1980 Was a Very Special Year

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After being in the house for less than a year, the family grew with the arrival of Meghan on a very cold Saturday in January. We brought her home a few days afterward, and from then on the house became a different place. A house with a new baby takes on a different purpose. It forever becomes a backdrop for memories.

I had great fun getting her room ready. For medical reasons, during my pregnancy I had testing which revealed Meghan's gender. I would not allow the doctor to tell me the result, and so decorated the nursery in a neutral Winnie the Pooh motif. The walls were painted a golden "Pooh" yellow. The bedding and accessories were coordinated in the WTP theme. All together it came out well and made for a warm welcome home.

Even though she was the first, Meghan's furniture was not new. Carrying on a family tradition, Meghan slept in a crib first used by my Dad. It held up very well not only for her, but for her two sisters that followed.

SOLD

Although the contract was signed, it was still a surprise to arrive home and see the "SOLD" extension on the For Sale sign. I wasn't sure I would be so lucky to sell the house so quickly. But after only one week on the market an offer was made, a price was agreed upon, and the deal went forward.

Great thanks is owed to my real estate agents, Frank and Doug. After the contract ran out with my former agent, I was deluged with calls, mail, and unannounced personal visits from almost every other agent from here to Montauk.

It was Frank, then unknown to me, who arrived unannounced one Sunday afternoon and POUNDED on my front door, not once but twice, to get my attention. He pulled up, parked his SUV across the street, and made known his arrival by banging so fiercely on the door it rattled the upstairs windows. He then walked back to his vehicle, turned it around, and came back to my door, pounding even harder. Not one to reward such rude behavior, I ignored him. I went to the door later to get the literature I knew he would leave.

But I kept thinking during the week, what sort of salesperson do I want to sell my house? A meek, timid guy who waits for the world to come to him? Or a guy who will knock the door off its hinges on a quiet Sunday afternoon to get new business during very tough times?

Here We Go Again...But Maybe Not for Long

At the end of December, after six months on the market, my house was not sold. Not really surprising, but very disappointing. I took a break for a few weeks, and as of last week I'm back in the game. Possibly not for long since I expect to go to contract very soon! It all happened so fast and I hope it keeps going that way, all the way to the closing.

But just in case, the Open House scheduled for this Sunday is still on. Please alert any qualified buyers you know. Send them all this way.

A Parakeet In the Bush Is Worth...

Image by ecocentrikGuy via FlickrMost every family has their share of pets as the children grow up. For a number of years we kept parakeets, as many as three or four at a time. Never would we have fewer than two. They seemed more content in pairs. Even so, introducing a new pal to a lone parakeet created a skittish situation at first. You wouldn't think a parakeet could be restless or jittery, but put two together who were not used to each other and it took about a week for them to even rest on the same perch. After that they would become inseparable.

In the summer they spent their days outside in the back yard. At first I would set the cage on a picnic table on the deck. That worked well until the first time we forgot to bring them in. By the time I remembered they were still outside, the cage had been knocked over by a prowling cat. I found it on it's side and empty. But the story has a happy ending. Believe it or not, the birds escaped and were found in various bushes and trees around the yard! We caught them with the girls' butterfly nets. Not used to flying, I guess they didn't have it in them to go very far.

One of the birds, curiously named "What's That?" by my imaginative daughters, was obviously injured with a bleeding wing and missing feathers. But he made it to see many more days. From then on, their cage was hung about six feet above the ground safely away from neighborhood cats.

When Minds Don't Meet

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Last night a meeting of the minds took place among my agent, broker and me. After showing me page after page of houses considered to be a step up from mine, in a "more desirable" part of town, which recently sold for ridiculously low prices, they hit me with the "it's time to lower your asking price" line. I thought my asking price was low. The way I understood it, since my first meeting with the agent, the house was "priced to sell." But I was wrong and now it's going lower.

So I have to get ready anew for the onslaught of buyers who have been waiting for an even better bargain. But somehow my motivation to present the house in its best light seems to have gone the way of the asking price.