going.
CHAPTER
6
B Y THE FIRST WEEK of June, I had three of those townhouses in Phase Four presold, and I arranged to meet the buyers out at the site so they could get a look at how far along things were. Ever since the Burns closing, I had had the golden touch. The Davids, John and Pollock, had closed, and a friend of theirs with more money and more expensive taste was about to sign a contract. I had six new listings and potential buyers for all of them. I knew enough about real estate to recognize the flow of luck. There had been times when I’d done everything except bury voodoo dolls in front of the office just to get some business—that’s what it had been like in the Carter years, with interest rates approaching 14 percent and sellers knocking thousands off the price and me taking a cut in commission just to make a place a little more affordable for the buyer. Now interest rates were down from that high, though not that much—what mortgages were costing now would have killed the market in 1974. I remembered when we used to see all those Vietnamese boat people scrambling to climb onto those rickety boats back in ’79. Well, it still seemed to lots of buyers that the boat was leaving the harbor for the last time; better to get on at any price than wait for rates or prices to go down. Realtors had lots of truisms at their fingertips, about how the price of land sometimes stabilized but never declined, about how you might pay extra for the mortgage or extra for the house but it was always going to be one or the other, about how the supply of (1) good land, (2) lake frontage, (3) prime locations, or (4) terrific older houses (built, always, of finer materials, with better workmanship than available today) was limited. The lesson of every rule was buy now if you possibly can, or buy up, or take a second job. Whatever boat you were trying to get on was steaming away to the promised land, and we Realtors had the tickets.
The buyers of the presold townhouses on Anne and Elizabeth and Mary considered themselves lucky to get in on the ground floor. God only knew what the prices would be like when the places were finished and everyone in the world who wanted in would be banging down the gates.
I hadn’t been out there since April, and Gordon had done just as I suggested: put in some temporary flower beds full of nasturtiums and marigolds, along with some turf. The streets were done, and they looked bright and smooth, the way new pavement does. Gordon had even put flower boxes on the mobile home where he had the office.
I got there early—it was about 9 A.M . on a breezy June day—and the air was fragrant with the scent of roses and lilacs from across the road along the fence that defined Phase One. The office was locked and I didn’t see Larry, so I went out on my own and took a look at the site. The foundations were in. I stood back on a little rise and looked at the picture they made: the concrete outline of each unit, including the median walls between units. The eye is always deceived by empty foundations—the surrounding landscape makes defined areas look small. But there was something else about these walls that didn’t look right. I stared at them for a moment, then realized that the formed concrete was twelve inches thick, rather than eight, and that about eight inches from the top there was a four-inch setback. The setback ran all along the fronts of the units and also around the chimney foundations. The only explanation was that Gordon had made up his mind to add brick facings up the façades of the units as well as brick chimneys. I looked around. There was no brick in evidence.
I heard the sound of a truck and went around to the mobile home. Larry was just getting out of his Dodge. He was a paunchy, cheerful older guy. He had a clipboard in hand and a Caterpillar cap on his head. He waved happily and came over to meet me.
“Look at this!” he said. “Moving right along.
CHAPTER
6
B Y THE FIRST WEEK of June, I had three of those townhouses in Phase Four presold, and I arranged to meet the buyers out at the site so they could get a look at how far along things were. Ever since the Burns closing, I had had the golden touch. The Davids, John and Pollock, had closed, and a friend of theirs with more money and more expensive taste was about to sign a contract. I had six new listings and potential buyers for all of them. I knew enough about real estate to recognize the flow of luck. There had been times when I’d done everything except bury voodoo dolls in front of the office just to get some business—that’s what it had been like in the Carter years, with interest rates approaching 14 percent and sellers knocking thousands off the price and me taking a cut in commission just to make a place a little more affordable for the buyer. Now interest rates were down from that high, though not that much—what mortgages were costing now would have killed the market in 1974. I remembered when we used to see all those Vietnamese boat people scrambling to climb onto those rickety boats back in ’79. Well, it still seemed to lots of buyers that the boat was leaving the harbor for the last time; better to get on at any price than wait for rates or prices to go down. Realtors had lots of truisms at their fingertips, about how the price of land sometimes stabilized but never declined, about how you might pay extra for the mortgage or extra for the house but it was always going to be one or the other, about how the supply of (1) good land, (2) lake frontage, (3) prime locations, or (4) terrific older houses (built, always, of finer materials, with better workmanship than available today) was limited. The lesson of every rule was buy now if you possibly can, or buy up, or take a second job. Whatever boat you were trying to get on was steaming away to the promised land, and we Realtors had the tickets.
The buyers of the presold townhouses on Anne and Elizabeth and Mary considered themselves lucky to get in on the ground floor. God only knew what the prices would be like when the places were finished and everyone in the world who wanted in would be banging down the gates.
I hadn’t been out there since April, and Gordon had done just as I suggested: put in some temporary flower beds full of nasturtiums and marigolds, along with some turf. The streets were done, and they looked bright and smooth, the way new pavement does. Gordon had even put flower boxes on the mobile home where he had the office.
I got there early—it was about 9 A.M . on a breezy June day—and the air was fragrant with the scent of roses and lilacs from across the road along the fence that defined Phase One. The office was locked and I didn’t see Larry, so I went out on my own and took a look at the site. The foundations were in. I stood back on a little rise and looked at the picture they made: the concrete outline of each unit, including the median walls between units. The eye is always deceived by empty foundations—the surrounding landscape makes defined areas look small. But there was something else about these walls that didn’t look right. I stared at them for a moment, then realized that the formed concrete was twelve inches thick, rather than eight, and that about eight inches from the top there was a four-inch setback. The setback ran all along the fronts of the units and also around the chimney foundations. The only explanation was that Gordon had made up his mind to add brick facings up the façades of the units as well as brick chimneys. I looked around. There was no brick in evidence.
I heard the sound of a truck and went around to the mobile home. Larry was just getting out of his Dodge. He was a paunchy, cheerful older guy. He had a clipboard in hand and a Caterpillar cap on his head. He waved happily and came over to meet me.
“Look at this!” he said. “Moving right along.
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