Another upper 80’s day happened again, and if our temps don’t start dropping and we’re without rain, we’ll be seeing some rapid browning-up of our landscapes. The only positive thing about this dry spell, is the lack of mosquitos, which is just fine by me. I’m now wondering if we’ll have a high mosquito population next year, even if we have normal rainfall. I know they do multiply quickly, but let’s hope not in so short a period of time.
Since I had only one office appointment this morning which lasted for well over an hour, I spent the rest of it doing follow-up phone calls and additional research on home sale prices. No matter what anyone wants to believe, there’s no question we’re in a no man’s land when attempting to price a home when in the midst of such market conditions.
One of my clients mentioned something about the inevitability of the housing prices in our area coming down in the very near future, which may possibly happen, but I also had to add the fact that our U. S. of A. has the greatest shortage of housing since they began keeping records on it which was many decades ago. If I’m not mistaken, there was a great shortage right after WWII, which was due to all the soldiers coming home all at once with their war brides or soon to be marrying their hometown sweethearts.
Another huge “brake” that hit our housing market, were the unexpected price hikes in building materials. If I’m not mistaken, the only prices that’ve remained stable, are concrete products. Just today I compared estimates for aluminum guttering which were five months apart. Using like materials and the same company, the estimate was over $600 higher. The contractor said he’s been getting near-weekly emails with price change alerts on materials, and every one of them have been higher.
What does anger me, is seeing how the scrap metal prices are spiking, and of course nearly all of it’s getting shipped to China for processing, and then returned to us with higher price tags. Back thirty years ago when corporations started closing plants here and then off-shoring them, I said at the time, “This will come back to bite us all in our bottoms.” Don’t you sometimes just hate being right?
That same razor-tongued client mentioned how disgusted he is with our City for not taking care of the important infrastructure issues we have, and instead, spending money on more pipe dreams that always end up failures, or another white elephant like the Music Man Square. He also went on to say that our powers that be are so used to their failed attempts at creating something worthwhile, they can’t re-align their brains enough to realize they’re in their self-made ditches of failure to where they haven’t got the sense enough to crawl up out of them to get a real look at the direction our City needs to be moving. Truthfully, I couldn’t help agreeing with him more.
Nearly my entire afternoon was spent with prospective buyers, as well as having several good chats with a few of the residents over at Prairie Place on 1st. As I’d expected, now that Fall is around the corner, I figured there’d be more interest on those last two remaining units. There’s no question if those get sold, there’ll soon be a waiting list of prospective buyers. I can’t imagine how much those units would cost to build in these times, and likely to keep the costs down, they’d be using far inferior materials, along with not offering all if any of the amenities that are now in place.
Since I stayed after to chat with some of the owners, one of them began speaking about some of the shows she’s been watching on TV, of which most of them she doesn’t care for in the least bit. She was really upset about the program that’s about some sort of “Naked Survival” in a jungle, of which I’ve heard about but never bothered to watch.
She went on to talk about those years back when she was in her upper teens and twenties, where there were things you’d never say or do whenever out in public or in private. I couldn’t help adding, “They now do and say things out in broad daylight which we wouldn’t have considered behind closed doors and shuttered windows.” She seemed a bit despondent over when and/or if our values will ever get back to the way they were. I shared her concern, but I also reminded her that the pendulum usually always swings back, so that’s all we can to is wait for it. Yes, the winsome ways of that by-gone era is why I still enjoy watching some of those old black and white movies once in a while, just as a reminder our Country did have social mores back then. Not that I’m trying to pollute your minds by my encouraging, if you’ve never watched any of those old movies, pick a topic, and I’m sure you’ll find one to your liking. Yes, people really did lead such lives back in those days.
I’ve decided to have another public open house on 207 N. Hampshire this coming Saturday afternoon, just so I can keep it in the eyes of our buying public. I think there’s still an interested party, but neither my seller, nor I can wait for someone to make a decision. I’ll be working with a first-time buyer tomorrow, so perhaps I’ll be able to get him interested in it. As far as I’m concerned, that home is now one of the best buys in our City. Since I know the neighborhood well, anyone buying that home, will be ever-thankful they did once they’ve realized how great its neighborhood is.
Isn’t it just crazy how this month is flying by? Tomorrow will be the 20th, which means there’ll only be eleven days left before September arrives. I think we’re due for another full moon this weekend, so be all the more careful when out and about at night, as it seems to bring out all more of the crazies running around our town.
Tonight’s One-liner is: While in search of my mother’s garden, I managed to stumble upon my own.