at least houses in a desirable neighborhood, because in our former house (cute but tiny and completely unrenovated), we used to get these same kinds of letters from area Realtors at least every few months. It was invariably a real turnoff. The vulturish, stalkerish vibe of it really rubs me the wrong way. Am I supposed to be impressed that they're targeting my house? Are they driving past and scoping the place out? How much more do they know about us? Are they schlepping their client around and the client points at our house and simpers "I want that one, Daddy! Get me that one!" like that spoiled girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
And do they really, truly, honestly think people who get these letters are actually going to call them? "Wow, it never occurred to me to sell my house, but boy, your letter just got me thinking! What a great idea! Thanks! Will you represent me?"
As if.
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4 comments:
We never received letters, but we did get similar phone calls when we lived in our old house, the one before the house we currently lived in. Drove me nuts.
And once I answered a call from a woman who was building a house in our same neighborhood, a few streets over, who wanted to know the make of our brick and how our builder got the mortar to look so old (he double-sanded it, duh) so she could use it on her own house which was, again for emphasis, a few streets over. I smarted off to her and then hung up. Really, I did.
And then now we have the neighbor who copied our paint colors, and the people across the street who built a house with our same elevation because they liked the way our house looked, and, really people, can you not just think for yourselves already?
Why I agreed to move into a cookie-cutter neighborhood I can't remember. Momentary lapse of reason, I wish. But I know it wasn't. It's a long story actually and I should tell it sometime, on my own blog. :-)
But, hey, if I ever decide I'd like to buy a 150+ year old farmhouse, I know who to talk to! And I would very much like to live in such a house, but the problem where we live is that most older homes are bordering on undesirable areas, are in need of a lot of repair, or are simply too expensive for our family.
Big sigh... Oh, I hate my house...
You must have great taste if everyone wants their house to look like yours - but yeah, that would get annoying!
I'd love to hear why you bought where you did - and whatever happened with the fence guy next door?
I don't think my taste is that great. It's just slightly above average, but different, and I think it's the way I like to do things a little differently that people find intriguing.
Ok... house story in a nutshell. Got married. Sold townhomes, both husband's and mind. Tried to find an old house, but all available homes matching our (not so extraordinary) criteria were too expensive, too delapidated, or in a sketchy-ish part of town. Decided to build a new house that looked old.
Husband wanted a farm house, so we built way, way, way out in the country in neighborhood with huge lots and not so many neighbors, but that was fine with me because I worked at a small college a few towns away and this new location made my commute more tolerable.
Time passes. I get pregnant. Have it all planned out. Fate steps in and child with special needs is born. Have to spend a lot of time at hospital which is far away from our house. Upon baby's release from the hospital, am told by medical staff that son will not survive the winter if placed in day care. Look into getting someone to come to our home, but baby is hooked up to oxygen tank around the clock and requires a lot of medicine. Come to realize that finding quality care to handle such needs negates my salary. Also, baby has many doctor appointments that would require me to miss work, and I've already missed so much.
Quit job. Baby improves, life becomes normal-ish, but house feels more expensive now that family is down one income. Eventually things level out more, we pay medical bills not covered by insurance (gah!) and we figure out how to juggle expenses, everything's fine.
We decided to have another baby. Our odds are already slightly higher to have another baby with Down syndrome, and they'll grow the longer we wait. We'd like son to have at least one sibling so we decide to throw caution to the wind and try again before we lose our nerve.
I get pregnant. Turns out that, my god, I am pregnant with twins. We need a new car. We need help. We need a lot of things, but we can make it work.
And then oldest child is diagnosed with leukemia. Holy hell. We accrue more time in hospital (endless time in hospital...), more expenses. We have to pay to bank babies' cord blood at Duke should oldest child need a stem cell transplant, a very real possibility.
Babies are born. One goes to the NICU for a couple weeks. Our insurance has new rules since oldest baby was born and we end up paying out-of-pocket for most of the delivery (c-section) and baby's time in critical care unit. Ouch.
House feels more expensive now. Also, house's location really stinks now. It takes forever to get to the hospital, and doctor clinics, and husband's office so he leaves early and comes home late.
Eventually oldest child gets better (thank the heavens!) and returns to preschool. That drive takes an hour-plus round trip and gas prices are very high (circa 2005-2006). That sucks. Also, turns out that we have to pay for this child's education/services because we live in a different county than he receives services. That sucks, too.
Also, turns out that the school district we live in is really bad, especially for kids with special needs. This never mattered before as we figured we'd send our future children to private school, but now we have a child who probably won't get into any private schools in our area.
House still feels expensive. And then it feels as if we're paying all this money for a place that doesn't fit our needs at all anymore. Realization hurts, but we decided to do what seems right and put our house on the market and move into town, into better services, into a neighborhood with kids and dogs, and all that shit.
House sells in two days. Two days. We move in with my parents until we can find somewhere to live. We look, and look, and look some more. We find many old homes that we like, but most are (again) out of our price range, too delapidated, or bordering on unsavory parts of town, and also now too small for our big family.
We go round and round, weigh our options. In a fit of frustration and desperation we decided to buy a lot in cookie-cutter neighborhood and build a house. It is not what we wanted, but it felt like our best option.
And, really, it is not so bad. Husband works about five minutes away. Hospital is amazingly close which is great for clinic appointments and if we ever find ourselves hospitalized for a lengthy period of time again. We are in town, children's preschools are nearby. We are in the best school district for kids with special needs in SC, and are zoned for the best elementary school for kids with special needs. Attractive private grade school and high school are also nearby. But what's best of all is that we can make our house payment on one week's pay, and this knowledge gives us security as well as the ability to pay for things like, say, oldest son's most recent surgery which, for whatever reason, BCBS primary and Medicaid secondary won't pay the balance.
So, yeah. That's my story. Our story, really.
And fence guy next door... I totally killed the deal. I rock. Family from Ohio with three kids has a contract on the place. Good times.
Woo-hoo, go Anne! I'll call you if anyone annoying starts contemplating buying the house next door to us...hope your new neighbors are good ones!
What a story though - yeah, sometimes you make certain tradeoffs you never could have imagined when life changes or throws you a curveball (of which you've had more than anyone I know). We love our house but we're now realizing our school district is not as great as we were led to believe initially. It's actually kind of sucky, esp. at higher levels. However, financially and commute-wise, we couldn't get anything close to what we have in a better district. So...at least for now, it's private school and me being chained to my job however insane it gets. For now, that's a price I'm willing to pay, but careerwise it will be limiting.
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