It's all relative
When we first decided to move here, MFH's second cousin called his parents for our phone number. Her husband had recently ventured into real estate and wanted us to buy a house from him.
Against my better judgement, MFH agreed to talk to him.
We met with him one time. He showed us two houses, one new and one old. He wouldn't show us one of the houses we were interested in because he couldn't find it and wouldn't call to ask anyone where it was. He explained it away saying, "This isn't started yet. It's just a drawing. Besides, it's in a gated community and they wouldn't be interested in a gated community." He made this comment to my MIL, who was riding with him and then later told me.
We were very interested in the new house he showed us. He couldn't answer any of our questions about the property, and didn't bother to find out the answers and get back to us. At the end of that afternoon he assured us "he knew exactly what we were interested in".
He then entered us into his database, which automatically sent us email when a property was listed that met our specifications. Only, all the emails were in an area of town that we told him we weren't interested in. And, they were all out of our price range.
The next weekend that we came down to look at houses, I couldn't reach him. His MIL told me he was at a football game, so I left him a message to call back with directions to a subdivision we couldn't find. He called back the next day and told me he was with a client all day, but did I look on map.quest?
A lie. A big red flag.
I ended up calling the developer of the gated community, where the house was indeed under construction, to ask him some questions. That property was not one that offered what we needed after all. His wife then told me about another house, the one we eventually bought.
We used the realtor that has our old house listed to negotiate the deal. I didn't feel guilty about it considering cousin didn't even show us this house.
His wife confronted me at a funeral to get this off her chest. Her husband worked hard for us and they were hurt that we didn't call him when we found this house. Besides, he just bought a brand new truck and the nice fat commission off this house would have helped pay for it.
Too frickin' bad. He did nothing for us, and he lied.
Now we find out that some other members of the family are saying that it was "shitty" of us not to buy the house from Marc.
Up yours, Marc.
Because I'm a nice guy, and because the rest of the family is important to me, I chose not to bring up how hard he didn't work for us to his wife or his in-laws. But I could have, and if I had it to do over again, I would have.
MFH is going to the root of the problem to straighten this out.
But never again will we involve a relative in our personal affairs.
Against my better judgement, MFH agreed to talk to him.
We met with him one time. He showed us two houses, one new and one old. He wouldn't show us one of the houses we were interested in because he couldn't find it and wouldn't call to ask anyone where it was. He explained it away saying, "This isn't started yet. It's just a drawing. Besides, it's in a gated community and they wouldn't be interested in a gated community." He made this comment to my MIL, who was riding with him and then later told me.
We were very interested in the new house he showed us. He couldn't answer any of our questions about the property, and didn't bother to find out the answers and get back to us. At the end of that afternoon he assured us "he knew exactly what we were interested in".
He then entered us into his database, which automatically sent us email when a property was listed that met our specifications. Only, all the emails were in an area of town that we told him we weren't interested in. And, they were all out of our price range.
The next weekend that we came down to look at houses, I couldn't reach him. His MIL told me he was at a football game, so I left him a message to call back with directions to a subdivision we couldn't find. He called back the next day and told me he was with a client all day, but did I look on map.quest?
A lie. A big red flag.
I ended up calling the developer of the gated community, where the house was indeed under construction, to ask him some questions. That property was not one that offered what we needed after all. His wife then told me about another house, the one we eventually bought.
We used the realtor that has our old house listed to negotiate the deal. I didn't feel guilty about it considering cousin didn't even show us this house.
His wife confronted me at a funeral to get this off her chest. Her husband worked hard for us and they were hurt that we didn't call him when we found this house. Besides, he just bought a brand new truck and the nice fat commission off this house would have helped pay for it.
Too frickin' bad. He did nothing for us, and he lied.
Now we find out that some other members of the family are saying that it was "shitty" of us not to buy the house from Marc.
Up yours, Marc.
Because I'm a nice guy, and because the rest of the family is important to me, I chose not to bring up how hard he didn't work for us to his wife or his in-laws. But I could have, and if I had it to do over again, I would have.
MFH is going to the root of the problem to straighten this out.
But never again will we involve a relative in our personal affairs.
posted by Well-heeled mom @ 7:42 AM
6 Comments:
At 9:52 AM,
Cricket said…
We were lucky enough that when this happened to us with my sister's husband, everybody already knew he was an asshole, so we were off the hook for not speaking to him for years.
I wish this hadn't have happened to you, but you gave the guy plenty of chances. He didn't show you want you wanted, he referred you the wrong listings, and he cast along a white lie that was unnecessary (as if you really cared if he were at a football game -- unless he ditched you for it). Anyway, you don't owe anybody anything, particularly when they purchase on prospect.
You were right, but that doesn't make it any easier. I think talking might actually make it better.
So far, so much for the benefits of moving to your husband's town. You're 0 for 2 right now. Sucks.
At 2:16 PM,
Not-So-Normal-Mom said…
OMG! This happened to us last year when we bought our place. Our realtor was our sons' sixth grade teacher, and our friend, and she busted her butt for us. My husband's cousin is a realtor and was very angry that we didn't buy the house through him, even though we did tell him that we were looking. He even suggested that after our friend did all the work, we should tell him about it and he would take it from there. WTF??? That was just too shady for us, and so we went with our friend. Now, the cousin doesn't speak to us and neither does a large part of the family. I feel bad for my husband because it has caused some animosity, but I really do still feel like we did the right thing. Don't worry. Doing the right thing is always a better choice.
At 5:21 PM,
Alleen said…
ugh.. .yep, better to not do business with relatives.
At 5:58 PM,
Michelle Smiles said…
These kinds of things can cause such havoc in a family. I hate dealing with family in business matters.
At 1:27 PM,
Anonymous said…
When family is toxic it's always painful. You did the right thing. Eventually it'll all blow over.
At 3:36 AM,
Heather said…
It will blow over, but I hate when those things happen. Its always best to never mix family and business.
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