So now the real estate roller coaster really begins ...

Just as I was getting changed at the gym, I got a phone call from my possibly-now-ex realtor saying that he'd taken an initial look at comparable properties and concluded I don't have any equity in my house. I told him I didn't believe it -- not in an "I'm in denial" sense but in an "I've done my groundwork already" sense. He said he'd e-mail me the comparison. So I spent my entire workout in a major funk but came out of it with a fatalistic resignation. It's not as if I've done anything expensively irrevocable yet.

But then when I got home and look at his "comparable properties" the only thing they had in common was being triplexes. They were scattered all over West Oakland -- all in worse neighborhoods than mine (and some in really really crappy neighborhoods). Whereas when you look at my immediate neighborhood, properties significantly smaller than mine have recently sold for noticeably more than his "comparable triplexes". So I'm just not buying it. I suggested that I might have more luck with someone more familiar with the immediate territory and am pursuing other options.

Who knows? Maybe I'm wrong and I'm stuck with it (in which case I'll have to put on my Big Girl Panties and make certain changes). But I definitely think his cursory price comparison is crap.