July 31, 2009. Bethesda, Md. Realtors.

The public perception of a real estate agent does not involve the activities carried out by agents this week. Before I became an agent in 1978, I expected to be showing houses and writing offers or negotiating home inspections. I certainly did not expect to ever engage in the actions I was described this week. One day when I was previewing houses prior to showing homes to my client, I asked a friend to accompany me, just to keep me company. It is easier and quicker to have two people when previewing houses, so it was self serving on my part to have her come with me, but I bribed her by promising lunch when we had completed the task of seeing thirty homes. At the end of the morning, she was exhausted, and commented that she had no idea agents worked so hard. She always saw me in action writing contracts or negotiating. She and her husband had purchased three homes from me and she became a friend.

But this week was unusual for the agents. One agent, Susan crawled into a crawl space and pulled out old carpets that had been laid down over the dirt. The Seller was 85 years old and had already moved to a retirement house. Settlement was today, and at the pre-settlement walk-thru on Thursday, the Buyer asked for the rug to be removed from the crawl space, even though the home inspector said nothing about it. It is impossible to hire anyone on so short a notice, so last night, Susan and her husband went over and pulled out the old rug, the husband pulling and the agent crawling around loosening the rugs, which have been down for thirty years or more. Once when Susan was well into the building, she called out to her husband and asked whether he thought there may be snakes in the crawl space. He assured her that there no snakes in Bethesda!!.

Another agent, Suzanne, went into her listing two days prior to settlement to discover that many objects had been left in the house. Now the house by contract is required to be broom clean and free of trash and debris. The Seller in her wisdom, thought the buyer would want the stuff she was leaving, but in reality, the buyer wanted the home empty of all the old stuff. This morning, three hours prior to settlement, Suzanne and a friend removed all the stuff and placed it at the curb, where the large pile will be picked up on Tuesday. Some tasks just need to be done and often gets done by the agent, even though it is certainly not in any job description. It does make life interesting.