I heard a joke yesterday about a group of terrorists who take a large convention hall full of lawyers hostage. They threaten to release one lawyer an hour unless their demands are met. I’d like to add realtors to this joke. A relatively simple transaction, the sale of an item, has been made hugely complex and intimidating by the group of people we call realtors. My wife and I moved from South Carolina to Illinois last fall. Our house there has been for sale ever since. When we originally made the deal with the realtor she said that if she was the selling and buying agent she’d knock 1% off the commission. At some point after the original deal she informed us that she was going back to her previous broker. At the time I didn’t think to ask about how this switch would effect our deal. I mean, a deal is a deal? Right?
It appears that a deal isn’t a deal. The new broker won’t let the agent set her own percentages. This a $1200 additional cost to me. At one time in my life I would have been really angry and hurt about this. Now I understand that holding on to the negative emotion this brings up only hurts me. I said my piece to the realtor, now she has to deal with her end of it.
I believe in karma - what you do adds to your overall “score.” Positive actions help your score and negative actions hurt your score. My realtor isn’t being positive about honoring her agreement with me. I have let go of the need to force the issue. I free her from any obligation to me. However, I cannot free her from the larger reckoning that awaits her at the end of this life. She has built karma about this, and she will have to pay for that karma.