Do you believe in karma?

What about fate or destiny?  Are those the same thing, or do they have a different meaning to you?

I could tell any client that they were “meant to be” in the house or condo that I sell them, but this latest experience was something altogether different…

How I met Sally is a rather interesting story.

I was showing a condo at D.N.A. one afternoon, and I ran into a girl and her Realtor outside the front door of the condo.  The Realtor was looking for the key in the stairwell, which right away led me to believe that he didn’t work in the area very often.  Every agent knows that at D.N.A., the lock-boxes are located on the fence on Douro Street where probably TWO-HUNDRED lock-boxes remain from six years of agents leaving them behind.  It’s an absolute nightmare, but I digress…

The girl looked very familiar, and soon she said, “David?  David Fleming?”  Her name was Jenny and it turns out that we went to high school together, and now she’s married with a kid!

We went our separate ways, and a month later, I received an email from Jenny asking if she could refer me to a friend of hers.

Jenny told me that while she ended up buying a condo through the agent whom I saw her with that day at D.N.A., the experience was awful, and she wouldn’t recommend him.  He was a “friend of the family,” and he worked out of Mississauga.

She added that I “looked like I knew what I was doing,” and that she read a couple of my blogs and thought I had a good head on my shoulders.

The compliments were vague, but I’ll take ’em!

Soon, I received an email from Jenny’s friend “Sally,” and we started looking for a condo together.

Sally told me that she had worked with a Realtor previously that year (in fact I would be her third in total), but the lady was really hot-to-trot at first, and soon cooled off as Sally’s search laboured on and on.  Apparently this agent had basically stopped sending her listings and showing her properties, and would just email her once a month to see if she was still alive…

I promised Sally that I would work with her as long as it took, and I’d send her every suitable listing for a week, a month, or a year.  Who knew it would end up being the latter…

Sally wanted a 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom condo in the King West area.

Alone at home one Friday night, I compiled a massive list of all the condominiums in the King West area, and sorted them by style.  Sally simply wrote back “Wow,” and thankfully left out, “Why are you doing this on a Friday night?”

The first time we went to look at a unit in 954 King Street West, Sally walked inside, took a quick look, and said, “Nope.”  I was shocked!  I asked her if she wanted to look upstairs, and she said, “Only because we’re already here.”

Sally told me that she could make a decision “in a matter of seconds,” and the pattern continued as did our search.

We started looking at condos in September of 2009, and we saw everything there was to see.

We looked at everything that came out in D.N.A., but it wasn’t right for Sally.

We saw every 2-storey unit in Electra Lofts and 954 King Street, but the layouts just didn’t work!  The whole “open concept” bedrooms meant that you basically had no privacy between the two bedrooms, or the bedrooms and the living space below for that matter!

We looked at the Perfume Factory, or “West 833” as it’s called, at 833 King Street, but all the south facing units looked over the alley and it smelled like garbage.

We looked at 800 King Street West, but their maintenance fees are insane.

We looked at 915 King, 29 Camden, 36 Charlotte, 66 Portland, 19 & 23 Brant, and eventually 10 Morrison when they came out.

I have to say that I rather enjoyed Sally’s uncanny ability to decide on a unit in a matter of seconds.  It was somewhat frustrating at times, but I really didn’t have to do or say anything!  She’d just walk in, look around, and then say “nah, not for me.”

She promised that one day, she’d say, “This is the one,” but that day seemed further and further away.

In November of 2009, a colleague of mine at Bosley Real Estate announced at the sales meeting that she’d be bringing out a unit at 1000 King Street West in a week or so.  It was a 1,000 square foot, 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom unit with parking and locker – EXACTLY what Sally was looking for!

I immediately emailed Sally, and she said it was funny, since this was the building where she had put in two other offers with two other agents in the past year, but lost out in multiple offers.  She said she loved the building, and it was also funny that we had yet to see anything in here!

We waited for the unit to come out, and then waited some more.

I asked my colleague, “WHEN” it was going to come out, but she told me that her clients had lost out on a house in High Park, and thus they wouldn’t be selling the condo after all.

I bugged my colleague, and over, and over for the rest of 2009, and finally I gave up when we turned the page for 2010.

In March of this year, an identical unit was listed at 1000 King Street – 2 beds, 2 baths, and 1000 square feet.

It was perfect.

I emailed Sally, and she informed me that she would be in India for the next three weeks!

We just couldn’t catch a break.

The unit sold in multiple offers, but for less than I predicted it would, and Sally and I were both disappointed.

Fast forward to June, in fact, just two weeks ago, and my colleague at Bosley came up to me and said, “Hey, did you ever sell that girl something in King West?  I know it’s been, like, a year, but I thought I’d ask.”

I smiled from ear-to-ear and asked, “Why…..tell me……really, tell me that you’re finally bringing out that unit at 1000 King?”

She did, and she was.

The first day the condo was listed, I brought Sally in to see it.

We went inside, and for the first time ever, she didn’t say “nope” after ten seconds.  She made sure to check every room, and poke a few random closets, and after about 60-70 seconds, she said, “Yep.  This is it.  This is home.”

She then added, “Let’s do it.”

I shook my head in amazement.  She was either the most sensible buyer I’ve ever had, the craziest, or both.

Sally bought a condo last week, and it had to be fate that she ended up with that unit.

Fate, or karma, I’m not sure which one.

I’m not a spiritual or religious guy, and I don’t believe in much, but often I think that some things are just meant to be…