FOR SALE

Houses for sale in every neighborhood. Signs in yards, on windows and mailboxes, with directional signs at the entrance of the development. On clean, well-kept yards and houses with tall grass, unruly vines and indoor discards. Million dollar homes and less than $50,000 makeover possibilities. Many homes are on the market today, with individual stories behind every sign.

One home may have a family relocating to another part of the country or overseas with a new job or promotion. Another may be a family “moving up” with a recent landfall of cash from an inheritance or professional bonus, or a savings account reaching an appropriate level. Sometimes, it’s empty nesters moving to a smaller abode, or older people, moving to a retirement community for less daily maintenance.

The sad stories are those of the death of the owner, or death in the family, leading the remaining occupant responsible unable to maintain the maintenance or mortgage. Divorce puts many homes up for sale, as neither partner wants to remain surrounded by bad memories, or can’t afford to keep up the payments. And there’s the loss of a job or income from an individual business, or over limit credit crunch that forces the owners to sell. Why, there’s even the gruesome reality that an owner killed the other spouse/occupant, confesses, and is thrown in jail, tossing the house on the market. (This one happened to my next door neighbor – he confessed in a bar when he was drunk one night that he’d put most of the body in the disposal, with the bones buried in the back yard.)

Many more stories exist, and working in the real estate market for the past two years causes me to ponder. As I walk through my neighborhood, I consider the possibilities of the current owners. Is it a welcome sign in their yard? Is the move desired or forced? Are they desperate to sell? And then there are the interior questions. Is it nicely staged and appealing? Was it a good floor plan and well-appointed to start with? Have there been any remodeling jobs completed to enhance it? Or does it have blue and purple floral wallpaper and turquoise Formica counters?

With all these question and stories to behold, I’ve come make up my own stories about the entire situation of particular houses. In the future, I plan to write either a book or a series of short stories, written from a spunky Realtor’s perspective, about some of these stories. Who knows, maybe I’ll publish a few here.