Getting
My Bearings
Over
the next number of days I was introduced to all the other realtors in the
office. There must have been at least twenty – five of them. They came in all
sorts of shapes and sizes and all from different backgrounds. There was an old
truck driver, another, a structural engineer, an economist, an agriculturalist
odds and sundry housewives looking for adventure and even a teacher or two.
It
took a little while to get used to this collection of adventurers, certainly a
different bunch of people than any I’d ever worked with. Largely, they were
friendly enough, even helpful at times, but I’ll get back to them. There are
certainly enough stories about them to fill a book.
It
turns out the boss was right. The phone WAS my friend (from time to time). I
got the hang of it pretty quickly. Not wanting to appear too obvious, instead
of saying “Do you want to sell your house (or buy one) I opted to firstly
announce that I was in the business and depending on the reception that
prompted I would say something like did (whoever was on the other end of the
line) know of anyone wanting to sell or buy. God help me if someone said yes.
Within
two days someone did say yes and I was in for experiences I never would have
imagined. The owner of the house had a
rental property right next door to his home and he was sick and tired of
nonpayment of rent. He was an accountant so we never had a problem of establishing
the value of the home. The place had been vacant now for about a week or so and
the only problem he did have was to clean the place up so it could be shown.
Well
actually, there was more than just one problem. Already the middle of December,
it was a little chilly out and I could hardly wait for my sign to go up with my
name on it. In the meantime, there was a little black mongrel dog lying beside
the door on a raggedy old blanket, shivering coldly. He looked like he was on
death’s doorstep. It was obvious that his owner had left him there for some
sucker like me to pick him up – so I did, blanket and all, and put them in the
back of my car. We hadn’t had a dog in a while so I had to stop and pick up
some dog food, dishes, a leash and supplies. Finally getting home to our ten
acres in the country, I let the dog out of the car, taking the supplies into
the house. While I’m busy doing this, the dog takes off across the field and I
figure that’s the end of him. I put his raggedy blanket out on the deck in case
he comes back and continue bringing things into the house. Next trip outside
and I see the dog come roaring back to the house and he stops dead in front of
me. In his mouth is a yellow tennis ball.
I
guess the heat of the car had revived the poor little critter enough that now
he wanted to play. Where in all that ten acres he’d found my daughter’s tennis
ball I’ll never know. She’d lost it about five years earlier and he honed in on
it. We played ball until it was time to go pick the Missus up from her job.
Both of us were exhausted.
Ah
but I digress again. Proud as a peacock, I visited my “For Sale” sign every
day, just to see my name on it. I must
have thought myself to be a rock star. It wasn’t too long before my seller had
found a “buyer” himself. The only problem was, he had no down payment.
Not
to put too fine a point on it, I had befriended a mortgage broker and a lawyer
and with the help of my broker, I put together a deal where I contributed a
dollar to make the deal binding and the seller would take back the whole
mortgage for a year at which time the buyer would find his own mortgage. Well,
fair enough, the buyer jumped through all the hoops, bought his own insurance,
paid the legal and land transfer fees and I managed to put a sold appendage on
my precious sign.
Two
days later the seller phones me up and says: “Come look at your sign.”
“Uh
oh, what’s wrong?” I wanted to know.
“Just
come and look,” laughs the seller.
I
go streaking out there like a bolt of lightning because I know something’s
wrong with my precious sign. No, there’s nothing wrong with the sign, but the
house behind it no longer exists. Well, a small pile of rubble and ash does but
little else. The Insurance Company apparently vindicates the buyer and the
seller and forks over the settlement out of which the seller gets his mortgage
paid, the buyer ends up with a twenty-five thousand dollar vacant lot and I end
up with a remarkable dog.
That’s
as far as I want to go in analyzing this transaction.
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