"Wanna Look at That One?"

Things at the Athanas pad have been recently centered around finding a new pad. That's right - we're finally taking the plunge and doing the official house buying process. We're hoping that it will culminate in us finding a wonderful home that we can enjoy by ourselves for a couple of years and grow a family into. We've been tooling around and looking at open houses after church for a couple of years now in preparation, working out the things we like and the things we don't like. And now - the time has come.

In our house-hunting travels, we've encountered many different realtors. I've come to the conclusion that most realtors fall into one of three different categories.

1. Weasels. This one is self explanatory. When it comes to answering a question, they may skirt across the issue or give you some falsified answer like "Oh I'm sure those sandbags near the basement door are just there for decoration. It's a very dry basement."
2. Nervous and Rehearsed. These are the realtors who know how to do their job well, but very obviously have practiced the speech for the house they're showing you time and time again. When you ask them a question, they know the answer but typically follow it up with their experience in house-selling; it's almost as if by asking a question you don't trust them.
3. Relaxed and comfortable. These guys know their stuff about the house and even talk to you like you're a human. When you ask them a question, if they don't know the answer right away they're totally comfortable writing it down and getting back to you - usually in a reasonable amount of time. They're straight-shooters who you can typically trust to give you a solid, honest response.

We've met our share across all three of these categories of realtors, and I've been hard pressed to think of one we've met who's fallen in between. We're hoping that the selling agent we buy from falls into category 3; if we're that lucky, then whatever house we buy we'll feel comfortable going back to that person once the house is purchased with any other questions we have. After all - we ARE first time home buyers.