I know I wrote my first listing agreement for this house over a decade ago. And I finally sold it last week. I tried to access my old forms to determine the first time I listed it, and it was with my very first broker. So it could have been 12 years ago.
It sits across the fairway from our home.. I can see it from here. Right now. The elderly owner liked and trusted me, we both belong to La Quinta Country Club and occasionally I would be paired against her for gin in the ladies card room. She no longer played golf and lived in KC, CO, and in the winter, La Quinta.
She was very proud of her home and would decide it was time to sell. She just wasn't using it enough and said many had approached her admiring the views of both the 7th and 8th fairways, mountains, and the lake. They all wanted to buy her house. So I wrote up the listing ... priced as she requested, too high for the street. She didn't do email so I would take the listing over for her to sign. But she would ask to think about it, set it aside, and then wouldn't sign it.
This happened again a few years later. "I'm ready to sell!" Come over, bring the paperwork, meet my kids. So I would go over-- prices had come down. She
changed her mind.
Then again- I'm ready to sell- the prices are up, my son is in real estate and he says now is the time. So I prepared the docs again. And still no.
Last summer she passed away and her grown up "kids" called me. Please list Mom's house and sell it. Oh wait, we had some water damage, but we aren't in town could you go check it out.
Major leak. Major remediation. Furniture piled high in one room, appliances ripped out. Please sell it as is. They were motivated and ready. I actually had an executed listing agreement from their trust attorney. Yay! 
We had multiple offers and chose the highest and most solid. But then the mold test. Mold detected. More remediation needed. Buyer cancels.
Kids say- take it off the market. We will do remediation until it is clean. Then we may remodel and keep it. Wait, what?? Oh no.
6 months passes and they have a clean bill of health on the house. Please list our house again, we will reduce the price ... do you have a buyer? Yes I do.
My buyer made a full price offer and bought the house... it closed in August and I am grateful. I thought I would be working on that house the rest of my life!
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