Holtz Realty

It would’ve been a very nice day today if that cold wind hadn’t been gusting so much out of the northwest.  In spite of it, I carried on with business as usual, including walking up and down the block where my office is located and picking up all the trash that’s been building up in our public flowerbeds and green areas.  What irritates me the most are the smokers who flick their butts out into the streets and green areas.  If they’re on concrete, they’re easy to sweep up, but when their in those beds, one would almost have to rake or vac them out.  I’d say I must’ve seen at least a hundred of them today.  So much for the respect some of our citizens have for Mother Nature.

One of my appointments this morning was a meeting I had with one of my sellers.  I assured him his property should be getting sold more sooner than later due to all the fewer homes that have been coming on the market this Spring in comparison to last.  I’m not so sure what direction our housing market will be going should this trend continue.  Looks like there’ll be all the more people either over-paying, or staying put in their rentals or homes they currently own until our market gets back into balance.

I’m hoping tomorrow will be a good open house day with many buyers out looking because I’ll be hosting a public open house at 422 S. Tennessee Place from 1 – 3 pm.  Hopefully some day soon, the professional and semi-professional buyers will wake up and realize that non-senior restrictive condos are a better buy than purchasing existing homes in these times.  Far too many North Iowans believe condos are meant only for seniors, but if you look at our larger cities, there are just as many young buyers as older ones purchasing condominiums–especially when knowing many of our young despise performing exterior maintenance and yard work.

Some days ago, a young person whom I was in debate with about cleaning, alluded that I had the mentality of a maid.  At first I took it as an insult which it was meant to be, but after thinking about it a day or two, it evolved into a personal compliment.  Why would anyone want to put someone down for knowing how to clean a home better than most?

Having the curse as well as the luxury of seeing a great number of homes over the years, I’d say there’ve been far fewer homeowners whom I’d consider being masters at keeping their homes clean.  As I’ve said before, “If you start off with a very clean home, it’s much easier to keep it that way as long as you have a Saturday morning checklist of chores.”

I’m still patiently waiting for a handful of prospective sellers to get their homes in presentable conditions so I can get them listed and sold.  I continue to be patient when knowing they are seniors who’ve accumulated far too much, and didn’t realize it until their time arrived to prepare for selling.

After realizing I was short on a few supplies, I headed off to the grocery store to get what was needed.  Nearly always, I hit the grocery stores either very early, or very late in the day, only because it’s a given I’ll run into someone I know.  It happened to be mid-afternoon while inside, and just as I looked up, there came walking a woman whom I haven’t seen in at least two years.  Like myself, she didn’t notice me until it was too late.  In a sheepish way she said, “hello”, while I responded similarly as I continued to walk past her. If I went into great detail why she’s avoiding me, it would take a good half hour or more.

I can only say, there are people in our world who have skewed perceptions of reality, and freely believe something that was supposedly said or done by another–especially a family member. Unfortunately, her family possesses a “tribe” or “hive” mentality to where no matter if one of them went out and gave a perfect stranger a good thrashing for no reason, that thrasher’s family unit would consider it just OK. It’s interesting how family units evolve into such frightening nuclear clusters.

Long story short, I was purged from doing business with that entire family for something I didn’t even do, and the few times I attempted to reason with several of them at the time, they would turn on me their deaf ears.  I’m still thanking myself for realizing their familial dysfunctions at the time, and chalking it all up as another one my life’s hard lessons.

You may not agree with tonight’s one-liner, but here it is:  Money creates taste.