Holtz Realty

Today was somewhat of a repeat of yesterday simply because I didn’t have all my emails and phone calls returned.  Therefore, about two of my early morning hours were spent getting myself level with my world of real estate.

As I’ve told sellers for years, there can appear to be absolutely no interest in their homes, and then “Wham!”, the buyers arrive in multiples to where you begin to think they were all just circling and waiting for the first one to pull the trigger.  Two of my recent sales was just that situation, and I’m sorry to say there’ll be some unfortunates pouting for some time for not having stepped up to the plate sooner.  Truthfully, I despise having multiple offer situations because in the end, there’s always hard feelings to be had. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like going to auctions where people start getting crazy and end up making choices based on emotions of the moments.

If there ever was a day thus far that felt like Fall, I’d say today was definitely the first, which in turn caused me to be all the more worrisome over things that need to get finished before the cold arrives.  After this summer is finished, I’ll likely look back and say, “What the heck was that all about?”  I’m still reeling over the number of trees that came down around our City.  Most don’t realize that there are severely injured trees still standing that are prime candidates for another round of fallings should we get wind speeds even close to what we had back on May the 28th.   Mother Nature can be un-forgiving at times, and in these past months there’ve been multiple affirmations.

One of my old colleagues stopped by the office today and asked if I’d have time to strip the varnish off a small commode.  I hesitated a moment, but finally caved and said, “I’ll do it, but it’ll have to wait some weeks.”  There didn’t seem to be a problem with it, so within minutes I found myself carrying it to the back of my office.  The question came up regarding its varnishing.  I soulfully said, “If I get it readied to varnish, the hardest part is done, so I think you’ll do just find putting the finish on it.”  Thank goodness it was agreed because taking a gamble on types of varnish is a big risk–especially not knowing what other furniture it’ll be stationed near.  So, it looks like I’ve got myself yet another tedious job to do in my off hours.  Oh well, it’s all part of giving back to others.

I had to laugh to myself when out showing a home later today when seeing the neighbor next door stripping the husks off sweet corn.  I turned to the buyer and said, “Oh Mercy!  I can see that guy hasn’t worked much with sweet corn. Look how he’s trying to pick out the silk from between the rows of kernels.” I don’t even want to remember the bushels of sweet corn I’d helped to get prepared for blanching and freezing.  Some people must think corn silk pollutes cooked corn’s taste by the way they try to get every last strand off the cobs.  He was still outside laboring away, and fortunately I kept quiet about his prep work.

While on the phone with one of my customers today, we ended up on the subject of entities in homes.  For some reason, a near forgotten experience came to mind regarding a home that sat vacant for years on end, and then suddenly appeared on the market without warning.  I was one of the first agents to show it, and I can assure you, that home had some energy within that didn’t like people.  Because I had to preview it before the buyer arrived, I did a quick walk-thru.  When I got upstairs and opened the door to the attic, a chill ran thru me while my mind was yelling at me, “Do NOT go there!” Since I knew the buyer well enough, I told him about my experience after opening the attic door, along with encouraging him not to bother buying that money pit.

I never found out who purchased it until over a year later, and as chance would have it, my buyer ran into the owner at a social gathering and just happened to mention what I said.  Ops!  You can only imagine what was said several days later when the owner called me saying among other things, “You told your buyer my house is haunted!”  I could go into detail about that conversation, but in the end, the owner did agree the home was possessed by an “entity”.  There were additional off-worldly happenings that were shared with me that had taken place over that year of ownership, but the creepiest part was, it seemed all the nasty stuff was coming thru that attic door.  Kinda gives you a few goose bumps doesn’t it?

Tonight’s one-liner is:  Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.