A beautiful December up in our meadow
I’ve been absent from the blogosphere for a few weeks thanks to one more island re-charge and then the fact my brain is full.
I have learned so much these past couple of months having active offers representing both a buyer and a seller in the real estate world! It has kept me guessing and it has kept me drinking red wine.
Aloha!
But first, the island re-charge!
Its true, we were just on Kauai for my annual veterinary conference at the end of October. It might seem a bit extravagant to return to Hawaii a couple of weeks later but it was the best decision.
We flew to the Big Island for a 5-night stay at the Hilton Waikoloa (“Dirty Disney”) on an all-inclusive holiday. It was truly a holiday because it was the first time since starting to go to Hawaii that neither of us had a conference.
No agenda.
No need to be anywhere at any specific time.
Island Al, our first morning
Except the golf courses.
The breakfast buffet was terrific, although it was teeming with families with young children. I hadn’t thought much about it being Thanksgiving week when we booked this trip a year ago but, wow. That was the most kids we’ve ever seen at one time at any resort on the islands.
They weren’t at the golf courses, at least.
We played the Kings Course, Makalei, Waikoloa, Hupana and the Beach Course.
Makalei. Up the volcano, then down the volcano. And repeat.
The weather was perfect, the meals were terrific, the courses weren’t crowded, the evenings on our lanai with martinis and wine overlooking the dolphins and ocean were magical and we are completely full of Aloha.
Dirty Disney is a pretty cool place to go. Its such a vast resort that it actually has its own monorail and boat system to get around between the towers.
It is also where I spent a heartbroken week during last year’s veterinary conference while Alistair stayed home so he could be with UB when he died from suddenly-diagnosed lung cancer.
Sweet UB. I miss you so much.
We toasted our little Bostonocker Sperrier during our recharge to the Big Island and I’m a little overwhelmed by his memory right now.
Alas..
Onto the uptick in my already upticked learning curve!
One of the two transactions I was involved in was just way too easy.
No, really, it was sooooo smooth. I kept waiting for something ridiculous to happen but it didn’t.
My first listing ever and now my first closed transaction!!!
It was that adorable house in town I listed for a friend who had been a great veterinary client. My first listing ever as well as my first Open House! I love that house and, without any issues, the buyers are in and the transaction closed on Nov.30th!
(Well, the poor buyer locked herself out on the chilly morning of closing- in her jammies- and had to make her way to our office where a colleague could give her a code to get into the lockbox and I wasn’t checking my phone where her frantic husband-in-North-Dakota had been texting me because, geez, I was going to meet my seller in Missoula for the closing where my seller told me, for the first time, that there were spare keys to the side door under the mat in front of it.)
So perhaps there was a bit of a glitch after all…
Bye-bye, super cute house!
The second transaction, where I represented a buyer from Missoula who I had met working the floor this summer, wasn’t quite the same.
We were getting into a lake house on a private, gated lake near my own house and the home inspection came back with a few issues.
The issues led to some work that had to be done including radon mitigation and pumping of the septic tank and a few little things here & there. We were also set to close on Nov.30th but the one main thing I’ve learned since joining my realty team is that nothing is closed until its closed.
“Mummy, are you telling them about the issues at Big Sky Lake?”
We had negotiations about electrical panels that went somewhere until they went nowhere and caused some frustration and perhaps even anger to the seller and confusion to the buyer and myself and the other realtor involved, Greg, had to step in a bit to make things right.
(Another thing I have learned is that realtors are often “stepping in” to make things right.)
So Nov.29th, when the radon mitigation was being finished up and my buyer and her two sons drove up for a walk-through, it was discovered that nobody could find the septic tank despite there being 3 septic permits associated with the property.
At this point my brain took me back to my happy place from the week prior…
I actually drove home that night thinking that the sale was going to fall through and nothing would close.
And I was actually okay with that.
Because life is too short to wrap yourself up in shit you can’t control. And, believe me, I could not control this one. Nor could I negotiate a fix for it all.
I could, however, support Greg, who is a former veterinary client and friend, who assembled a team for the following Monday. The team included the local septic guy, his son, an excavator and a guy to work it, another septic guy with a camera to find the tank and us agents.
Party at the lake house!
Working on the septic issue….
The camera-guy found the tank! Yippie! Okay, everyone, lets unearth it, get it cleaned and close this deal!
Oop, wait, not so much….
You see, as kind of shown above, we all realized that the tank was brilliantly buried beneath concreate.
Yeah. Concrete.
There was, perhaps, half an hour where Greg and I and everyone else had no clue what we were going to do.
Oh, goodie… we found the tank….
Again, images of the signed papers floating off into the sky crossed my mind but Norm, the local septic guy just started digging.
And digging.
And the excavator guy got going in his machine again and half of a wood pile had to be moved and texts were flying between Greg and his seller and I watched and waited and wondered aloud if this was going to turn into one of those, “Hey, who is the littlest person here? You, there… in the hat… you’re going in” situations and we all laughed then we laughed again when someone said, “No shit! Literally!” to a comment and damn it, Norm got to the tank and was able to pump the thing!
Not the best view but I’m behind the half-removed wood pile, standing on the treads of the excavator.
And the next day Greg and the excavator guy got some pressure-treated posts under the ground and they beefed up the support for the biffy that’s in the little out-building there and my buyer is happy.
And we closed! We closed in Missoula on the 7th and I celebrated with a hair cut and color to hide the greys that accumulated this past week at an exponential rate and life is good.
In the car wash post closing, coloring & cutting… no “steadily depressing, low down, mind-messing” car was blues for this realtor!
I’m moving on right away to clients who are looking at listings all day with me tomorrow so they can relocate for the husband’s new job in Seeley Lake.
And I am chomping at the bit to get going on my fourth book.
And I had an all-day bling-thing yesterday at the local steakhouse with several other local small business owners.
And the cute little ice rink in town is actually coming together and people have already asked about skating lessons.
And there’s a few pets in town due for their vaccines.
And I did another Rouxbe cooking school lesson that led to me basting my first ever eggs this morning and I’m going to try a fabulous-looking new chicken and mushroom dish tonight!
And we adopted a new cat who adopted Alistair in Bismarck (Higgins!) and there could be even more Fyfe critters because, come on, who actually believed it was all going to end with Attrition?
Ahhhhhh
And because of the potential for insanity in the weeks ahead I’ve gone ahead and already booked our next trip back to Dirty Disney in a few months although this time it is for a conference.
Neither of us cares.
We’re going to need it!
Good times!
Hiking around the Hilton
Where do you want to look at the ocean and dormant volcanoes and play golf today, Honey?
Mummy and our new, adorable, friendly, loving, purr-ball stray, Higgins!!!!
tanyafyfe 