Saturday Morning Thoughts…
Saturday morning and I am sitting here reminiscing about the past. Like Scrooge it is my past so at any moment now I expect the ghost of experience past to come back to grant me perception on my reflection of past events.
I was sitting here thinking about my friend, one of my absolute best friends, John Starke. He is my brother from another mother and father. But we have shared so many adventures it will take more than one sitting to write about them.
I had two investors buying homes which they never set foot in once they bought them or before they bought them it was only me. So, from another point of view, I would bring my best friend John with me.
John has about five occupational licenses he holds and still holds as well as he was the first Home Inspector in Richmond, he has a real estate brokers license, and he was an investment advisor. John wore so many hats he had to build another closet on.
So, let’s begin at any given moment I would call John and say what are you doing? I need you to go with me and he will go. He never knew which direction we were going or what we were going to get in, but he knew it would be fun and exciting.
We have looked at houses for my investors that they had stripped everything out of before they foreclosed on it, and it was hard to tell. What room was what unless you could see the plumbing pipes or the drainpipe.
Also, let’s talk about the bathrooms one house we saw in the Primary suite they had taken out the walls where the shower or tub was. I’m not sure which because it was just no floor a whole, where the drain was supposed to be and nothing else oh, and a showerhead coming out from the wall. Around these bathroom showers we are calling at loosely shower stall. There was a wooden fence. When I was a Girl Scout just reminded me of the outdoor showers, we had it was very strange to say the lease.
Another house we went to had taken the roof off the house and had green plastic corrugated material on it for the roof in the middle of the living room, ran a stream that they had put in with a little bridge going over it and a pagoda. Now I ask you who, in the world, puts a stream in the middle of your living room with the pagoda?
Another house we saw was listed as a true story while it would work as a true story if you were only three foot tall in order to stand up on the second story. I don’t know who owns that house and why the listing agent would put it as a second story when you couldn’t stand up in there.
On a third house in my repertoire of unusual houses this one also had a stream man-made again running through it outside between where you parked and where the house was now the house was on the river, but there was a flat bunch of boards piece together that were you would walk across with no hand railings and only 2 foot wide to get to the house from the driveway Why would somebody put a man-made stream and do that why not put a little foot bridge there? It was like a death trap.
Lo and behold we went to this house that had a 12-car garage outside. It had an old Lincoln and at the Jon went crazy over. This house on the inside had cement walls. The outside was of a normal house. The inside was cemented walls. In the kitchen, there was a pillar that was cement at the end of a kitchen countertop. This was where the refrigerator was. There were no more than 3 feet that you could walk between the pole and the refrigerator and how to get inside the refrigerator and the freezer would prove a contortionist needed to live there Then let’s go upstairs. There was a room upstairs that was painted all black, and the window was boarded up, and the boards were painted black. This was very strange Also, in this house, when you went up the steps, there was a window to another room. The step area was all painted black and the window to that room was nail shut, painted black, and had chicken wire on it that you could see from the kitchen. I guess it takes all kinds.
Another star property that we looked at was a commercial property John and I traveled to look at commercial property at times because he had clients that owned it. This one was in Ohio. It was a gas station now the gas station itself had six gas pumps and a building that building could only fit a cash register and a chair that was it. It was like sitting in a closet. I said John you have to be kidding. He said no they want to sell it. Well, I can see why.
I have sold a fish market in Williamsburg that was business only and at least went with it, but they had not run a business in a year. But I sold it. A junkyard in James’s City County that the owner has been trying to sell for six years I sold it in five months and it had no bathroom because it was on swampy land that would not perk. John and I also sold a hotel in Grundy, Virginia. The hotel was not operating, but we still managed to sell it.
Now the amusing part of this is that sellers whenever they sell their home because they live in it there is an emotional attachment to it and in their minds, they own the Taj Mahal. The most beautiful house that will sell for wonderful price. Of course, we know this is not the case. I will say that sellers of commercial property because usually there is no emotional attachment to the property as in residential. But then, sometimes you do have some commercial sellers who are just as attached to their property and or business as someone selling their home.
Right here, I will insert a warning. One should not work with a relative, especially a close relative. To get them to do what is necessary and call for the contract you might as well do a root canal on a chicken’s teeth.
The same goes for people who inherited property. Their expectations are astronomical and getting them to agree to issues requires another visit to the dentist and another root canal on the hen’s tooth.
Jon likes to wear suits. On one of our travels, we stopped at a food truck and got chili hotdog. I might want to tell you may not want to eat a chili hot dog with me if you are wearing a suit. I reached the back seat to get my purse, which John called the Mr. T purse, because it had chains on it heavy chains When I tug it, it came back around and hit John, and chill hot dog went all over him.
Another time we were showing property to a college professor he was getting ready to retire. One of the homes he wanted to see was on the river, but it had been vacant for about a year This was when Real Estate was struggling Well, I came in the driveway. We parked, and we went into the house and looked at it. We came back outside and got in the car, and I could not figure out where the driveway was It was a long winding driveway and there was about 3 foot and I’m not exaggerating of leaves as it was trees all over the property. I could not find how to get out of there. I was going around and around a hedgerow. John was sitting in the backseat howling. I thought he was gonna wet his pants. I had to tell him to shut up. The more he laughed the madder and redder the Professor got. Needless to say, this was not one of my shining moments. Also, I did not show property anymore to the Professor as I never heard from him again after he left.
I sold a historic farmhouse to some buyers that I had as I love historical properties. This was a farmhouse out in the country of King and Queen County. When we did the home inspection for piers under the house, the original owners had used oak logs. They were huge and they were petrified. And they weren’t going anywhere.
I am sure all professionals in the real estate business have strange properties and strange tales.
I will include this: my friend John is a good sport and always willing to support and help me with my adventures and real estate.
We also showed a property in Newport News on the James River. It had a round I do not kid you. It had a round unused swimming pool in the backyard like a ball. The house itself had a very strange design of rooms in it. And the buyer who was looking at it was a veteran. He told me he was a train killer in the military as he had to go underground in places to assassinate people. He did tell me he took medication to curb his anger issues. This was a little scary. Because the house he bought was a foreclosure that needed a ton of work with the round pool.
I have shown enlisted properties, which I thought might have a little spooky undertone.
I showed the house and Williamsburg to my buyers, and we kept having a feeling somebody was watching us. This was in a very influential section of Williamsburg. And when we left the property, I closed the front door and I heard clapping. I looked at my buyer, and they said yes, we heard it too.
I told Jon about the property he wanted to see it, so I took him. It was vacant. He goes into the property and does a full-on Ghostbusters incantation to draw out the spirits.
Jon had a client who was a retired dentist. He had an estate that had caught on fire due to a squirrel chewing through a wire in the attic. He wanted too much for the property and kept changing the boundary lines of the different lots without doing that the correct way with the county. We were there one day, looking at the new boundary lines that he said was an effect And I was waiting in the truck for John. I looked up at the burnt out third floor, which was the attic area and they’re in the window. I saw a figure of a man dressed in a civil war uniform. And officer it was. When John came back, I told him about what I had seen. John told me that was interesting as the daughter when she was young had claimed that a civil war General would come down to her room on the second floor and stand at the bed. He never said anything. It was like he was checking on her, and it did not scare her and then he left. John said the owner told him that the magnolia tree, which was gigantic in the side yard They had hung three Civil War soldiers that were confederates.
