My $100,000 mistake

Most who know me will agree,  that I run around in life being me and being what I am with a pair of reader glasses hanging around my neck and it is not uncommon to flip my glasses on and off my nose 200 or 300 times during the day, as I move through life, more importantly, to see.

I can’t see fine print and my vision is certainly not getting any better.

On my 40^th birthday my older sister was at my surprise party and as lovingly, and kind of in my face (drink in hand kind of in your face), warned me of what the forties would be like. One being, your vision will start to go. Of course I didn’t listen and of course she was right.

I loved the forties now that I am 53 and looking back at how kick ass the forties really are/were. I just did not like needing to wear glasses and refused to wear them for the first few years after my subscription to wear glasses had been issued.

So I meet a client who takes a liking to me, and to this day, he is one of smartest men I have ever met. A real mover and shaker and had done amazing things with real estate throughout his life. Investment, development, a real estate office, commercial development and large plots of speculative land.

So I become his agent to sell the large plots of land. A few 40 acres, 60 acres, some 20 and 25 acres. They are all beautiful in south Thurston County, builders and developers were buying it up.

One offer I was presenting from a buyer was all cash, $325,000, my clients asking price (I remember it well) was $325,000... I called my client to discuss the offer over the phone, and reported to my seller that the offer was all cash but, $100,000 less than our $325,000 asking price, “they offered  $225,000”...

He instructed me to tell the buyer he was firm with the $325,000. So I called the buyer back as instructed, and told him “my seller was firm at $325,000”.  The buyer was concerned to say the least, why would I being telling him the seller was firm at $325,000. After all, he had given the seller $325,000. And what the hell was going on. Now he’s pissed off and offended.  As the buyer is starting to scream into the phone, I am now fumbling around my desk in total panic trying to find that damn prescribed pair of glasses I never wore. As the buyer now, is not happy. I find them, put them on and now have the contract in front me with glasses on. It reads - $325,000 - all cash.

So now, life with glasses is a must. They hang around my neck and probably are not all that fashionable and sometimes in the way. But I could not get through a day without them.

In the real estate business, “if you truly care about serving clients at the highest level, you will not make the same mistake twice”.

Rip - Jerry