Meg (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jianantonic) wrote2016-06-09 12:00 pm
jianantonic) wrote2016-06-09 12:00 pm
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Real estate is moving so slowly for me this year. Last year I sort of just lucked into a lot of good client situations. This year I have things going on, but nothing has closed yet and it's all moving at a snail's pace. I've had one short sale deal pending for six months now. I have a handful of clients in the "I'll be ready really soon" stages. I have one active listing in a small community that's not very busy. And even Toby's deal, which is a private transaction without Realtors, is taking forever. I'm not officially working for him -- he's buying the place he has been renting for the last three years from the previous landlord, who is offering it at a discount price since neither party is using Realtors that charge commissions. FSBO's (For sale by owner) are notoriously difficult. There's a reason most people hire Realtors. We're fucking worth it. If that doink had hired me, this shit would've been closed months ago. If Toby didn't have me advocating for him, he'd have signed off on a bad deal months ago. Basically the landlord is trying to get out of making any necessary repairs on the basis that he's giving Toby a good discount. Um, no. The discount is based on what you'd get if the house were in perfect condition. He keeps threatening to pull the deal and just list the place at the price he wants, but I told Toby to call his bluff. If he does list it, any buyer who comes will come with a Realtor who will advise them the same that I'm advising Toby: either get the repairs done or demand a lower price. And that Realtor is going to ask for 3% commission. So it's in the landlord's best interest to stop dicking around and make the repairs, but he's trying to wring some extra dollars out of it. The annoying thing is that he's making a big profit on it anyway. What's $3000 in contractor work when you're pocketing a $30,000 profit? I mean, 10%, okay, but still. And actually I have no memory of what his purchase price was, other than that it was much lower than the sales price. Anyway.
I'm doing some work, though. I'm a lot more active in real estate than I was earlier this year, and hopefully that will begin to pay off. It's just a slow kind of thing. Buying and selling houses are not decisions made in a day, so any relationships I cultivate now aren't going to yield a closing for many months at least. Sigh. So I'm doing other things in the meantime. Uber driving. Trivia hosting. Airbnb renting. Flipping tickets on Stubhub. (I just bought my first Timbers tickets to sell and I feel so DIRTY.)
One of my favorite colleagues at Windermere is also in WW, and this week we started going to the same meeting and hanging out after. She's younger than me and got licensed about a year after I did, so she's just now getting going. We have some things we're working on together, and I'm looking forward to what that may yield, too. I had a really nice time hanging out with her yesterday afternoon. She's very like-minded and I just love her. She's also the first person I consider a peer who calls me Margaret. Heh.
Speaking of WW...down 18.4 pounds total. My goal weight is just 7 pounds away, but I set that when a 25 pound loss seemed monumentally difficult. Now I'm thinking maybe I could move the goalposts a little farther away. Bodies are funny. I don't remember what I weighed when I started my sophomore year in college, but I do remember that I was a size 12, and my roommate mentioned to me that she weighed 142 pounds. And that sounded really high to me then. I was not fit at all, and I had a bit of a belly roll, but I'd guess my weight was like 130 at the time? That was also the year that I started gaining weight like crazy. When I was at my heaviest, at age 22, I was 199 pounds. I wasn't going to let it tip over to 200. But I was still just a size 16 then. I am really tall, after all. It was spread out. But anyway I started working with my first trainer then, and she got me down to 166 over the next two years. 33 pounds lighter, and I went down to a size 14. One size down. (I was lifting weights and doing cardio that built my muscle up, but I hadn't changed my diet yet.) Then I joined WW and set my goal weight at 142 -- that number that had once seemed irresponsibly heavy to me. And I did get there. It was from a solid combination of exercise and diet, and at my smallest, I was a size 6 in most clothes -- 3 sizes down from when I'd been 130 in college, and a size I'd last worn before I hit puberty. I weighed 105 the last time I squeezed into a size 6, at age 14. Today I weigh 162 and I'm wearing a size 12 again. I imagine I can get down to a size 8 or so, but I'll be surprised if my weight ever dips below 150 again. Muscle. It makes a difference. (Also, that self-righteous 19-year-old who thought 142 was heavy? She can go fuck herself. Except she won't because she was afraid of vaginas back then.)
I'm doing some work, though. I'm a lot more active in real estate than I was earlier this year, and hopefully that will begin to pay off. It's just a slow kind of thing. Buying and selling houses are not decisions made in a day, so any relationships I cultivate now aren't going to yield a closing for many months at least. Sigh. So I'm doing other things in the meantime. Uber driving. Trivia hosting. Airbnb renting. Flipping tickets on Stubhub. (I just bought my first Timbers tickets to sell and I feel so DIRTY.)
One of my favorite colleagues at Windermere is also in WW, and this week we started going to the same meeting and hanging out after. She's younger than me and got licensed about a year after I did, so she's just now getting going. We have some things we're working on together, and I'm looking forward to what that may yield, too. I had a really nice time hanging out with her yesterday afternoon. She's very like-minded and I just love her. She's also the first person I consider a peer who calls me Margaret. Heh.
Speaking of WW...down 18.4 pounds total. My goal weight is just 7 pounds away, but I set that when a 25 pound loss seemed monumentally difficult. Now I'm thinking maybe I could move the goalposts a little farther away. Bodies are funny. I don't remember what I weighed when I started my sophomore year in college, but I do remember that I was a size 12, and my roommate mentioned to me that she weighed 142 pounds. And that sounded really high to me then. I was not fit at all, and I had a bit of a belly roll, but I'd guess my weight was like 130 at the time? That was also the year that I started gaining weight like crazy. When I was at my heaviest, at age 22, I was 199 pounds. I wasn't going to let it tip over to 200. But I was still just a size 16 then. I am really tall, after all. It was spread out. But anyway I started working with my first trainer then, and she got me down to 166 over the next two years. 33 pounds lighter, and I went down to a size 14. One size down. (I was lifting weights and doing cardio that built my muscle up, but I hadn't changed my diet yet.) Then I joined WW and set my goal weight at 142 -- that number that had once seemed irresponsibly heavy to me. And I did get there. It was from a solid combination of exercise and diet, and at my smallest, I was a size 6 in most clothes -- 3 sizes down from when I'd been 130 in college, and a size I'd last worn before I hit puberty. I weighed 105 the last time I squeezed into a size 6, at age 14. Today I weigh 162 and I'm wearing a size 12 again. I imagine I can get down to a size 8 or so, but I'll be surprised if my weight ever dips below 150 again. Muscle. It makes a difference. (Also, that self-righteous 19-year-old who thought 142 was heavy? She can go fuck herself. Except she won't because she was afraid of vaginas back then.)