Real Estate Stories

UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Not sure why, but I’ve started writing these stories occasionally. They are organized randomly without dates, and some names have been changed to protect the guilty.

LINKS - Personal Note? / About? / Puplications

Happy birthdays
In 1997 I started having birthday parties for major birthdays. Over 200 of my closest friends were invited, many collected from my years in real estate, but also friends from earlier, even childhood. Many parties were on the water.

These short stories might need some fleshing-out some day.

You learn something every day.
Back in the days when we actually carried pieces of paper back and forth between buyers and sellers, I was representing a seller in McLean and also assisting the buyers. At one point, the buyer-husband, Mose, instructed me to tell my seller that this was his very last offer "take it or leave it." When I sat down with my seller-client he asked my advice and I told him that if it were me I would leave it. He said leave it, wrote rejected on the face of the offer, and initialed it. I took the paperwork back to Mose apologizing for not being able to come to an agreement. His words are burned into my memory: "What, he didn't even make a counter offer?" I left, but it wasn't over: After a few days cooling off period. I went back and was able to consummate an agreement. Everyone was happy.

You'll like this one.
When I sold the XXX's their home, the younger brother was only 2 years old. When visiting a prospective home, he would run around aimlessly, touching everything. In one home's bedroom his mom was holding him in her arms. We were close to a wall looking at a model fire truck on a wall shelf. The kid had been told multiple times not to touch things. As he reached out for the firetruck, I yelled at him. With that, he gave me the finger. I was laughing on the inside but was able to conceal it.

I get ‘em in and I get ‘em out
I excused myself multiple times from a client dinner and spent half the evening beating off other buyers to win a contract for my client Scott G. We had just seen the home that afternoon and he absolutely fell in love with it. Driving home at 11 PM I gave him the good news. My phone rang about 6:15 AM the very next morning. It was Scott with buyers-remorse. We trashed the contract. I actually worked with him a few months later on another home on which we trashed the contract. Sometimes I am just too nice a guy.

Is this permitted?
I was checking building permits for a home that John and Katie were buying to see if some of the work might have been do-it-yourself jobs. What I found was several open building permits. This means that work was done and never finally approved by the County building inspector. The listing agent freaked-out when asked to rectify the situation. She assumed it would be super costly, and time consuming. Nevertheless, we insisted the situation be corrected, and actually helped the listing agent in so doing. But at one point, it was a super-big, hoo-haa until I got the listing agent calmed down and focused.

A YFiRE fire
We were sitting around the dining room table getting Sean and Penny's home listed. At one point, Sean went outside to see what the ruckus was. When he did not return for several minutes, I went to find him. When I did, looking down the street about 40 yards away, was a neighbor's home totally engulfed in flames. I think the damage estimate was $350,000.

We’re a full-service broker
I excused myself immediately after Easter dinner with the family to spend several hours doing drywall work and painting on Bob and Annette's home. A day or two before, there had been a leak from a refrigerator water supply. The home was vacant, so no one noticed for a long, long time. It was impossible to get a tradesman on short notice over the holiday weekend and their buyers' appraiser was coming for a second and final visit on Easter Monday. All's well that ends well: Sold!

Just ask
I was working with Ian to buy a home in a hot market. He had offered quite a bit above the asking price on a home and lost to another buyer. Early one Friday afternoon I saw a home come on the market that seemed perfect for him. We saw it about 3:30PM and he agreed. It had been rental property owned by an investor. Not wanting to give the rest of the market a chance, I asked the listing agent what it would take for the seller to sign a contract immediately. He replied with a price 5% over the asking price. I called Ian who agreed it was a deal made in heaven. We were under contract within a day.

False economy
In selling Rob's family's home which was vacant, I noticed a slight musty odor and advised him to keep the heater circulating fan on. It's easy for homes to accumulate odors when they just sit without the heater or air conditioning running normally. But it seemed that my advice fell on deaf ears: I noticed the circulating fan was off whenever I checked the home. No doubt this saved 75 cents every week. But the buyer had a ball citing problems with radon, mold, and items not even supported by the home inspection. After picking apart their complaints, sometimes with the help of experts, I was able to reduce their demands of about $80,000 to under $25,000.

The second book ISBN 0-9635337-1-1 and more
The 1992 home-selling book which was serialized in the Washington Times, led to the home-buying book which was serialized in the Fairfax Journal. Courses at Northern Virginia Community College, many TV appearances, and speaking engagements ensued. There were several editions of each book but by about 2010 they were both out of print. Since then they have been available on Amazon Kindle and free on https://drrealestate.net.

The Book Guarantee (posted on Amazon Kindle):
This will save you time and money.
If you are one of the many folks who has been genetically endowed with a complete set of real estate knowledge (including how to deal with unforeseen complex problems) in your DNA at birth, stop now. You have just been saved a dollar and a couple of hours: Guarantee fulfilled.

On the other hand, if you have a spark of curiosity, or if you're one of the unfortunate folks who has not been granted total real estate knowledge at birth, read on. Invest a dollar and a few hours with hope that the author will share critical information he has learned in three decades. Your guarantee will be fulfilled at the closing table.

Disclaimer: If you decide to buy or sell a home The information here will help you stay on the straight-and-narrow. However, there is no book available to detail the unique twists-and-turns in your transaction and its negotiations. Good luck!

Wes Foster
During my first 14 years in real estate I was associated with Long & Foster's McLean office. Wes Foster was the sole owner (Long was long gone) of the largest privately-held real estate firm in the country. He lived on Crest Lane in McLean but was rarely seen in our office. Nevertheless, one day he visited on a day that I gave a presentation, and afterwards the manager said that Wes would like to have a word with me.

I went to the conference room, entered, closed the door, and sat down. We talked about various things for 10 or 15 minutes. It was the early 1990s and the World Wide Web was in its infancy. I had been plugged into Internet developments by a good friend who was truly on the front of the wave. At one point I said to Wes, "You know, in a couple years all of our listings will be on the Internet." His reply, "Not a good idea." That was the end of that subject, but in just a few years all our listings were on the Internet.

I'm sure Wes eventually adjusted to the idea, as he saved millions of dollars in newspaper advertising when he no longer had to fight Jim Weichert for the front page of the Washington Post real estate section. I saw Wes now and then for the next decade at other events, but he never mentioned the Internet, nor did I. I never figured out what the meeting was about.

Details, details!
When I showed one of my listings to an acquaintance, Mr. K, he liked it but thought the price was too high. A few weeks later he made an unacceptable offer, and negotiations ensued. Mr. K started contacting my client (the owner) directly, and I counseled him to refuse any discussion. Nevertheless, their discussions continued, thoroughly aggravating my client. Although I knew exactly how to make the transaction work, communications were so garbled that neither party could understand.

At one point, Mr. K suggested to my cleint that he had an agent who would write up an offer for a few thousand dollars, saving thousands in commission so the price could be reduced. My cleint advised me immediately, politely noting that our listing agreement could be canceled with 7 days' notice. Finally, all parties agreed to the terms I had proposed 4 weeks earlier.

Had my cleint taken the bait and proceeded with another agent, the entire commission would still have been owed to YFiRE. Who wrote the contract, who attended the closing, where the transaction was closed, et cetera, would have been irrelevant. In addition to applicable Virginia law, other important details included the following:

No, we don't make this stuff up: In a very similar case in Virginia, the owner was directed by the court to pay the broker's commission.

The first book ISBN 0-9635337-0-3
After the onslaught of home buyers from the 1989 and 1990 Mobil Oil headquarters move to Fairfax, it was back to the real world of real estate. That meant listing presentations for prospective home sellers. I had learned a lot in 4 years and my home-selling method was clearly different from other agents. I used a loose-leaf book with talking points in large font, and sellers would interview me for hours. When I realized that there must be a better way, I decided to turn the loose-leaf talking points into a real book.

My decision to become an author was in total disregard for the fact that I was a hunt-and-pecker on the keyboard. When I went to high school, typing class was filled with girls aspiring to become secretaries, so I never learned what fingers should press which keys. Planning to be published by December and ready for the spring market, I approached a few publishers with my book idea. They were generally receptive, but the best any of them could do was to produce a book by May. As that was unacceptable, self-publishing was my only option.

Since the book, $ELLNG YOUR HOME in Northern Virginia TODAY, would appeal to only a local market, I stopped in to the local Crown Books store with my idea and asked if they would sell the book. They told me it was not their decision, but were kind enough to put me in touch with their book distributor who also served other major bookstores. The distributor liked my idea and agreed to market the book.

I proceeded painfully for months, and produced camera-ready pages for the book. It was the early 1990s and there was nothing called Microsoft Office. Text was written in a program called Multi-Mate and charts were prepared in Lotus 1,2,3. Neither program communicated with the other so it was my job to locate each chart on a page so that it coordinated with the text: Not a lot of fun, but books were delivered to the distributor in early January.

How it started
It was 1985 when I decided to end a rewarding career in industry. I had a secure position but wanted greater control over the future. How can one trade in a 22-year engineering and management career for the great unknown? There were ample resources to ensure the family would have food, shelter, and college tuition for Neen and Davey. I also believed I had whatever was needed to meet a new challenge.

With my decision made, I sold my sportfishing boat, the Undecided II, and prepared a spreadsheet to plot my new course. Over a dozen possibilities were analyzed: McDonald's and AAMCO franchises, marinas, a flirtation with inventing, and several real estate related ventures. The diversity of real estate seemed appealing, and it would be a logical step into home building for an engineer with an MBA. So, I took the courses and exam, gave notice to Mobil Oil, and joined Long & Foster Realtors in 1987.

Within days, Mobil announced the transfer of its New York headquarters (where I had worked in the late 1970s) to Virginia. Insider trading? In the first 3 years, I sold more homes than the average agent does in 20 years. But the real estate boom of the late 1980s had come to an end, and the early 1990s was not the time for my home building venture.