Inside Marcy's Mind

We walked away from a “great” condo deal—and kept our sanity in the process

• Marcy • Season 1 • Episode 61

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Hot listings, hotter tempers, and a clock we didn’t set—this is the real story of a condo deal that should’ve been simple and turned into a master class in boundaries. We lay out the exact criteria we were chasing (same building, southeast corner, in-unit laundry), the tight timeline we couldn’t ignore, and the moment a building insider pushed urgency over alignment. The pressure campaign came with “inside info,” midnight pings, and a narrative that didn’t account for travel, cash flow, or the work required to convert our current place to a short-term rental. When a reasonable ask for a later close was dismissed, we faced the choice buyers dread: squeeze our lives into someone else’s deadline or walk.

We walked. No drama on our end, no name-calling, just a line in the sand: if the date doesn’t work, the deal doesn’t work. The reactions told us everything about incentives, representation, and how easily “hot market” becomes a cudgel. Along the way, we spotlight the people who actually lowered the temperature—our lender and attorney—and the tools that keep you sane: clear must-haves, non-negotiable logistics, and a budget that leaves room to breathe. If you’ve ever felt rushed into an offer, this conversation gives you language, strategy, and permission to slow the game down. You’ll hear how to spot red flags, set closing terms that match your life, and recognize when sunk-cost bias is steering the ship.

There’s a quieter truth underneath the noise: not every upgrade is an upgrade. At a certain stage, joy, timing, and risk tolerance matter more than square footage. We still love our current home, we’ll keep our financing ready, and we’ll move only when the math and the moment align. If you’re navigating real estate in a competitive market—or recovering from a deal that blew up—you’ll find practical cues, a few laughs, and a reminder that saying no is a power move. If this resonated, subscribe, leave a review, and share your own real estate horror stories with us—we might read them on a future show.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to Inside Marcy's Mind. My name is Marcy Backis, and I am your host. Oh my gosh, today's episode is the real estate transactions the good, the bad, and the completely unhinged. Welcome back to Inside Marcy's Mind, where we take life's everyday circus and turn it into a comedy routine with a little moral at the end if I'm feeling generous. Today's topic real estate transactions, the world's most expensive emotional roller coaster. Whether you've bought, sold, rented, or just stocked Zillow for sport, you know it's never just about property. It's about people. So grab your metaphorical hard hat and a snack because we're diving into the good, the bad, and the completely unhinged world of real estate that Craig and I just dabbled in, and I never want to dabble in again. I have to be honest. This transaction just took it out of me. So we're gonna we are gonna talk about my transaction. We're gonna talk about real estate in general. Uh, this is not gonna be a super long podcast. I will talk about our personal journey that we just went on, and we'll talk a little bit about real estate. I'm not a real estate expert by any means. So if you need real real estate advice, find someone else because this is really just a story and some information and thoughts on Craig and I have bought all over the country. We've lived in a lot of different places. Uh, the current condo that we lived in, we bought 22, 23 years ago as an investment, never thinking we'd live in it, but here we are. So you never know, never know. But uh we did attempt to buy a two-bedroom condo in the same building with a real estate agent that lives in the building. And I have some thoughts about that and about her. So I'm gonna share those with you. Uh, if you haven't listened to Aging Eight for Sissies, this week is on cooking for one or two people. I think a lot of us are in that boat. And if you're not, you don't have to listen to it, but it's got some good information, some good tips you might want to. And let's see what else. We have another podcast, my third podcast coming out called Unbottled. All things sobriety, all things addiction, really. Um, whether that's shopping, Diet Coke, you name it. We all have our addictions, and it's gonna be a great podcast. I'm excited. I'm gonna start that in November. I'll let you know. Please um subscribe, leave great feedback on this episode. If you need to get a hold of me, inside Marcy's mind at gmail.com. We also have websites. You can, we got it all. So check it all out. Let me know what you need from me, let me know what you want to hear about, and I'm happy to share that with you. I just got back from a trip to California, had a great time, spent time with family. Um, my oldest child Kyle, spent time with my nephew Chris, and his wife and kids. Just had a great time. Saw my friend Mary and Debbie, spent the night with Mary and Dave. They are always accommodating, and I love staying with them. Uh saw my friends at my old work. Let's see, what else? Hmm. Sorry, I needed a cup of coffee. Um, that's about it. Had a great time. Went to Disneyland, went to um the aquarium of the Pacific out there in Long Beach. Just had a good time. So uh getting ready now, turning around. I've got my uh stewardship campaign getting underway, finishing that up, and then next week, Craig and I leave for Ireland. Very excited about that. So there will probably be a podcast on Ireland. So hang in there. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back with uh real estate. The good, the bad, and the ugly, and it can get ugly. People. Um, we've had good real estate agents, we've had bad real estate agents. In this instance, we had a really bad real estate agent who was not in it for us, but in it for the transaction. And with that being said, uh again, we have canceled the transaction. We are not buying the two-bedroom condo that I was excited about, and I'm fine with it. I love where I live. Um, this would have been nice, but it didn't work. So the dream, when things go right, let's start with the good, because it is the shortest segment that I'm gonna do. Sometimes real estate actually works. The offer's accepted, the inspections clean, and everyone's smiling. It's like finding a parking spot downtown, right in front of your building, rare, magical, and over before you can believe it. When it happens, you feel unstoppable until the next deal reminds you why real estate causes gray hair. So Craig and I have had a lot of really good deals. We've had deals that squeak by, we've had this, we've had that. I've never had a deal like this where my real estate agent wasn't on my side. And I felt was working against us. Although they felt they were working hard for us. I felt like they were working for the seller, not for us. And they were not the agers. There was another agent. So, first of all, let's get that clear. So here's some of the bad. When the house owns you, then there's the bad. The deal that starts out hopeful and ends with you refreshing your inbox at midnight. The sip the seller forgot to mention the roof leaks, the appraisal comes in$40,000 short. The inspector starts each sentence with, well, that's not ideal. By closing day, you're not celebrating, you're just grateful you survived. Those are sad. I I have never bought a house like that. And I know that happens, um, where everything just kind of squeaks by. And that was, and you start not feeling joyful anymore. You're just glad it's over. And and you do buy the house and you wonder why you bought it. Um that's where we were heading. We were heading into the I didn't, I don't want this anymore territory. And instead of continuing to go through it kind of like the wedding, you know, you're already down the aisle. So why turn back while we turned back? And I'm glad we did. I think we dodged a bullet. Our real estate agent. So here's here's how our real estate um thing went down. So we were looking for a two-bedroom in our in our a condo in our unit, in our building. I like our building. And I wanted it to be a certain corner, which was the southeast corner. I wanted a two-bedroom, I wanted in-unit laundry because we have in-unit laundry and in-unit laundry you cannot put in anymore. So if it doesn't have it, you're not getting it. You have to use the um P level, which is a giant, there's a giant laundry down there, but I I nonetheless, I don't, I wanted in-unit laundry. So we found this, it came on the market. We had looked at another one that, quote unquote, we were told was a great deal. And um, this one came on better floor, better everything, same price. Interesting. I thought that was a great price on the lower floor one. Didn't make sense to me, but Craig and I went and looked at it. We liked it. We looked at it on Wednesday, Wednesday night at 10 o'clock. I get a text from our real estate agent. Another offer is coming in. Oh, that's a surprise. Okay, whatever. That's fine. We'll talk in the morning. So the morning comes and she is pressuring us. Now, this happened to be a day Craig had a ton of meetings. I actually had some things going on. Our life isn't always empty. Craig is still working. He had meetings all day. She is pushing, pushing, pushing for us to put an offer in. And you get caught up in that frenzy. And I started to feel frenzied. Craig never feels frenzied, but I did. I'm gonna admit, you know, she got under my skin. And then she came and said, I've talked to the agent. The other offer is all cash and a short closing. And her people wanted to take it, but they're holding off for your offer. I wish they had just taken it. So now I have information that I'm not supposed to be privy to, and that affects the offer that Craig and I put in. Now, Craig is super busy. We kind of talk a couple times during the day. We come up with the offer, he goes, go ahead and make the offer. I did. Um, we went a little over asking price, and we made October 31st our closing date. Well, Craig and I realize we're gonna be in Ireland until the 29th from the 17th. The second part of this deal I want you to understand is we decided to keep our condo and make it a short term short-term rental. So that adds another layer to this that our real estate agent just managed to not even pay attention to. That's a lot of stress. I need to get our stuff out of here into the new place and get this on the market as soon as I can. So I'm not paying two mortgages. But all she's focusing on is the other deal. And I'm trying to focus on both things. So Craig and I talk and we come up to the point. We now in Chicago, you have to have a lawyer. You have to have a lawyer, and your lawyer meets with you and he writes a letter. And I said, Look, we well, we said, look, we want to close on the 14th of November. So let's put that in there. And if they can't concede to that, then we're willing to walk away. We let the mortgage guy also know that we've been working with. And Lauren knew that and acted like she didn't. Um, we said that on Monday. Don't hear from Lauren, don't hear from anybody. I'm in California. I get a call from Lauren that that is just not possible. They're not doing it. She calls me, not Craig, which really bugged me because she knew I was out of town. And Craig's right here in the building. She knows how to find him. She knows where his office is here. She lives in the building. So I said, look, Lauren, if that's the case, if they can't close on the 14th, we'll go ahead and we just can't change that. So you're not flexible at all? No, we're really not. So she starts yelling at me. Now, I've never been yelled at by a real estate agent who's working for me ever, and screams at me that we're just going to cancel the deal. And I said, Lauren, hold on. You're just talking to me. I need to talk to Craig. Maybe Craig has more wiggle room than I do. But as far as I know, we neither one of us have wiggle room. But hang in, you know. So I call Craig and I go, look, I don't want to talk to her anymore. You talk to her. She's scared of you. And uh she just tries to pressure me all the time, and it works. I fold like a deck of cards sometimes on this stuff. This stuff's if I don't have a lot of knowledge, it stresses me out. So I'm on vacation being stressed out. So Craig calls her and says, Look, we're not interested in that. And of course, she's very upset. Well, not all deals work. They had a backup offer. My feeling was let's get them to their backup offer so they don't lose that. I don't want to hurt the people selling either. I've been a seller. I've also had deal deals, people cancel deals on our properties. We had it with our our first our house in Coto de Casa when we sold it. Like, it's not that big a deal. Well, she just lost her mind with Craig, screamed at Craig, told him we are the reason that people don't, real estate agents don't like working with clients. That everybody in this deal, the mortgage, the lawyer, all thought we were difficult to work with. On and on and on, yelling and screaming and just saying horrible things, never want to speak to you again. I'm firing you as my clients. Like, and honestly, all we did was just decide not to go through with the deal. No, no hard words, no nastiness on our part. And this girl burnt the house down on the way out. Literally. Later that afternoon, I was at my nephew's house. We get the docusign that says we're releasing everybody from everything. And she threatens us in the cover letter about signing it, like we wouldn't sign it. We signed everything we were given. We did everything we were supposed to do. This was just horrible. And just an and you know, when she says we're the reason real estate, she's the reason women get a bad name. Name-calling, threatening, all because we decided to not go through with a deal because the other people doing the deal weren't gonna give us what we wanted. She's our broker. She should be on our side. And they had another deal. Not a big deal. Like uh they had a deal where they closed in 10 days. They were still gonna close if they go with that other deal, they're still gonna close but before our October 31st. So, you know, it was just a nightmare. Glad it's over. I slept for 11 hours that night. You know, things can go really wrong. And I don't feel that we did anything wrong to be treated like that. And it's just unacceptable in my world. So if you're in Chicago, don't ever use Lauren. I won't give her last name, but man, if you if you have a real estate agent named Lauren, check in with me at uh insidemarcy's mind at gmail.com and I'll tell you if it's her because I would never recommend her. Overly emotional. She thinks she knows everything. She's unbelievably unkind. And I I so there are deals where it gets spicy. Though there are horror stories, buyers ghosting at closing, liens appearing from 1998, lawyers sending final, final, final, four real PDFs at midnight. And you know, you can just there's ghosts in the house. There's all kinds of things, you know, there's all kinds of problems that can happen, and these problems did not happen for us, and it still did not go well. So our deal basically went up in flames. So apparently, our questions, expectations, and mild obsession with not losing money was too much, and that's the thing I don't think Lauren took into consideration. Craig has just turned 70 this week. I'm 64, almost 65. I you don't want to screw up at this age. We don't have time to make it up. You just don't. Real estate just doesn't reveal character, it tests it. All my sassiness aside, I thought the market was hot. It turns out my agent's temper is hot. But here's the thing when a deal explodes, it's not the end of the story. Sometimes the cleanup leads to better people, better paths, and a hell of a podcast episode. So, you know, I I loved my unit. I love my unit. I love where I live. It is a one-bedroom. Two bedrooms would probably be better. But to be honest, this entire thing sucked the joy out of it for me. It sucked the joy out of buying another unit. It sucked the joy, it sucked all the joy out. And at this age, I'm not willing to do something that doesn't bring me joy. So for right now, Craig and I are happy in our one bedroom, um, been remodeled, all fancy. It's the way we like it. And we're gonna, we're gonna stay here. And if something comes along down the line, we can entertain that idea. We're gonna continue making sure our financials are all in order for a loan, etc., with our loan guy. Um but wow. So let's talk about the cast of characters that make or break a deal. The real estate agent, half therapist, half magician, half detective. And somebody did not tell Lauren that. We had a great mortgage guy. Really liked him. I don't think he thought we were a problem. Uh, the inspector, we had waived inspection, which is probably one of the reasons we got the deal. We don't need it. We live in the building. Um, in Chicago, you need a lawyer. We had a great lawyer. He was wonderful. He worked well with us. Again, I don't know where Lauren got that. Everybody thought we were a problem. But there's a group of people that you have to work with. Have your financials in order, which we did. Have all your, you know, make sure your scanner is up and working because you're going to need to scan documents. You need to sign things on time. And I'll tell you, the biggest miracle in real estate isn't closing a deal, it's keeping your sanity intact. And Craig is really good at that. I'm not so great at it, but I I've learned something on this, not to be afraid to say no. It's my money, it's my choice. And behind every for sale sign is a saga: someone's dream, someone's breakdown, and someone trying desperately to stay calm. Real estate teaches patience, tests your limits, and gives you stories for days. If you survived a deal and still have a pulse, congratulations. You're my kind of person. Please subscribe and leave a review and send your own horror stories if you'd like. I'm happy to share them anonymously. Until then, keep your humor high, your offers clean, and your wine fridge unplugged. This is Marcy Backis, and thanks for listening to my real estate saga. Until next time, go out and do something positive.

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Marcy Backhus

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