Medieval Methods Of Torture

As I was hoping, we managed to have a delightful sunny day with only a breeze and cloudless skies. There’s been a bit of a haze high above, and likely due to the fires out West, along with those burning in Siberia. If we continue to have a wet growing season, it won’t surprise me if it’ll be due to the “cloud seeding” from all that smoke as well as the Chinese pollution.

Before the morning rush of phone calls started, I placed a call to my dear friend, just to share a few thoughts about the recent happenings in our Government and most of all, the leaking of that opinion from the Supreme Court. Today’s visit was one more confirmation that we are kindred spirits in more ways than one. We both agreed that what happened yesterday is going to have far-reaching and long-lasting effects which may likely polarize our society even more than it already is. I’m just glad that I live in the hinterlands of the North instead of other areas of our Country where people are being force-fed some pretty scary Kool-Aid.

I couldn’t help sharing a few examples of things people I’ve known for a great deal of time had done in their youth, which had permanently changed their characters for the worse, but it was of their own doing, so they’re the ones who have to live with themselves.

Just today I experienced another example of situational ethics which in the end, was all about greed. I will likely go to my grave being unable to understand greed which in my book is an infectious psychological cancer. All I can say is, I’ll remember well the chain of events of today, and when the time comes when there’s a kicking-back of karma, I’ll simply say, “It was well-deserved.”

What I believe is driving these greedy mindsets, is the shortage of listings which prompts the listing agents to do everything they can to sell them themselves, just so they don’t have to share. I will tell you, whenafter our market changes course, and the spring of buyers has dried up, there’ll be agents begging their competing colleagues to help them with getting their listings sold. I remember very well back when the Savings and Loan Crisis hit, along with the Financial Crisis of 2008 where there were too many listings and not enough buyers. More than once after the 2008 Crisis hit, I’d walk over to the courthouse and look at all the foreclosures that had been posted. There were times when there’d be over twenty of them. Yes, those were some scary years.

I’m putting the word out to all of you to ask friends and relatives if they know of anyone who may be thinking about selling a twin home or condominium. I have a ready, willing and able buyer who’s looking for something more up-scale than those converted apartments out in Briarstone, so if you even think someone you know is possibly wanting to sell, please have them give me a call. It would be greatly appreciated.

There’s a dirty little habit that’s been started by several Realtors here in our City who’ve been placing on their new listings, something in the order of “All offers must be received by Noon on Friday 05/08/22, and an answer given by 8:00 p.m. on Friday 05/08/22.” The reason I don’t like such language being placed on a new listing to our market, is because it’s an un-necessary escalation clause which is encouraging the “buy it now” mentality, and likely being pulled into an emotional bidding war. Just think about how potential buyers look at it when seeing such language, because in my opinion, they’re making the buyers think it’s a really good buy and they have act now. Sounds similar to the “Buy it NOW!” promotions we see on the television. Right? Oh, and don’t think I don’t notice the over-use of exclamation points in the “Public Remarks” of listings. My goodness, there sure are the many more subliminals seeping into our trade which buyers are unknowingly getting sucked into. I understand needy, but not greedy and unfortunately those two have become synonymous in these times.

One of my clients who lives out of State, asked if I would go and take a look at a building site that’s for sale, so I took a few hours out of my day to run over for a quick peek. I promised to take photos and forward on, and since some of them were worthy of sharing, I’ll be randomly posting a handful of them for good measure.

That site has a large number of trees on it, but unfortunately there’ll be months of clearing out of brush, removing buildings that’ve caved-in, and removal of an amount of old machinery which had been left in place for likely a half century or more. Wow. Talk about a stepping-back in time. The above photo is of a piece of farm machinery which I recognized, but I’m not so sure how many of you know what it is. I’d say it’s been a good 25 or more years since I’ve been near one. A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to see one in operation which was a treat. It’s no wonder so many farmers ended up with fingers, hands and arms missing due to the number of dangerous working parts those machines had on them. All I can say, is that was one large working farmstead at one time. For sure, that inspection was the highlight of my day.

A friend of mine forwarded me a video of an intercepted phone call from a Russian soldier in Ukraine to his mother in Russia. The translation was enough to make me vomit because of how callous that guy was when speaking about how they were torturing those captured Ukrainians. His mother thought it was just OK because she believes they’re sub-human. Did any of us ever think a so-called civilized group of people in the year of 2022, would lower themselves to performing medieval methods of torture on those poor Ukrainians? I’m now praying harder for karma to settle the score.

Tonight’s One-liner is: You may call God love, you may call God goodness, but the best name for God, is compassion.

Joe Chodur

About the Author | Joe Chodur

First of all....Joe Chodur really doesn't like talking about himself but this is what we have found out about him. Joe Chodur began his real estate career in 1981 during the height of the savings and loan crisis. It's hard to imagine how difficult it was to sell homes when…

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