One of my well knowns called today to talk about her journey back to Mason City from Southern Iowa late Saturday. Just listening to her narration of the scary road conditions she encountered caused me to remember some hellacious moments I had while driving back from Des Moines during past winter months. Because Des Moines and Mason City are basically in two different climate zones, you could be leaving the Capital on a calm and sunny afternoon, and maybe halfway home, you’d suddenly find yourself in the midst of blizzard conditions. Not but about five years ago I decided to drive to Ames when the weather here was just fine, but the closer I got to my destination, the more dangerous it became, so I headed for the nearest off-ramp and back home I went. There’s nothing that important to where we have to risk our lives to get somewhere.
The market must be starting to pick up because I had two separate buyer showings today. One of them was on a more expensive home and the other on a cheaper one. Both showings went well, and as always, I remind the buyers to make sure they have their financing arranged. There’s nothing worse than to have an offer negotiated and then weeks later find the buyer unable to get financing. Just that very thing happened several months ago with another Realtor bringing an offer from a buyer whom we were made to “believe” was fully qualified for a loan. I’m gonna hope that’s not going to happen again for a very long time.
I’ll likely have a nightmare or two tonight after watching someone lift up a closed toilet lid with his foot to look into its bowl. Just as he was doing it, my fears were multiplied after getting the most disgusting glimpse of that toilet bowl filled to its brim with dried human feces. It was absolutely disgusting! It continues to amaze me how some people who freely choose to live in such squalor can continue to keep themselves alive. Some talk about how dirty animals can be, but the way in which I’ve seen some humans living, I’d say the animals are far cleaner.
I’ll be waiting patiently until tomorrow in hopes that a buyer I’ve been working with will end up with a home on which he’s made an offer. Believe it or not, there were five offers on it to where the listing agent called for all the buyers to submit their highest and best offers. I know my buyer will be very disappointed if he doesn’t get it, but at least he had the opportunity to submit his highest. Let’s just hope the listing agent remains unbiased with his submission of those offers to his seller. I question this practice all the more in times like these due to our market having fewer homes from which to choose. That’s when the greed factor manifests itself all the more. I fully understand needy, but definitely not greedy.
The above photo is one I took yesterday morning of a buffalo standing out in a feeding lot. Every time I see one, it makes me smile, but also sad to think there were millions of them freely roaming our Plains before we “Whities” arrived on the scene. Isn’t he cute?
