The End of The Century (Village)?

Before Hurricane Andrew, in '92, my in laws listed their Kendall house for sale. They wanted to move to Century Village, in Pembroke Pines, where all of their Miami Holocaust group had relocated. Then Andrew came, and for the weeks following, NO sales were taking place in Kendall. But, as Wifey and I were creative (and I know how to deal with insureres), I convinced my carrier, which was paying us about $3k per month to live on Brickell while our destroyed house was being rebuilt, to settle for a lump sum of $40K. We took the money and bought my in laws house, for their asking price, and of course paid all costs. They moved to a section of CV, and all seemed well, as we re built, and got on with our lives. Not so fast...My in law's contemporaries had all bought units on the artificial lakes -- sort of the Pinecrest of CV, while my in laws were not on the "vater," as we learned, ad nauseum. This became a source of true misery for my mother in law especially -- to the point where she asked Wifey to give her the $30K or so needed to "upgrade." I refused. My duties as a son in law, it was clear to me, were to take good care of their daughter and grandkids. Upgrades based upon silly needs to "keep up with the Rabinowitz's" (Wifey loved that creation of mine) weren't included in the great son in law package. Yeah. Right. My mother in law succeeded in making Wifey so miserable, and straining our marriage over this absurdity, that of course I finally caved. But I put my foot down -- as gift tax laws prevented what they wanted. Wifey and I bought their new unit "on the vater" for $120K, in 2000. The great irony is that my mother in law NEVER looked at her lake view -- during most of her residency there, the storm shutters were shut tight. Whatever. Survivors don't survive by being amiable -- my strong willed suegra got her way, and after my father in law died, and we moved the old woman to Miami, it was time to sell the unit. Wifey and I visited Mark, Mr. Century Village. He was the broker who handled the previous transactions. He had his picture with CV icon Red Buttons. It seemed like a no brainer to hire him to sell the unit. One problem, though: Mr. CV had himself become old and lazy. Still, he convinced us to pay a 7% commission, to "insure a quick sale by motivating other agents." That was February. We had the unit painted and deep cleaned. It wasn't renovated, but looked pretty good. Mark set the price at $169K, which seemed high to us -- our checks on web sites showed that renovated units went for that amount, but non renovated ones sold for $140-$155K. And nothing happened. Zero offers. It became clear that little or no effort was being made. I asked Mark out of the contract early. No dice. He didn't become Mr. CV by being nice. We figured we'd just wait until August, when the listing expired, and sell it ourselves on the internet. And then, on the 11th hour, an offer came in. We went back and forth, and the buyers, Hispanic like most of the current CV buyers, came to $155K. But Wifey insisted Mark cut his oversized commission back to 6%. He agreed this am, and the buyers, who have cash, want to close within a month. Barring a complication, our CV days seem to be over. We're most happy about that. Rest in peace, Red Buttons.