After trying to chase her down for weeks, Apple and I finally cornered one of her former co-workers. Some time back, she learned that we were selling our home and expressed interest in taking a look at it, since she wanted to upgrade from her small condo that wasn’t even garage-equipped. Being a somewhat well-off widow who already lives in the local area, she seemed like the perfect buyer. And, because she’s going directly through us instead of a real estate agent of her own, if she ends up buying the property we’ll save money on the commission.
Proving the old axiom that it never rains but it pours, we were just an hour away from meeting her when our own agent called and said that she had someone wanting to come show the house at the very same time. Why does that just figure? Unfortunately, that buyer was not able to make it at any other time, so we had to let them go. I figure it’s better to court the prospect you know you have a good chance of landing, rather than the one you know nothing about.
“Don’t stress over it,” Apple told me. “There will be more buyers where that one came from.”
It didn’t take long for her to be proven right, for during dinner I received another call from our agent who had yet another buyer wanting to stop by tomorrow afternoon. This time I was pleased to accept, and so we’ll scurry out of here and have lunch elsewhere tomorrow while the prospects are visiting. After almost three weeks of zero activity, it’s nice to finally start seeing some new buyers coming in for a closer look.
Our agent shed some light on that three-week lull, incidentally. For the last several weeks there have been two other homes just like ours for sale in the community that are foreclosures, and as such were better spec’ed than ours and with lower list prices. But both of those homes recently went under contract, so once again our place is the “deal” of the community, so we’re going to start seeing more business. We don’t have the lake view that so many covet, so the going has been tougher for us, but I’m sure we’ll get an offer before long.
As if on cue, my boss this evening regaled me with half an hour worth of instant messages about how great Frisco is, how awesome the people are and how much stuff he has discovered to do. Living in the suburbs of a major metro area like Dallas has its advantages: there’s an absolute load of restaurant, activities and culture all around you. Planetariums, zoos, aquariums, historic train rides, huge arcades and bowling alleys, excellent local libraries with great kids’ programs (my boss said his son was given a free stuffed animal for reading a certain number of books)…it’s all stuff you don’t realize you’re missing until you live somewhere with a complete dearth of any of it, like our current place of residence.
This, again, reminds me of the metro Detroit area where I grew up, just as driving on Frisco’s roads did. Up there, likewise, you were surrounded by suburbs, each with its own raison d’être, restaurants, shops and places to go. If you didn’t feel like seeing a movie in Livonia, you could go to Northville. Or you could go out to West Bloomfield. Or Farmington Hills. You could plan a whole raft of shopping, dining and doing stuff in a different locale each day. Down here in southwest Florida, there’s just…here. I mean, you could go to the big mall in Estero, but it’s just one mall. You could go to Fort Myers if you have all day, but ugh…who would want to, when it’s just the same stuff you have at home but in worse condition.
The problem with the Detroit metroplex, of course, was that the anchor of it all — downtown Detroit — was somewhere you never wanted to go, at least not in the era in which I grew up and certainly not now. I hope downtown Dallas will be different.
One way or another, we’re looking forward to the adventure ahead.
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