She still hasn't been in touch, I'm going to

e-mail her. I'm sure she just lost my e-mail address.

She doesn't call, she doesn't write

Well, so far, not so good. I did tell the agent not to send us a bunch of listings that perfectly met our criteria but would be sold before we could get down to see them. But I didn't specifically bar her from contact with us before the May trip. To be fair, she admitted that she wasn't at the office when we talked so maybe she's waiting until she gets back to e-mail me. Though I'm not sure what she should e-mail me about since I don't want to see listings until we're actually ready to see them. I guess I just expected a little "hey, great to meet you on the phone, can't wait to get together in person to help you find a perfect spot in the Keys" or something like that. It is possible that despite my careful phonetic pronunciation and use of code words for potentially confusing letters ("B"as in Bob, "P" as in Peter) that she may have mis-spelled my e-mail address. But you would think if that was the case, the e-mail would bounce back and she would become concerned and try to track me down. She would still have most of my name spelled correctly and there's really no one with an even similar name in Ottawa. And she does know I'm from Ottawa. Maybe she was just pretending that she would be in contact but she's really not interested in trying to address our huge demands and low budget. She did seem to be almost rushing me off the phone, come to think of it. I had to keep saying, "there's just one more thing..." everytime she tried to say goodbye. Well, I'll give her a couple more days and then decide how to proceed ie whether to send her an e-mail (one more chance!) or just look for another sympathetic looking agent and hope they answer my call.

OK, we've got an agent, I think

Using a scientifically proven method of agent selection, I googled "best agent in Florida keys" and reviewed the list of agents who know a thing or two about SEO (or, at least, hire people who do). From that long list, I then reviewed each agent's website for the specific data that would determine whether or not he or she would be a good fit for us, specifically: did I like they way he or she looked? Having short-listed to one candidate who looked nice and approachable, despite being wildly successful, and who only covers the Lower Keys, despite the fact that we want to investigate both the Upper and Lower Keys, I did my diligence and gave her a call. As the phone rang, I planned the final test of her suitability ie would she pick up? If she did, that was a sign that she's the right agent for us.

This level of exactitude and commitment to a logical, thorough and, frankly gruelling, agent selection process, is not for everyone. We'll see if it was worth the 7 minutes I invested. She seems really nice on the phone -- so far, so good.

Time to find an agent

Despite a few years spent as an agent myself, I'm not quite sure how to go about looking for an agent. Sure, there's lots there but we really don't have time to make a mistake -- if we end up with someone we don't like/trust/feel is doing the job, it's a bit late to switch once we're down there. I keep thinking we'll have to "interview" a few but not sure how to even construct the short list. Big listing agents aren't necessarily the ones that will take the time needed to help us -- we can be very demanding, and by "we", I mean Peter -- but those are the ones that you see alot of online. Haven't noticed anything about buyer's brokers yet, so will check that out first. Of course, we still want to be able to check our private sales -- FSBO's -- especially since the home we now live in and love was a private. We could get a referral from an agent here but I'm not sure that puts us any further ahead, though the agent here would get a referral fee just for passing us along.

South Africa got us thinking about Florida

Spending Christmas and New Year's with Peter's father in South Africa, we got to thinking about winter warmth and the lack thereof in Ottawa and whether or not we would like to look forward to a future devoid of winter warmth or... not.

This line of thinking quickly led us back to the old idea of getting a retirement place in Florida. With retirement a possibility in 5 years, but Florida housing prices likely to be nicely recovered by then, we wondered yet again whether we shouldn't consider buying something now and renting it out until we're ready for it.

And because these thoughts entered our heads when we were on holidays, and our minds not consumed by work and kids and other daily cares, they were able to take root and flourish. We started researching the various coasts and cities of Florida, looking for a fit. We started on the Gulf but Peter doesn't like that side for sailing though we understand that the many of the cities and towns are more appealing than Atlantic alternatives. Moving along the Atlantic, we reviewed data on average listing and selling prices and looked at the county just above Palm Beach -- Port St. Lucie? After reading mixed comments from residents and visitors -- and not finding anything online that screamed "YOU MUST RETIRE HERE", Peter brought up the Keys. I hadn't considered it, thinking they would likely be too expensive. But then we worked out how much we could spend if we sold the cottage and suddenly the Keys seemed achievable.

Well really, we have no idea at this point if we'll find something we like that we can also afford but there at least appear to be some possibilities based on the MLS listings we've reviewed.

So we've booked off to spend a week in May in Key Largo at a little local hotel on the beach -- we're actually staying in a little housekeeping cottage so we can even cook our own meals at night and enjoy the sunset with a bottle of wine as we consider whether that's something we want to do for the rest of our lives.