It's Friday!
Of course, that doesn't have as much meaning when you are starting out in a new career and are working six or seven days a week. But, I love my job in Real Estate and you have to put in the hours to make it. I had my first closing Wednesday, and it was a rollercoaster ride. It all started out when I got a call from the buyer's agent asking if I had the final WDO (wood destroying organism...are you taking notes?) inspection and I said 'HUH?' but went to the person here who handles all of that and was informed that the Inspector had gone out that morning but hadn't called back, which she assumed to mean there was no problem. But we called and left a message with the Inspector and within three minutes he had called back and told us there was no final WDO because when he went there nothing had been done. Yup, my first closing, nothing on the first inspection had been fixed... I could feel the grey hairs popping out all over. What's worse is that my first listing was my best friend's house, so I assumed that when she said everything was fixed, it was fixed. I called the Buyer's Agent and et her know we might have a problem and headed over to the property to go over the final inspection with her.

Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought. Everything but three things had been done and the buyer was happy with the deal, so the closing was on, as long as we held a chunk of money in escrow to pay for the repairs left. By this time, the buyer, his wife and daughter were in the house, and it was ungodly hot, even for Tallahassee in the summertime. So, one of us brain surgeons said, 'Hey, let's turn on the AC, we have to inspect it anyway'. So, I walked into the hallway and turned on the AC. Nothing Not only did a lot more of my hair turn grey, I'm sure some of it simply fell out. Remember, this is my first listing ever, I had no idea what to do or what to say but I noticed the Mom was having problems. Her eyes were bulging out of her head and several veins on her neck and forehead were prominently sticking out. They were buying a home for their three triplets to go to school, so you can imagine all the emotions she was dealing with.

Just as I was sure she was going to physically attack me, the phone rang. It was my best friend/the seller. I asked her to head over since we were having a problem with the AC. She did and the AC didn't turn on when she tried it, either. Just to illustrate the panic that was starting to set in: it was three o'clock, the AC didn't work, the closing is scheduled for four o'clock, all of the participants for the closing are drenched in sweat, the Mom is still having the bulging eyes and vein popping out problem and the seller is saying there is nothing wrong with the AC...she had it on three days ago.

The seller calls her electrician and wonder of wonders, they say they will be right over. This is at three o'clock. At three thirty five, the guy shows up, it takes less than five minutes for him to fix the problem. Seems that they had a light switch under the house as a breaker and in the work that the seller had done, someone had inadvertantly switched it off.

This means the closing is ON. Except that the closing is all the way across town. And the Father/Buyer is covered in dirt since he crawled underneath the house to inspect it (I'll do that for B when I buy her a house!), the rest of us are all sweaty and probably quite stinky and the Mom is still suffering from some bulging veins, although her eyes had stopped bugging out.

We all made it to the closing and it went nicely. I sat there and looked like I knew what was going on. I got the file (with the check!!!) and then it was over.  ¶ 11:28 AM