A Stressed Out Christmas Shopper
I just had to laugh when I saw one of my blog’s referrers “photo of a stressed Christmas Shopper”. Haha. Why would anyone want to check out on the faces of stressed out Christmas shoppers? This Christmas season has been stressful because of the failed attempts to close the purchase of a real estate property. It’s been two months since the Amityville Househunting nightmare and we thought we could finally have a new property this month. Should I be Exasperated? Irritated? Annoyed? or should I just let it go? The most silly things happen when one buys real estate in the open market.
Let me just name a few irritants.
1. Once sellers know there is a buyer for their property, they suddenly change their mind. This seller increased her selling price by half a million. Can you imagine the stupidity?
2. Brokers can destroy a deal. Some of these brokers aren’t even licensed and demand a 5% commission from the seller. Seller complains to buyer that their net proceeds are low. Why is that my problem now? Why are they selling in the first place?
3. A Chinese seller refused to meet with us before payment. “Everything should be done in the bank”, the broker says. Broker says seller is a Chinese and is wary of strangers and fears being kidnapped. Of all the stupid excuses! My imagination starts to get wild. I think the broker is pulling our leg. Maybe she kidnapped the seller.
That was the last straw. After hearing the broker’s tale, I said “no meeting , no sale”. Then I took a nap.
Our most important focus during times of stress is taking care of ourselves. We are better able to cope with the most irregular circumstances, we are better able to be there for others , if we’re caring for ourselves. I felt like screaming at the broker for her lies. But I didn’t want to add more lines to my face. The nap refreshed my nerves. I woke up to a text message from this seller who finally wanted to close the deal with us. She had been playing cat and mouse (pakipot) with me for the past two months. After 4 failed attempts, skepticism was written all over my face. I said “okay, let’s see if your papers are in order”. I did not want to hope anymore. If it’s meant for us, it will happen.
It helps to go back to basics- to focus on detachment, dealing with feelings and taking life one day at a time.
With those thoughts in my mind, I drove over to UP Diliman campus to fetch M and watched the annual UP Lantern Parade.
View Photos of UP Lantern Parade
Technorati Tags: stressed out Christmas shoppers, Christmas season
Filipina mom) and my journey to a "new normal" after the death of 
hi noemi,
I can so relate to this, hence lengthy commentahead:
re: stupid excuses-brokers will DO just about everything to keep seller and buyer meet. that happened to us and I ended up berating the broker. akala yata e maiisahan ako. heh.
re: pakipot seller-our seller’s version of it was-at first she demanded payment of the earnest money in cash. when I was handing her the cash, she said she’d rather accept a check for security purposes. o di ba, ang galing ng logic.
here’s what we did-at first, we went with the flow and gave in to whatever demands the seller had. But, as soon as she signed the Contract to Sell, siya naman ang pinahirapan ko. tit for tat.e, she didn’t know her way around the Register of Deeds, so sorry na lang. hahaha
@Lemon- I think some of the sellers who are wishy washy really don’t want to sell after all. I remember now why I stopped being a real estate broker. It’s because of these sellers.