Don’t you feel a sense of relief, a sense of satisfaction, a sense of retribution when someone has to eat their words and face humiliation?
"Vengeance is a dish best served cold", expressed in the book Dangerous Liaisons, certainly brings gratification to a victimized soldier.
About one year ago, shortly after we began realizing the real estate market was waning, after my "Open House" I stopped at a FSBO’s open a block away to introduce myself. This was an old dilapidated house in a plush neighborhood. Loose original jealousy windows were less than proudly allowing light through complemented with old individual A/C units in each room windows which, by the odor inside, have not been used in 20 years. The lawn sprinkler had been on strike for years and the stained pool was not the least inviting. A house like that is a tear-down but it would pollute the waste depository.
An early octogenarian woman in sloppy clothes, well erect, not too ravaged by time looking like Katherine Hepburn without the wobble and undoubtedly very educated greeted me pleasantly. I identified myself and told her that I represent one of her neighbors to sell their house and I, therefore, am offering my services. I hesitated to go inside the (I am at loss for adjectives now) house as my nose was already detecting a rancid odor combination of geriatric and mold that was permeating throughout. I thought maybe she killed Jimmy Hoffa and buried him in the house somewhere. She told me she is asking $795K yet she admitted that she was a bit high. We talked awhile and she led me to believe that I could have the listing. She asked me to prepare some comps and come back the next day. So I did.
I knock on the door. She answers while talking on her portable phone. She covers the mouth piece of the phone to tell me that this is not a good time but she asks me to leave my information with her. I oblige and leave.
My listing recommendation for her house was about $650K on the high end.
I followed up with phone calls during the next week only to hear excuses amiably delivered. Then, a few days later, my office manager called me to his office to read me the nasty letter that woman had sent my broker accusing me and my broker of being the most incompetent idiots in the county, we don’t know how to appraise, we should go out of business and so on. I always keep copies of my work so I showed it to my manager who saw no malice on my part and I got his blessing.
Well, guess what? Yesterday I drove by that house and I saw a SOLD rider on the yard sign. When I got to my office, I immediately looked it up on the MLS and it closed three days ago at a sold price of $515K.
Oooooo, I could immediately savor the sweet taste of that cold dish.
Then, I remembered a famous anecdote between George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill (Shaw was a famous British playwright and Churchill was Britain’s foremost Statesman and Prime Minister - both circa WW-II). Shaw wrote a note to Churchill: "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new Play, bring a friend...if you have one." To which Churchill replied: "Cannot attend first night, will attend second...if there is one."
Now I am pondering, what would I say to that woman if I ever see her again? I got it! "You were right all along - my estimation was way off. In fact, it should have been $135K less than what I quoted you." But I won’t say that. I’ll just walk to the other direction wearing a grin of victory still savoring the aftertaste of that cold dish.
John