Holtz Realty

Alas my three days of continuing education is over and certainly glad of it.  It never seems to fail, that whenever I have “must go” places to be, there are all the more immediate needs of others surfacing.  Since we’re not to have our cell phones on during those classes, the sassy text messages started piling up.  I just mentioned to someone early this morning how all the more people feel they have a license to communicate with you thru text and emails using exceptionally dis-respectful language.  Of course my short and most appropriate responses are usually ended with exclamation points.  It’s become so commonplace now that if I did challenge them on their forms of writing, they’d likely say, “What was wrong with that?”

The instructor we had these past three days is very knowledgable and all the more engaging than a number of others I’ve had to endure.  He likes to throw in a few jokes once in a while, which would then give me the incentive to add a few of my own.  The one I got the class with was, “Do you know why I never wear a tie with red in it whenever confronting a problem tenant?”  A few answered wrong, so after a short pause I said, “I just don’t want them to start seeing red.”  I did think that was all the more appropriate since we were talking about landlord/tenant laws along with case studies.  Some of the actual cases we reviewed were bordering on fantastic.  Several of the students who are into property management had some jaw-dropping ones of their own.

After arriving back to my office I placed myself into high gear so to do a fast catch-up on phone calls and emails.  I’m dealing now with a situation with another office where one of their agents sold a listing of mine and now the buyers are wanting to back out.  The absolutely weak reason for it, left me with the impression they’re having a classic case of buyer’s remorse that was likely fueled by their parents.  For me, having a sale fall thru like that hasn’t happened in years. One thing I do know, is that the few times these situations have happened, the buyer or buyers end up purchasing something they in time, live to regret.  I think it must have something to do with karma.

Thanks to my having to show a seedy apartment house today, I managed to find two flea bites on me about an hour later.  The moment I saw how those tenants kept their apartments, and the three indoor/outdoor cats running in and out, I was convinced they were flea repositories.  What internally angers me the most is when I see a very young couple with children living in them.  And you think that environment won’t have a lasting affect on the growth and development of those children?  Our system is definitely broken and long overdue for a re-build.

My last showing of the day was at 217 – 5th St. NW which is the grand and beautiful Gildner House which we just reduced a whopping $10K.  We were there far longer than normal, and I think there’s some real interest developing.  It’s a beautiful home that would make a great place to raise a family.

As we were walking out, the buyer happened to notice the ancient maple tree near the curb.  He said, “Wow! I’ve never seen a maple tree with twisted bark like that.”  I smiled and said, “You have a very good eye, because I’ve already done some research on it, and still can’t find what type of maple it is.”  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Gildner family had it shipped from Europe.  It’s definitely a visibly unusual tree.

The above photo is of some of the seeds I found from it that were scattered on the ground below its canopy.  We used to call them maple helicopters because of the way in which they fell to the earth.

Tonight’s one-liner is:  Nature does nothing in vain.