Holtz Realty

Part of my morning was spent working on a pending-sale file which is coming up to close the first part of April, and of course forward-thinking me, always has to make sure no one is impatiently waiting on me. It’ll be a relief to have that particular property closed because it was under the radar for far too long, so I finally resigned myself to the fact that it was one of those rare homes which was actually ‘waiting’ for its perfect-fit buyer to arrive. Yes, if I ever decide to start sharing some real-life and exceptionally curious happenings that’ve taken place over these many years, you will all be questioning the validity of some of them. Not to worry, I’ll be sure to tell like it happened.

A kinda creepy thing took place today which had me scratching my head, and that was my having received a phone call from a long-time friend of Ray Holtz Jr. who’s the brother of Roger Holtz. The gentleman was asking if I had the phone number and/or address of Ray’s son whom I believed still lives here in Mason City, so I ended up giving him what little information I had. But, the real crazy thing about that phone call, was for whatever reason this past weekend while working on my project, Ray Holtz suddenly popped into my mind. Believe me, I’d not had any sort of passing thoughts about him for a very long time after he moved moved to the State of Oregon about 20 years ago. It sounds like the reason for him wanting to get in touch with Ray’s son, was to let him know about his father’s current health condition. Now wouldn’t you say my thinking about him only three days ago, and then today getting that call, was beyond coincidence?

I discovered another beyond crazy thing which all started as I was driving away from that out of town showing I had yesterday. Well, what got it all started, was my getting ‘poked’ with questioning thoughts about the stated lot size on that agent’s detail sheet, and since I’m a relatively good judge of approximate distance, I kept thinking that lot didn’t appear as deep as stated, so I made a mental note to do my own investigation first think this morning.

After getting myself settled-in for the day, I went to my computer and pulled up the online records for that County, and sure enough the lot size stated, was wrong because there happens to be a large Morton-style building which the sellers wouldn’t be selling with the property, so I simply jotted down some notes and left it at that because I can’t control the errors of my competitors unless it affects one of my clients or customers.

Wouldn’t you know, that buyer called this afternoon saying he wanted to make an offer on it, which prompted me to inform him that the stated lot size was wrong, and before I’d write an offer in it, I needed to confirm how much of the yard between those two buildings would go with that sale. I strongly recommended we not move forward until I got some clarification. Makes sense. Right?

Ok, you likely think my conversation with the sellers’ agent was only about the amount of yard that went with it, but unfortunately, it turned into a much worse situation. Believe it or not, the building that wasn’t included in the sale, happened to be a small move-able storage shed, and the building my buyer and I believed to be the sellers’, ended up belonging to a neighbor. What now made matters even completely more crazy, is the fact that the seller who had that building built some years ago, must’ve thought he was building it on his property instead of his neighbors’, so when the current owner likely moved there, it was casually understood that their property stopped seven feet beyond their attached garage.

Well, you can imagine the ‘shite show’ that got started after I made sure the listing agent knew about the huge error which had taken place a number of years ago. Unfortunately, the neighbor who owns that building and the current owners of the home I showed, are going to have to come to some sort of legally binding agreement before that home can be sold. I’m sure the owners of that building are going to be having a sleepless night tonight. And just to make matters the utmost worse, the entire building is sitting on property they do not own, so unless there’s an unrecorded deed floating around, there’s gonna be some added legal fees involved.

I’ve been trying to get my brain wrapped around the how and why someone would freely build a building on someone else’s property without making absolutely sure it was being built on their land. For sure, this situation is the absolute first I’ve personally encountered. Just remember, both the owners and the neighbors were completely oblivious to that major mistake. We’ll see what tomorrow brings because I’ve not yet called my buyer to tell him about my recent discovery.

While reading about that horrible mistake made by Pete Hegseth who’s our Secretary of Defense, which by his negligence ,include a reporter in a non-secure text session taking place with other appointed officials regarding the bombing of the Hothis, I could not believe how everyone involved, including our POTUS and his press secretary are now playing down the severity of it all. My God in Heaven! How much more irresponsible and under-qualified can those people be? The comments Vice President Vance was making about our European allies in that texting session was just one more example of his lack of decorum. Yes, I do believe he does come from hillbilly beginnings. But, I was once again reminded that silence is complicity, which in these times, could be disastrous for our democracy, so make sure your thoughts and opinions are heard.

Tonight’s One-liner is: There is respect for our laws, and then there’s complicity in lawlessness.