Moving isn’t high on our daughter’s list of inspired events. She’s been patient and trusts us implicitly …but she still gave the for sale sign a good kick the moment it magically appeared in the front yard.

The couple that bought our place found us online. However, 80% of the inquiries that came through the house were from drive-bys. Not being on MLS didn’t seem to hurt us and we had three offers by the first week.

Nonetheless private listings, as anyone who’s sold on kijiji can attest, is a magnet for crazy. We got the earnest home buyer wondering where Ayr was, and the “homey” asking when he could “scope this bitch”. And maybe it’s just the paranoia that comes with selling a substantial piece of investment but I swear we had a number of undercover real estate agents and their decoy clients wander through the house. Looking for chinks in the private selling armour so they could sweep in and offer to sell our home. Our mailbox quickly filled up with agent flyers. Mike Maurer and his team sent us the paper equivalent of a small catalogue extolling the virtues of his services. Hey, someone’s got to pay to have his face plastered across half the buses in town.

In Mike’s defence many private sellers are their own brand of crazy. In our search we saw at least 3 “For Sale by Owners” flip to a real estate listing after a month of no activity. Many are using the private sale to inflate their home’s value and outright lie. There are more than a few would-be sellers that are thinking “I wonder if I could get…” and posting their property privately. I’ve been turned away from viewing potential homes by private sellers citing general “busyness” or “it’s not ready for showing yet” despite being listed for 2 months only to see them up the asking when they get a few calls.

Realtors will leap up and cry Aha!, pointing to these very inconsistencies but they’re no better. They will wag their fingers, tut-tutting an inflated price proffered by a homeowner and then list 20K higher when they get a hold of it. They will renounce false promises made by private sellers and yet we found a “fixer-upper” in Waterloo the realtor described as a single mom who had bought all the materials but simply ran afoul of a shady contractor and couldn’t finish the renovation. We walked into a home heavy with cigarette smoke, empty tallboys thrown in a cardboard box in the living room, water damage on the ceiling. the main floor bathroom lacked a toilet and the opening vented sour gas into the confined space. It was the type of place you wiped your feet leaving. The nicest thing in the main floor was the moped parked in the dining area. Out of morbid curiosity we tentatively wandered upstairs only to find the “single mom” and her boyfriend eating chili and smoking in bed watching TV. We quietly backed out of the home. It was one of those places you’re still smelling for hours after you’ve left.

Buying or selling either privately or through a realtor the watchword as always is caveat emptor. For us the process was pretty seamless. It was an active seller’s market and things moved quickly. Our house shows well and really it’s the ideal neighborhood for a young family. I love our house and I love our neighborhood. It’s not a hard sell.

The couple that bought our place are great. I love knowing their kid is going to dig the school in the fall. Representing themselves in the transaction it was all face to face dealings, not a realtor in sight. Meetings at the Tim Hortons to sign the necessary papers with boilerplate legal (vetted through our lawyer) but essentially standard provisos that have been outlined a million times before. Not without it’s stresses but I maintain it’s more from being so actively involved in the transaction. With a realtor you get to remain blissfully unaware, trusting in the actions of your agent. On your own you obsess about things like the sell-ability of the buyers home which the sale of your home is contingent on. This is no different with a realtor – you just don’t think about it.