When an old realtor comes back into your life

Right about the time I was on the fence about the first house that I almost bought, winding into the idea that I wasn’t going to buy it anymore, I started looking for other houses and this realtor just kept calling me constantly to see if I was interested in looking at houses.

Finally I just called him and told him the situation:

Look, I’m tied up in this other house right now and even though I’m definitely looking, if this house goes through, I’m taking it.

Okay, he says. I’ll just keep sending you houses and you just tell me if you want to see any.

A few emails later, one of the listings piques my interest and I schedule an appointment to see it with him. I didn’t really take to it or the other house he showed me but he seemed miles more professional than the last agents I was working with. He had one sheets of he houses we were going to look at and – get this – a folder for everything so it wouldn’t get wrinkled. Be still my heart.

I told him if he found me a better house, I would cancel the other contract immediately.

We shook hands and I felt hopeful. I spent the rest of the night looking up houses in the area that I might want to see and emailed him my list.

A few days later and I still didn’t hear from him.

So I followed up. Still nothing.

Two months later, well into my relationship with my other realtor, I get a phone call from him. Then another. I text him back and tell him I already found someone else.

He calls and leaves another voicemail. He tells me he knows I said I already found another realtor, but would it be all right with him if he still sent me listings.

That night, I have an email with listings in my inbox. (Can you say stalker?)

I am almost ready to respond childishly and say, well, if you’re okay with me passing on the listings I’m interested in to my current realtor and having him contact you, then yes, please keep sending me listing for Glendale, NY, or, you know, any other places I’ve never expressed interest in living.

Or maybe just – it’s too late, I’m working with someone who knows where the reply button is.

Or how about – what, did I make my way back around your to-call list again?

But I refrain. Bite my tongue and archive the message. If no response was appropriate for him, then no response is appropriate for me.

I tell my realtor the story of the other realtor when we meet up again to see a few houses. He just laughs.

So let that be a lesson to you, ladies, and gentlemen – the bad ones always come crawling back right when you got something good going.

Idea for my next (first) book – how trying buying a house is like trying to find a boyfriend. It’s going to sell like – in Zach Galafanakis’s words on SNL two weeks ago – whatever the opposite of hotcakes is.