It Is Supposed To Be So Easy - That And Taking Crack

So, yes, I know, more rantings about work. Will she ever stop? I'm sorry. It's an all consuming baby right now. So they all say that listings are the easier way to service your business blah, blah, blah. I don't know, I was so stressed up the wazoo this weekend. The strategy I had for my listing was to price low and get a bunch of interest to drive the price up. It's a big investment opportunity in the area but it needs sooooo much work. The instructions were: make your best offer and that's the one we will take since you won't get a second shot. No playing people off each other and we will not review any offers for 48 hours. I thought that after 48 hours we would have 4 offers and we would settle 10K over asking price. What I didn't know was how fierce they would all be. The issue is, how do you choose the offer that will stand the test of time (and the test of a very nasty inspection). I was very upfront with everyone and told them everything the house needed but these people still kept driving the price up. All said and done we took a cash offer (cash is indeed king) 23K over the asking price (the odd part is that if I had priced the home 10K higher I think we would have netted less) I was worried about this because the numbers just don't work at that price but they said they would be building an addition so I felt better. I had about 175 people come through the open houses this weekend and I'm still getting requests from people to add them to the list should the contract fall through. Mama Mia. It was fun, it was exciting, it was like drinking 20 cups of coffee each hour for 48 hours, and now I feel like a limp rag doll. I just hope we chose the right one. I hope we didn't make a mistake by not buying it ourselves.

Yesterday was a complete nightmare as well. Bad sewer on one of the buyer's inspections, the keys missing in the lockbox for another client's second showing, and no preparation for the first time buyer seminar I gave to Hitachi last night. I feel terrible. RG, you will probably hear horrible things about the seminar. I just had to show up and do it and I really had no time to prepare. I spoke for too long, the crowd was restless, and it threw the lender off because his time was cut. Yikes. We got some good reviews and one really bad review. It was a tough crowd though. I knew we were talking for too long and I knew that they were not being engaged enough. I asked them before we started what their perceptions of Realtors were and they said "One step above a used car sales man?". Hmm...it was rough.

This got me thinking about how my career is a bit like that of a crack user. You get abused, you get screwed, you have huge rushes of adrenaline, you have huge downers, and yet you keep coming back for more. Sometimes you are 'craving' that lead and then BAM you get your fix and all is well again. Very odd. I felt terrible after the seminar last night and my response: Let's do that again with a new crowd next month! Mama mia..why take the abuse? I got a great fix today with 2 new clients waiting for me in my in box. I think my new marketing blitz is working (a whole other boring topic).

So what's going in in real life? Unfortunately not a whole lot. I'm beat and I know that I'll need help soon. I have this idea to recruit my client who became a Realtor at KW and pay his office fee for him in return for 10 hours of work a week ($10/hour). Mike thinks this is terrible because he works the same area I do and I'll teach him everything its taken me so long to perfect. Any ideas? I can only use about 10 hours of help a week right now.

Sorry, back to real life. I'm waiting for my fat burning tapes..no luck yet. I did do pilates yesterday as working out is the one thing I am trying to salvage right now. I cannot WAIT until Vegas. Other than that..it's a wrap. Sorry for all the boring work stuff. Really, you guys are amazing to put up with all my self absorptions. One day I'll get a life.