So there is this piece of property, down the road from my barn, that has had little For Sale signs on it since we moved to the barn last April. They are sort of cute little yellow signs with a strawberry on them, and a realtor's phone number. Like, we're not talking David Lyng here. I think I wrote about this property at some point? Remember how much I used to write about property when I thought we were actually going to be able to sell our house and buy one? Back in the bad old days?
This one is out of the Gary zone. Why did I even start stalking it? I have a sickness, that much is true. But it had this sort of cute house on a knoll, and a big flat parcel, that was possibly 5-7 acres according to another home made sign up on the fence. Long access road, and on further stalking (you know I am completely shameless and will just go up on anyone's property) it turns out it's a shared access road down to some ag fields and runs through the parcel. There was also a mobile home, some sheds, pump tank, stuff like that. Another side backs up near the giant commercial nursery.
The house is raw and kind of chintzy but of a sort of charming design and bone structure-not unlike the DREAM RANCH M$%%&*CK S$#T Sorry Cannot Even think of it WITHOUT FROTHING MOst DAYS- but lacked some basic things like floors and such. My standards are pretty low. Had a little creek (ie, runoff ditch) running through some willows behind, and was well placed on the parcel with the long flat Horse Section out behind. No fencing or anything like that. And also this weird sort of hippie earthship I live in a house made entirely of trash by my cousins houses/structures/farm running alongside the narrow property edge on the adjoining parcel.
In short, far from perfect, very Watsonville, but intriguing in a way that indicates how sick my mind is and how I need some sort of life or therapist to help me figure out my whole real estate thing and how do we solve it.
And then, a couple weeks ago, a Countrywide Financing sign got added to the fence. Small and simple, with a phone number. Out of the blue. Little strawberry For Sale signs forever, house never on mls, and then, kaboom. Countrywide.
Foreclosure?? Could it be? So I started further stalking. Leaving messages for the realtor and for the cell phone number on the sign. Gary even drove by there one day on the way home from a work field trip to a far away dump, sort of assessing the distance. Because foreclosure! What if we could get the property for like $500,000?? This is the number I stick into my head.
No one calls back ever. Curious? More mysterious and intriguing and price lowering in my mind. I drive by it and sometimes drive up there and do mental property layouts of where barn could be and arena and some pasture space. There is a seperate flat area for trailer parking and dog field! I am not supposed to do this. Finally one day, I get the realtor to pick up the phone, I called her cel on a Saturday afternoon.
I introduce myself, and tell her I'm calling about the property for sale at 294 Casserly.
She says, "What do you want to know?"
Um, I sort of ramble how I drive by it every day and wanted to know the pricing and acreage and I just happened to notice that Countrywide sign just went up.
She says, "Oh-it's not for sale." She has a TONE to her voice, of unpleasantness and like she is scowling at me and all I've done is call her cel phone. I recognize this tone. I have used it when I am providing Poor Customer Service-it is the Tone of Irritation! It means How Dare You Call My Phone Right Now! Can't you see I was busy doing something better than talking to you?
I sort of pause, thinking, um, ok, weird. I say, "um, I thought maybe it was BECAUSE IT'S HAD FOR SALE SIGNS ON IT FOR 6 MONTHS and a Countrywide sign just went up last week."
She says, "well, it's not for sale."
I am like, "Well, is it going to be for sale?"
"Yes, it will be for sale in the future.:
"How much?"
"One Point Three Million Dollars."
I am sort of puzzled by how this exchange is going. I ask about the Countrywide sign that Just Went Up there! I think I use the F word. She says it is definitely not in Foreclosure but won't indicate why that sign got posted. And keeps re-iterating the not for sale thing. She is a realtor with not one but 3 signs on the property's fence!
The conversation kept going in a sort of circular fashion from here. I tell her that is not my price range so I guess I won't try to follow up In the Future with it. She asks my price range. I come up with $8-900k. Not that we can afford that anymore but it was my price range for so long that it just flows off my practiced tongue of real estate talk.
She sort of pauses again and is like, "well, it probably won't be for that. One Point Three Million."
That was kind of the end of that. This is how the real estate market goes these days. Just a little funny? And not really real.
Did you ever dream that you were a dog agility super champ except then it switched and you were at some germy, grungy, derelict seaside park in the dark and the carnies were actually drug addled zombies that were shambling after you with hammers and their big teeth? And then as you're trying to escape your way out from under their oily, horrible claws by clambering up a rat infested palm tree, you're all, this is about dog agility like, how?
7 comments:
Gee, this property sounds exactly like what the Schultz family is looking for (we are Trailer Trash). First you stoke my crack-like addiction to dog agility, and now you are stoking my "I'll never buy another horse until I can buy a place where I can keep it" pipe dreams. Thanks a lot.
Comment 2: The weird Realtor sounds like maybe *she* wants to buy this property, or she thinks one of her rich Realtor buddies might want to and she could make some fast money in some fast way (and she had better, fast before Recession really hits). So, I think you should go find the actual owners and/or bank and buy it for $500K because the "little creek" is probably toxic and you will probably get cancer and then sue the former owner/bank for $800K, so they might as well take that off the purchase price.
Yes! This is the Fun of real estate stalking. Because it is so weird from the realtor, I have to start asking the neighbors and do all kinds of reconaissance missions. My realtor is involved. Because the price of $500,000 has been completely invented in my head but it has actually been invented so I cannot stop the stalking. Yes the drainage ditch goes to the strawberry fields! Yes cancer and spraying! Perhaps the Schultz family could buy the hippie compound next door!
Yes I am stoking all your dreams! Hooray for the dog agility and horse dreams of a bright future where we made more money in the past!
I went on your college teaching website! You are teaching the college students how to write! I have never taken that class so I am very happy you can read my website and not have bad dreams over the lack of literature of my writing style! I had the little problem in college of the comment of some teachers that I was unteachable. I never thought I was but apparently c the art and critical theory professors did, I never tried writing anything in college except for painting all the lists! Perhaps you can write a book to bring you fame and fortune to buy your ranch! I have tried to write a book but I think I am not really a book writer. More like pamphlets. So that may not be my way to the fame and fortune to buy the ranch. But it could be yours because you know about the Literature!
Oh, you went to my boring website! Where I am trying to flog my students into passing their eyes over the little black squiggles on the pages of the book they are supposed to be reading so that when we go to the movie that had better come out on Nov. 21! because I canceled classes that day so we can all go together and they will, most of them for the first time in their lives, be saying to their friends, "Like, generally it's a very well cast move, though I'm not sure that Bardem completely pulls off the Chigurh character's complexity."
Don't get me started on the teaching of students to write thing. It's very much the same question as would I accept 1.3 million dollars from Tony Soprano to teach him how to play agility with the best Border Collie money can buy. In both cases, we would be accepting money in bad faith, knowing that, in the context of personalities and institutions, neither thing that we are pretending to teach can actually be taught. Wait! I *am* accepting money for it! I'm not just *thinking* about it because I'm thinking about how much I want a ranch! I'm going to hell just like Carmella!
I can say with surety that pamphlets are the new brown. Just wait. Just saying the word "pamphlet" makes people happy. It's that kind of word. People need to be happy. Demand-supply. It's coming! People will be surrounding you when you go to the grocery store! Asking for pamphlets! When you are sitting on the rails giving a lesson, students will come up and almost tip you over tapping on your shoulder! Can I have today's pamphlet? While you are setting poles in class, they will just snatch a pamphlet out of your back pocket without asking!
"...tip you over tapping on your shoulder!" That is beautiful. Not the image of Laura falling over, but the sentence. I think Laura would write great pamphlets, and maybe Mary Schultz could offer up some more of those tasty bits to include. Could she write the comments on the back cover saying how great the pamphlet is???
Laurel
Yes if i write a pamphlet mary schultz will be helping because she is a professor of Literature! I sort of have all these sections that I thought could someday be a book but it turns out i am not a book writer i am more of a Big Picture Sort and not detailed oriented or a writer! But i believe pamphlets are like posters and i am very good at these! or like magazine covers. I am very good at magazine covers. I believe this to be part of the focus level of a flea which i have been known to have. This is why I was always the artist with karl because he can do the details! i used to sleep on the ground while he worked out details. But pamphlets are nice and short do not need too many details!
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