DRAMA!

I've been feeling that I really need to get back into the swing of posting regularly again, but after achieving nine comments on my bathroom post, I kinda feel like I reached my peak as a blogger. In reality, I've been experience some drama at work lately, and after re-hashing said drama with real life friends and family, it's exhausting trying to type it out again.

However, for posterity's sake, I'll try.

Through my connections as a real estate agent, I found the most super special awesome apartment ever!. It's the top floor of a Victorian three-family for only $850 and that's with heat included! For those of you who live down South and are thinking "she's excited about paying only $850 a month?" let me assure you that it's a steal around here. The average nice one bedroom apartment (nice being defined as clean, relatively up-dated appliances, and no scary paint colors, ceiling cracks, or grubby floors) right now is renting for $925, and that without any utilities included at all. Usually these apartment are located in bulky, large buildings that have not character or style (but they're functional). If you want something in a multi-family, which usually have the pluses of being in a residential neighborhood, have yards, and are much more attractive, you can pay up to $1,000. So yeah, this was the apartment opportunity of a lifetime, and I jumped on it like a kid belly-flopping into a pool.

Like most belly-flops, there was pain involved. The landlady who owns the super special awesome apartment wanted a June 1 move date, and my lease isn't up until June 30th. Never fear! I schemed that if I was willing to sacrifice 1/2 a month's rent, (and who wouldn't for this apartment?) Then I could start my new lease at June 1st if my current landlord was willing to let me leave my old lease just two weeks early.

I didn't feel that was too unreasonable, was it?

Well, he didn't either, provided I find a tenant who was willing to move-in on the 15th so he wouldn't lose out on half a month's rent, perfectly understandable.

Here's the rub - my landlord is also a client of my boss, who is a real estate broker. I was immediately trapped in a very awkward position. You see, as a tenant, I am obligated to find a replacement tenant (or else pay until the end of June). As a real estate agent, I am obligated to collect commission for my services finding a tenant. Both my boss and my landlord believed I should fulfill my obligations.

Well, I found a tenant right away. She was the perfect tenant - single, hardworking, middle-age woman with great credit. It seemed like everything was going to work out just fine. Until the tricky issue of commission came up.

My boss and I both felt that since my apartment was scheduled to go on market July 1st, and any tenant we provided for that time would earn us a fair commission. However, even though it went on the market two weeks early, a tenant was found, and therefore no rent was lost. Therefore, since we advertised the property, we ran the credit, we checked the references, and we presented this great tenant, we were full entitled to our full commission.

The landlord, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, the landlord's wife, didn't agree. She felt I should suffer some penalty for leaving two weeks early even though they weren't suffering any monetary loss of any kind. So she and my boss then engaged in a battle over commission that lasted several days.

Meanwhile, I couldn't sleep, I'm was hounded by my tenant who kept calling me asking "What's going on? Am I in, am I not? Do I need to bring in my attorney?" I nearly had a panic attack when the word "attorney" was brought up.

Finally, I called Mrs. Landlord myself and informed her that, as I only keep 40 percent of whatever commissions I bring into the company, the current negotiated commission of $200 was so low that I probably wasn't going to see a red cent of that money, and that my boss was really just fighting for his share, not mine. The revelation that I wasn't going to get paid after all seemed to make a difference. The deal finally closed, and I am out of this crappy apartment come June 14th!

You would think this was enough drama for one week, but no, there's more, and it involves the super special awesome apartment and what it took to actually make it mine. But that will have to wait for another time. So be sure to tune in next time for DRAMA! Part II.