For Sale

“She blinked.”

“She accepted our offer?”

“She did. But before she initialed our counter offer, she wanted, ‘Just another $500 to make it work. We’re close.’”

Cory Steiner had bitten his nails all during the negotiations, at least, between stuffing in the salsa and chips. This felt more like a poker game than a business deal. His agent, and friend, Darren, shuttled between Cory and the buyer’s agent, Melinda. Cory’s focus shifted between signing documents and the point-spread bets on the Seattle Seahawks now in the playoffs. He cringed and pushed the mute button on his new HDTV with every new flash about the declining housing market after the recent sub-prime lending scandal, where the banks had made bad loans to unqualified buyers.

“Man, she’s a tough cookie. But she signed. She really wants the place, especially when I dropped the hint that another buyer was waiting if she hesitates.” Darren was already spending the commission in his mind. “Huh?” Cory was listening half-time. “There was another buyer?”

“No, but she didn’t know that. She does know that this is not the selling season. I stood firm on the extra $500. That showed we’re not desperate. But never fear, she’s still in the driver’s seat.” As a realist, Darren knew payday only came when the buyer signed at closing. He had to set the hook firmly on this fish.

Cory thought of another tough cookie, his girlfriend, Jessica, who had recently laid down the law to him. No moving in with her until his college and credit card debts were paid down. She had pushed him to start law school or at least to get a master's. But Cory’s life was good the way it was; he really didn’t understand ticking biological clocks. Selling the condo was his reluctant response to Jessica’s pressure.

Even before the Seattle market turned bad, Darren had encouraged his friend to put the newly painted and carpeted condo in the youth-oriented Fremont district on the market before things changed. But Cory had waited too long. And then the housing market did start its slip, like the houses riding the mud slides in parts of rain-soaked Seattle.

“You know,” Darren had cautioned. “If we don’t move, nothing happens until the New Year's resolutions kick in for people to improve their housing.”

Darren’s efforts to move his client to sell before the holiday doldrums were like the highway workers who start avalanches in the mountain passes before snow buried the motorists on the interstate. After three months on the market with no bites, Cory started to pay attention.

“Man, this is like a Saturday night with no date. Nobody wants me until I show something. Hey, we dropped the price fifteen thou already, then this chick comes in with a ball-busting offer ten thousand bucks lower than the asking price. I know, three months on the market and no bites, but man she’s got some balls.”

“You know someone is giving her damn good advice. Especially considering she was approved by the bank for only ten thou below your asking price. She’s got to make up the difference by squeezing you. And she’s just out of college herself, so go figure.”

Darren was not only his friend and agent; he was also Cory’s life coach. He tried to show the younger man collateral benefits of the selling process. Like lessons in human nature, namely greed, his own and the buyer’s. And not to forget, the tutorial in tolerance for pressure and the ability to compromise.

After the long wait, with open houses where nobody came and ads in the Seattle papers next to luxury condos and townhouses, this offer came after the solstice brought glimmers of light and hope through the dark rain clouds that spilled their bounty nonstop on Seattle’s streets and roads.

“So, Darren, are we home free now? We just sit tight and wait till closing, right? I pick up my check and everything’s cool with my girl, Jessica?” Cory liked things uncomplicated.

“Ha, in your dreams. The inspection just came in. She wants some electrical work done; install a 15 amp breaker for a square D panel and upgrade the lead outlet in the kitchen with a GFCI receptacle, you know, safety ground fault. Could’ve have been worse.”

“Aw, man, what’s that going to cost?”

“Not much, my man. A couple hours at scale and materials. I say two hundred plus tax, max. You’re lucky it wasn’t plumbing. Those plumbers turn lead pipes into gold like the old alchemists.”

During the post-game wrap-up after the Seahawks had won, he and Darren were finishing the last of the Chinese take-out. With a mouth full of Kung Pao chicken, Cory started to do the math. Sure, he’d have money in his pocket when the condo closed, at least until he paid off his debts, but then he’d be living in Jessica’s space, on her terms. What would that be like? What would that mean for him to be able to do what he wanted to do; to his freedom? No doubt, Jessica was the love of his life, but she didn’t approve of his preoccupation with sports.

Unlike her, he was still wading into the employment waters, while she was already on a career fast-track in her firm’s Human Resources department. She had their lives planned right down to their retirement years. Cory’s focus was more immediate: the game, food, and sex. As he bit into a piece of uncooked garlic, he burned his mouth and throat. Cory came to the bitter realization that more than his condo was for sale.

“Darren, what if we stopped the process right now?”

“Don’t even think that, my man.” Darren winced at a lost commission. “There’s always remorse in these deals. But believe me, it’ll pass. You know you want to enter the New Year with a new life. Hell, you need this.”

“Do I?”