It couldn’t have been a more inappropriate day to rain than today, simply because I was out and about nearly the entire time with appointments and showings. I dare say I was at the office no more than the combination of an hour. I’m normally good at keeping track of what the weather’s supposed to be like over a two or three day period, but today’s rain caught me off guard.
Of course I keep forgetting that many of the real estate offices don’t open until 9:00 am which compressed the amount of time I had to set up showings. Believe it or not, I was in a grand total of eleven homes today. I’m usually very good about remembering every home I’ve been in, but today’s marathon was pushing even my limits.
I even managed to overlook lunch, so I grabbed a handful of my favorite corn chips which are only sold at Fareway. They’re in the fruit and vegetable section and their brand name is, “Late July” organic purple corn chips. They’re far more expensive than the regular, but “Mmmm” are they good–especially when eaten with Fareway’s brand of hot salsa. Some may think me overly fussy when it comes to food, but in actuality, I believe there’s either good food, and all the rest being nothing more than caloric intakes.
While in conversation with a customer today, we talked about how all the fewer people cook from scratch. Part of their backing away from real home cooking, is the preparation and clean-up time, along with sheer laziness. Just take a real good look while walking down the aisles in the big grocery stores, and there you’ll find all the many more already prepared foods that only need to be either warmed up, or thrown in the oven for a short period of time. I’ve even found that many place their frozen pizzas on their oven racks without a pan. How much more lazy can you get?
Several of the homes I was in today were beyond scary to where I felt like I needed to remind myself upon arriving home that all the clothes I had on needed to be burned. I spoke yesterday about bad juju, and as chance would have it, I was in a monstrosity that was filled with it as well as filth, litter, spiteful damage, dysfunction, tear-outs, mold, mildew, and the list goes on. I mentioned to the buyers, “If these walls could only talk, we’d be hearing some horrific stories.” As far as I’m concerned, that house needs to be scraped off its lot, the hole filled in, and blessed three times because it’s far beyond all hope.
Every time I’m in a house like that, it makes me exceptionally angry when seeing the trail of many owners having allowed it to fall in to such a state of disrepair. I’d wager if a home of that size were to be built today, it would cost far more than $300K, and that’s without considering the quality of materials used at the time it was built. Oh well, as long as our slum lords continue adding units to their so-called “inventories”, we’ll continue to see the social fiber of our City fray. I truly care about our City, and I think it’s time we all start coming together as a unit and insist on raising the bar on what’s considered adequate housing in Iowa’s “Windy City of the North”.
Since I wasn’t able to get all of my many phone calls returned, I’ll be fast at it come tomorrow morning, because today was one of those rare occasions where I wasn’t able to get back to everyone which always disturbs me whenever it happens.
On a positive note, one of my listings sold today which had a number of offers on it since it was listed. I’m of the belief that it’s one of those particularly rare homes which choses its new occupants instead of the other way round.
Tonight’s one-liner is: If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
