Realty Reality

I hate real estate. Actually, that's not true. I have a love/hate relationship with real estate. I love the possibilies. Bigger rooms, smaller rooms, more rooms, less rooms. Coriander vs. granite. Hard wood vs. carpet. Tile vs. linoleum. Crown molding, wainscotting, or both? Wooden fence, chain link, or iron? The list is endless. I love walking through new houses and considering how I would change the furniture, what color I would paint the walls, and how I could raise my children there. This, of course, is the buying end of real estate.

However, I hate the selling part of real estate. I hate putting my house on the market, waiting for the phone calls, packing all my things under the guise of staging only to unpack them when my house doesn't sell. I hate watching people traipse across my floors, putting their foreign hands on my belongings, all the while knowing they probably won't be buying. Not my house, anyway. I hate hearing them have the same conversation I had in what could have been there house about how they want to change the paint we just applied, tear up the carpet we just put down, and ultimately undo all of our "improvements." In the end, however, none of this really matters. I can get over all of this regardless of whether or not my house sells this time around. No, what really gets to me is the open house and the 21st century neighborhood busybodies.

I know what many of you are probably thinking right now. Busybodies? Seriously? When did we jump back in to the 1950s and how long are we staying? But busybodies they are. You see, I grew up watching countless sitcoms from the 50s and 60s and I saw the endless jokes about the women sitting in their windows, watching the neighbors to see when they left, when they came home, and what new items they brought with them. The ladies got together for coffee or tea when their underlying purpose was to see their competition in the best housekeeping, cooking, and all around housewifery. They made friends with each other, sure, but they also kept a mental list of who had the newest hat or the latest dress and whose husband was the most solicitous of his wife's many needs. Ah, the good old days.

Today, however, we no longer use such underhanded means to spy on our neighbors. We don't borrow cups of sugar, and we don't sit on the front porch to greet each other by name. I knew all of this coming into adulthood. What I didn't know was that these activities had been replaced by much more patient busybodies than we've ever seen before. These women aren't in a hurry to find out the truth about me or my family. Sure, they'll sit by their windows while the moving van is unloaded (taking note, no doubt, of the second-rate moving company and the worse-for-the-wear furniture), but they won't be in such a hurry to gather the nitty-gritty details so quickly. They'll live beside me for years without ever feeling the need to see inside my house or monitor my daily living. Then one fateful day as they are leaving for work or to collect their children, they will notice the telling sign in my front yard: For Sale. Jackpot. With a for sale sign will come the inevitable open house, and that, my friend, is when the 21st century busybodies will make their move.

Make no mistake; this will not be just any old cursory visit. An open house is a full on invitation to the neighborhood to come to my house, examine the details, collect all the dirt, and ultimately put to rest the many questions that have infiltrated their minds for the past four years. It's impressive, really, because these women have not only found a way to gather all of this information without putting in the effort of forced friendship or reluctant socializing, but they have also made it so they can gather all of this information without supervision or interference. Sheer genius. Domestic espionage at its very best.

As I prepare to (potentially) put my house on the market for the second time, these are the memories of our last real estate experience that are racing through my head. All of this makes me want to reconsider putting my house on the market, reconsider ever moving again, or at the very least open my house to the world with a personal invitation to each of my neighbors to come in and view my personal life. This time perhaps I could provide a special handout just for these neighborhood busybodies with directions to my personal closet, a copy of this year's tax forms, and a pricing list of all the major components of my house. You know, just in case they missed anything last year.