Remembering 2001, our annus horribilis.
A "year of horrors" that makes 2011 look like a day at Great America.
I'm busy scanning old transaction files, so that my garage has room for more than boxes filled with hard copies of old transaction files, and by coincidence(?) I spent part of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 going through the paperwork for what was, in the larger view, one of the more inconsequential casualties of the terrorist attack, a listing of mine in Portola Valley that was a pending sale until bright and early the morning of 9/12/01 when the buyer, a broker and "strong buyer" who lived a few doors from the property, tersely and unapologetically cancelled his offer.
It was a fitting end to a trying and surreal twenty-four hours. On the morning of 9/11 I watched the news develop on TV, then drove to Redwood City with my wife to put a new listing on the market for broker's tour. As I always do, I left her at the house so that I could scout the competition, and I can report that I was one of the very few agents either focused enough or foolish enough to tour on 9/11. As a matter of fact, very few people were driving around Redwood City that morning. Little did I suspect the attack's long-term consequences, or even one short-term consequence: my Redwood City listing, which prior to 8:46 AM had been "value-priced", was in the twinkling of an eye overpriced. Sudden shocks knock big chunks off market value, and here in Silicon Valley 9/11 was just the latest in a year chock full o' shocks.
It was also a year with very few happy endings, both in real life and in that reflection of real life, real estate. My Portola Valley seller pulled his home off the market, unsold, and my Redwood City sellers followed suit two months and many frustrating open houses later. 2001 was like that. Sellers who couldn't sell. Buyers who couldn't fight their way through the fog of uncertainty that existed even pre-9/11 to make acceptable offers. And rentals. Lots of minimum-wage rentals.
I sit here surrounded by the dusty paperwork for one particular rental that may epitomize the grinding futility of 2001.
I realize now that I should have been concerned when an agent referred me a rental listing, in a great neighborhood, without asking for a referral fee, but I'd just spent nine years managing and leasing rentals and this was something I could sink my teeth into. But this rental bit back:
Fortunately, he and his agent went away, and I told the handyman to beat it. Which left me with a crummy house that wouldn't rent. The biggest turn-off was the kitchen floor, covered in grime rendered impervious by a layer of ancient wax. Beer-breath had turned in a stirring performance trying to convince me that we (or at least he) could do nothing, short of burning the house down, but I knew what had to be done: change into grubbies, then clean and strip the floor. Throw on a new coat of wax, and instant remodel! Not quite, but a few days later it rented. Instant hero! But not for long, because the ordeal wasn't over. The renters' check was payable to Coldwell Banker, and little did I know (although I should have known) that Coldwell would sit on the check for two weeks to make sure it was good before cutting the owners a check. Which meant that for two weeks I had to reassure the increasingly panicked owners that, no, we weren't playing games and, yes, they would get their check. While the good will I'd built up swirled clockwise down the drain.
Yes, as I look back, 2001 was like that: national tragedy, economic malaise, and the frantic racing on the hamster wheel that passes for progress in hard times. Which might be why I've been remarkably cheerful all through 2011. 2001 was my 1933, my annus horribilis and rite of passage that told me life usually pulls out of a tailspin. Everybody should have one. But only one.