realtor disaster

It has taken me a couple days to get this all down, because I am still so mad...

For my friends who are listing their homes on the market (you know who you are):

We've had our house on the market for almost a year now. We just had to fire our second realtor. That's two bad Realtors in a year. Not good odds.

We set up a video camera during our last open house so we could hear exactly what visitors were saying, not the edited "nice" version from our realtor. We were also very concerned about safety/theft (we've been hearing lots of horror stories about what happens after people have open houses.) What we heard was shocking, not from the potential buyers but from the realtor, the lady who was supposed to be working for us! The lady who, if she sold our house, would walk away with more money than we did at closing! She was basically telling all the visitors the things about our house that were wrong, not pointing out positives (which I think are a lot!), not encouraging them to make offers, none of the stuff Realtors are supposed to do. She was telling people that "our house would have sold if our basement was finished" before they even asked about the basement!!!! Not once did she point out all the pluses of our house.

I know I am biased because we live here, we built this house, it definitely has our "stamp" on it, but I happen to think my house is beautiful with lots of upgrades that are not overly apparent at first so I can't believe she would be so nasty. (for example: our home has smooth ceilings, not the patterned plaster so prevalent in newer homes, this was an expensive upgrade that we choose because it is more in lines with our traditional taste, it shows classic and elegant, something you don't notice right away but if pointed out, you think "wow, that does look good, it really makes a difference." She knew about all our upgrades because I typed up a huge list and gave them to her so she could tell others.) There are many, many more I could share but I don't want to do that here. This is our dream home, our once in a lifetime home, we'll never have another house like this one again. Ever. No one has ever said anything bad about our house to us, not that they would, but still. I know there is room for improvement but I do love it here. The fact is, this lady did not have good intentions, she did not have faith in our home, and it makes me so mad, sad, furious, you get the idea.

I mean, seriously, I worked my butt off to get ready for the open house, staying up late cleaning, letting my kids watch tv so I could de-clutter, running myself ragged, crying when my dog got diarrhea again, (I wasn't crying because he was sick, I was crying because I had to clean up more messes!) and she was not telling them how great our house is! Are you kidding me?! We had no idea she was like this, a total wolf in sheep's clothing. This woman was recommended to us by friends, who obviously didn't know she was like this either!

So now we are back to the drawing board and it really just stinks. We are missing out on times our house could be shown while the tax credit is still in effect and this is prime home buying season, man does that really burn me up. I have big plans to write a nasty letter to her superiors, I just don't know where to start, I am still completely flabbergasted. So I guess I am just saying, be careful everyone. In this economy, you don't need any more things that negatively effect the sale of your home. There are just too many factors in the home selling/buying market to consider. Having a shit*y realtor should not be your concern.

Oh, and she yelled at our bird to "shut up." Twice. Not acceptable.