Since I had earlier than normal appointments today, I figured it best to get to the office all the sooner so that I wouldn’t be in a rush getting ready for them. I actually had to turn the furnace up just to get the overnight chill off, and you can be sure I dressed all the warmer today.
After those appointments were taken care of, I spent the rest of my morning running errands and returning phone calls. Since it’s the first of the month, all the more rental calls have been coming in from people looking for apartments and houses. I can only imagine the number of calls those agencies get that handle large numbers of rental units.
When finding out today what an owner ended up selling his property for without using a Realtor, it was once again confirmed how skewed perceptions of value can be. It’s not that I’m angry at him for selling it for such a low price, but because he made his choice not to get a professional’s opinion, and now has to live with his very own mistake.
My last conversation with him was only about letting me know when he was ready to have me do a walk-thru inspection before I could give him an estimated price range in which to list it. I thought he was savvy enough to know that it would be in his best interest to at least listen to what I had to say about pricing, but I guess he was determined to cut out a Realtor’s commission and sell it himself. After seeing what it sold for, I’d say he left at least $20K on the table, and that would be if it was all the worse inside than what I remembered.
I’ll never in a million years understand why people who think they’re saving money by selling their properties themselves, when normally having no clue what real estate markets are doing from year to year. Oh well, I wish him the best, and hopefully he’ll never darken my door asking me if I thought he got a fair price, because I will freely tell him how crazy it was for him to basically “gift” that non-related buyer so much of his hard-earned equity.
It has come as no surprise that 907 N. Jefferson is already getting a number of showings scheduled. As I mentioned, if that home is still on the market by the end of this weekend, it’ll surprise the “yell” out of me. It’s also a confirmation that homes in that price range with those features, are hot items due to listing shortages in certain price ranges of our market.
When looking for something interesting to read over my lunch break, I happened upon an article about political scandal. The more I read, the more fully I understood the workings of politics.
I believe the reason for its author to publish, was to remind us all how our political systems are all the more affected by scandalmongers who dig all the deeper for kernels of controversy just so to give our general public all the more to question. As we know, so-called bad news and/or scandals travel like prairie fires, and normally become forever embedded into every media outlet, and because of our living in the digital age, it’s all the easier to disseminate.
For years I’ve warned people about attempting to make any sort of good change within a given group or community without getting the “blessing” from those in power who’re ever-wary of outsiders attempting to upset their self-proclaimed status quo. Even if the person attempting to create good within a given community is completely without any present or past personal, financial, or social blemish, if those who believe that person appears to be upsetting their internal power structures, you can be assured they will find the smallest speck on that person’s character and blow it completely out of proportion to where a fly dropping appears mountainous.
We see this happening within families, in communities big and small, and all the way up to our State and National government levels. You’ve heard me speak before about darkened smoke-filled rooms where faceless power brokers decide on who’s in and who’s out. And to think nearly all those mentalities are based on fear of loosing something, which is nearly always about money and control.
Just today, a client told a story about a family member who refused to accept the fact that he had to share and share alike with his two other siblings after his father’s passing. Since all three of them had title together on their parent’s property, he continued to make it as difficult as possible for them to reach an equitable resolution. Now after years of attorney’s fees and court actions, they’re still right back to where they were in the beginning. That story was just one more example of how fear of loosing something, compelled one family member to place greed and control above all else.
Tonight’s one-liner is: People are swayed more by fear than by reverence.
