Thank goodness we’re still getting the cooling north breezes to keep the humidity down and hopefully dry things off. While driving to the office early this morning, I noticed a really creepy patch of ground fog that had collected in a small pasture between two fields of tall corn. It was actually moving very slowly in a serpentine fashion. That would have been a great photo had my camera been with me. Yes, we’re already starting to see the tell-tale signs of Fall’s approach. One of my well knowns believes Fall to be her all-time favorite season, but I continue to insist Spring to be mine. It’s my favorite because it is the time of Nature’s re-birth, as well as being the season that ushers in Summer.
I had a mix of personal and real estate work this morning which caused me to do a little more rushing to get some chores done before my mid-morning appointment arrived. I suspected my client would be early, but happened to be even more so that he caught me in my work clothes. It didn’t bother me because we’ve known each other long enough to where seeing me dressed like a gardener made no difference him. He actually teased me a little by saying, “I always thought you did yard work in a tuxedo.” He got me.
After my appointment left, I went back to my chores and fortunately managed to get what I wanted done before I had to clean myself up, change clothes, and head off to my public open house. As I was driving out to my open, I again noticed all the low hanging branches at stop signs and street lights. It always concerns me when seeing them because whenever there are visitors to our City, they’re not yet hard-coded enough to remember intersections that have stop lights or signs. I do hope someone in the Street Department finally takes notice and gets those low hanging branches removed. Now’s the best time because their leaves are heavy with moisture which makes the droop all the more.
My public open house today was a raging success. There were people there from the time I arrived, to nearly 15 minutes after the hour of closing. Two of the couples were showing great interest to where I believe one of them will the home’s new owners. I made sure to point out the quality of its construction, as well as the size of the lot. The most important bit of information I relayed, was that there’s been absolutely no water seepage in it’s basement since the home was built. It even has one of those expensive battery back-up sump pumps. It couldn’t have been a more beautiful day to host an open.
I’m still stinging over a phone conversation I had with an out-of-town real estate agent this week. One of my customers wanted to see a home she had listed, and when I called, I was bluntly informed it was an “office exclusive”. Of course my filters went off when speaking about the lunacy of an educated seller wanting their Realtor to plug them into an office exclusive. In all the years I’ve sold real estate, I’ve had maybe two of them, and both of them were sold by other agents because I guaranteed them that if I showed their buyers the home and they wanted it, they then could write the offer and get their normal percentage of commission paid to them. The weak excuse for that office exclusive had something to do with the sellers being very “private people”. Whenever I have a seller wanting me to give me an office exclusive, I work exceptionally hard at convincing them that they’d be hurting themselves financially in the long run, and I’d say 99.3% of the time they finally come to their senses. In my humble opinion, just about any lay person would look at an “office exclusive” scenario and smell “greed” on the agent’s part, and/or “concealment” on the seller’s.
While at the front desk this morning, I happened to notice a squirrel on top of the waste bin outside my office. It was seated at it’s ashtray just like it owned it while munching away at what looked like a cheese ball. Thinking it would be a good photo for tonight, I grabbed my camera and snapped the above. While taking the photo is said to that little munchkin on the other side of the glass, “It looks like your breakfast was served in a dish this morning.”
Tonight’s one-liner is: Greed is not a financial issue, but rather a heart issue.
