Selected Favorites

Government Website

“That government website is ridiculous! I kept filling out the online application, and the website kicked me back to the beginning,” said John McFairlane.” I called to talk to a “qualified representative”, sat on hold forever, and then got the run-around!”

That was one year ago, and the website McFairlane was referring to is the “Keep Your Home California” website.

The “Keep Your Home California” program began when the state received billions of dollars in Federal bailout money to help struggling homeowners and prevent foreclosures. To qualify for assistance, people must have suffered a hardship such as job loss; cut in pay; divorce; or heavy medical bills. The assistance is in the form of money for people on unemployment; principal reduction on home loans; money for catch-up on late payments; and money for relocation expenses.

The program was a disappointment initially. The website performed poorly, and far fewer people were approved for help than originally estimated.

 McFairlane was injured on the job, couldn’t work, and lost his income. He received disability payments, but it wasn’t enough money to keep up his home loan payments.

“Then came the paperwork,” said McFairlane. I spent hours and hours on it. And I was denied!”

But there has been a change over the last year with Keep Your Home California. Rules for qualification have been relaxed, and the website is streamlined. People are being approved for assistance at a faster pace.

“On the advice of a buddy of mine, I took another shot at it a month ago.” said McFairlane. “The difference was like night and day. My online application went smoothly, and when I called, I spoke with a real human- a nice one!”

McFairlane’s loan amount was reduced, and his payment was cut in half. “I just can’t believe it,” he said. “I get to keep my house. It’s a miracle, a dream come true.”

McFairlane thanks his friend for urging him to try again, and he passes on the sentiment.

“Don’t give up. There is help for people who need it,” he says.

“You just gotta keep an eye on those government websites.”

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Play Ball

Business over pleasure is understandable, but business over baseball is unacceptable when the San Francisco Giants make the playoffs. A season when the Giants make the playoffs is as rare as hen’s teeth, to quote a saying by my Old Grand-Dad. If you were to recite all the sayings by my Old Grand-Dad it would take a month of Sundays. The list would be as long as your arm and I’m not pulling your leg.

The Giants were as hot as blue blazes and won their division for the first time in 16 years, so I was as happy as a dog with two tails. But like all long-suffering Giants fans, I was also as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.  

Right now I was as mad as a wet hen as I drove toward the country property to be sold by Jack and Ethel Birdson. I had been as dumb as a box of rocks for booking my appointment the same time as the opening playoff game between the Giants and the Cubs. I could at least, I thought, catch the first couple of innings on the car radio. But alas, as I left the valley behind, the radio reception faded until it was just as clear as mud.

The road was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg as I approached the mountain dale that was the Birdson homestead. It was as pretty as a picture and I would dearly love to list the place. But on my previous visit Jack had been as cool as a cucumber toward me, so I felt my chances were as slim as a broomstick. I wondered: How can I butter him up and make our relationship as warm as toast?

“Jack, you come down here, right now,” Ethel yelled. “Mr. Love is here!” She turned to me. “Jack’s as crazy as a loon about those Giants. He’s up in that big pine trying to get radio reception.”

Quick as a flash I was up that pine tree. “What inning?” I asked.

An hour later Ethel brought out a couple more beers for us.

“You guys are like two peas in a pod,” she said.

Yes we were, and we stayed that way as sure as the day is long.

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The Judge

The judge stared at me and said, “Are you saying you had no knowledge of the circumstances leading to the unfortunate and undeniably disgusting events which occurred in the home of your client Judy Jacklin, on the night in question?”

“Yes, your honor,” I said.

The night in question was the night Judy moved into her new home. It had been a happy day; escrow closed that morning, and we met that afternoon for the handing over of the keys.

“Oh happy day!” said Judy. “I was beginning to wonder if this was all worth it, what with all the delays and everything.”

It had been a long escrow, over three months. The seller had I.R.S. liens and title hang-ups to clear before closing.

“Sorry I got a little vocal at times,” said Judy. My ears still rang from her vocals.

“I love this place,” she said now. “It was all worth it.” We stood on the porch and admired the tree-lined street, the 1950’s neighborhood of houses with raised foundations and hardwood floors. I helped move a few boxes into the house and we toasted each other with a glass of cheer.

Four hours later Judy called me. Her vocals were deafening: “You better come here……..right now…… I hate this house!”

Disgusting wasn’t the word for the scene. Catastrophic comes to mind. It was the worst plumbing back-up I’ve ever seen, more like an explosion. Boxes, furniture, and Judy stood in ankle-deep sewage sludge. Judy wore a face-mask. I wanted one.

The Sewer-Rooter guy leaned in the doorway and called out, “Sewer-line from the house to the street is collapsed. I told that lady she had a problem the last time I was here.”

Judy vocalized: “The LAST time you were here?”

The Rooter guy said he cleared a sewer-line blockage there a month ago.

The judge made his ruling: “California Disclosure Laws require all sellers of real property to disclose ‘material facts that may affect the value or desirability’ of a property. Therefore, the court finds the seller responsible for the cost of a new sewer-line.”

He turned to me. “Any lessons learned here today?”

I dropped my head. “Yes,” I said. Get a sewer-line inspection for the sale of every house.”

“Yes!” shouted Judy Jacklin.

My ears are still ringing.

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Disclosure

“Now set yourself down right here, honey, and I’ll get you some juice and cookies,” said this bent little lady. The floorboards creaked as she shuffled away. I admired the room I occupied, the dining room. Its woodwork, plaster walls and high-domed plaster ceiling embodied old-world craftsmanship. I wondered when the house was built. Turn of the century, maybe.

“Nineteen and fifteen,” said the lady. I jumped an inch off my chair; I hadn’t seen her return.

“My daddy built this house in nineteen and fifteen,” she said. She told me her father milled the lumber from rough to finish and built the windows and doors himself.

“Now let’s get down to business,” she said.

I spread out my market analysis paperwork. The lady sat across the table from me and stared directly at my face, unblinking. Upon my conclusion: silence. I looked around the room and flinched at the sight of a cat eyeballing me, unblinking, from a chair in the corner. My knee twitched.

“I’ll ask Mama,” she announced, and shuffled away down the hall.

Mama must be up there in years; this lady had to be in her eighth or ninth decade.

“Mama says you’ll do,” she said. “We’re ready to get to selling.”

I asked if her Mother needed to sign the listing documents. 

“Hee hee hee,” she wheezed, “Mama’s been dead 20 years and more.” She stopped smiling and whispered, “But Mama visits.”

Next morning I called the California Association of Realtors Legal Hotline. “Do I need to disclose a ghost?” I asked.

“Hearsay and anecdotal comments regarding the existence of the paranormal are not within the legal guidelines of disclosure obligations,” said the attorney. “However, if your client believes apparitions of the supernatural exist upon the premises, it may be prudent for you to disclose that belief, in the event a buyer has a pre-conditioned abhorrence to such phantasm.”

I visited the little lady. “Listen, I said, “I think we need to disclose your mother’s visits.”

She laughed and wheezed. “Don’t worry, honey,” she said, “Mama’s coming with me, and we ain’t a-coming back.”

“Oh, uh, okay,” I said. “By the way, the cat is going with you, too, right?”

“Cat? Honey, I haven’t had a cat for 20 years and more.”

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Aunt Ruthie

Aunt Ruthie giveth and Aunt Ruthie taketh away. Either way, we need to be prepared for The Aunt Ruthie Factor. I became aware of The Aunt Ruthie Factor one rainy afternoon at a 1920’s California Craftsman style house, which was soon to be the new home of my clients Randy and Julie Hallman. Randy and Julie loved the house and knick-named it “Our Heart’s Desire”. We were now in the inspection phase of their purchase, and they brought Randy’s Aunt Ruthie by for a look.  Aunt Ruthie, from my perspective, was a four-foot tall umbrella with feet, which skittered like a sand crab from the street to the house. When she crawled out from under her umbrella and revealed the entirety of her person, I stepped backward involuntarily; she bore the facial features of the stereotypical witch, warts-and-all.

“We love the hardwood floors, Aunt Ruthie,” said Julie, “and isn’t the kitchen cute?”

Aunt Ruthie stumped around the place wagging her head, muttering “No; no; no.” We cancelled escrow that day.

My mentor, the wise old KDV, commiserated with me later. “Ah, yes, my son,” he said, “you’ve been done in by the family deal-killer syndrome. That, my friend, is a force for which we in the sales world have no defense. Matters of blood relations are stronger than the surging tides, babe.”

Two months later, it was time again to implement the Aunt Ruthie Factor. Randy and Julie fell in love with another home, a neglected two-story Queen Ann Victorian. We were silent as Aunt Ruthie inspected. Julie clasped her hands under her chin. Aunt Ruthie stood in the center of the empty living room, and a shadow appeared from the carpet, rising up her legs. I noticed the same shadow crawling up my own legs; and Randy’s; and Julie’s.

“FLEAS!”

A passerby on the street might have perceived us as an odd Irish step-dancing quartet, except without timing or syncopation, as we high-stepped out the front door and pranced about the front yard.

“Should I draft the cancellation-of-sale papers?” I asked.

Aunt Ruthie wagged her head. “No; no; no,” she said.

Julie said, “So that means yes? Yes! Oh yes!”

The Aunt Ruthie Factor works in strange ways.

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Downhill

“Think like a roofer!” said John James Miskella. John James took it personally when people mistreated their roofs. “See all those leaves sitting on that roof?” he said. “Leaves are acidic, dang it all, acidic! The acid eats through the mineral coating, destroying the shingles. I can’t believe people let layer after layer of leaves pile up and destroy their roof!”

I thought smugly of myself sweeping the leaves off my roof with my push-broom, a commercial variety, with a wide brush made of stiff bristle. I could move a lot of leaves with that broom. Even the deepest layer of leaves, the ones glued to the roofing, came off under the force of that commercial push-broom.

“Worse than the leaves are these idiots with their commercial push-brooms,” said John James. “They brush so hard; they rip the mineral coating clean off the surface and ruin their own roof! Idiots!”

I shook my head as if to say: How could there be such idiots?

Actually, I had recently obtained a commercial-variety leaf-blower which made the job even easier. The leaf-blower made it possible to blow leaves in all directions, not just downhill as with the push-broom.

“Actually,” said John James, “worse than the idiots with their push-brooms, are the maniacs with their commercial-variety leaf-blowers.”

“Oh?” I said innocently, “How could a leaf-blower hurt the roof?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Look,” he said, “these maniacs with their leaf-blowers push the leaves in all directions instead of the proper direction: Downhill!”

“So?”

“So?” he mocked. “So when they blow the leaves sideways and uphill, they force the leaves and grit under the shingles where it rots and destroys the most vulnerable part of the roofing. Can’t they see the shingles flapping under the force of the air from that machine?”

In my mind, I saw a picture of myself on the roof with my leaf-blower; leaves rocketing in all directions as I grinned maniacally, feeling the power of administering hurricane-force winds. Through the storm of leaves and grit I saw the shingles flapping like wings.

“So, what do we tell these idiots?” I asked.

“Trim the branches; hose the leaves gently; or blow them gently: Downhill!” said John James. He tapped the side of his head. “Think like a roofer!”

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