Good morning my dear friend :)
Boy oh boy these past weeks, hell, this past month or longer has been a total blur.. Between life commitments, home projects, multiple client projects, and the real estate world - goodness?!.. things have never felt busier. All of which has led to a moment of time with no down time for anything. Well, not until about 830 or 9 at night.
None of that is a complaint, we are truly grateful for the opportunities..however, I can feel that i'm pegged to the max. I can tell this is happening because the counting days lead me to being trapped in my head. Not being in a bad mood, just a serious, get after it, lost in my head kind of mood, compounded by environmental disarray, exacerbated by multiple commitments.
Have you watched or heard of the science of how people are borken down entirely, so they can be brought back up, rebooted and better? The military and especially the special forces do this to people as they bring them through their training.
Picture someone trying to sleep, but someone else is surprising them awake just as they fade off... or crazier yet, what total sleep deprivation does to someone.. .or what multiple days of fasting can do to mind and spirit.. bringing one to the point of complete exhaustion at a moment of a stressed induced, emotionally charged state of an out of body hallucination ??
For well over a month now, I have unintentionally done that and am still doing that to me for no other reason than that's just how shit worked out. As of recently I feel like I'm in a sprint, and hard solid sprint, then rather than jump over a hurdle in front of me, maintaining forward momentum, it's a sudden stop.. a grinding halt.. pause, then do it again.. all while now tripping over the hurdle I saw moments prior to the stop, now faltering, and regaining balance, strides, then BAM! stop again...
Doing this over
and over..
For years Chas and I have talked about redoing our living room, much like in our very first house, but wiser, and more intentional this time...
However, before we could start on our thing, we needed to take care of Tristan and his brilliant idea to have a fort in his bedroom... yeah..
a fort...
in.
his.
bedroom. ?!
When both projects are completely finished I'll be sure to share them with you. Chas and I have been taking lots of pictures throughout both these builds... but we're not done with them and at the moment, I lack the creative time to show them haha :)
In total Josh fashion, I planned on tackling these projects just kinda whenever. As my GP said all the time, "you have to get committed"... if you don't find a way to get committed, you'll just always wonder what if... so... I got, we got committed. We chose to do this at the time when things were casually busy, but manageable... Much like a new recruit, fresh off the bus, pumped and ready for anything.
Meanwhile, the undertow of work commitments was picking up as the real estate title wave was preparing to hit.
Do you remember moving in your house during the first couple days or weeks? Boxes everywhere, shit here, shit there, where did I put this? Lord this place is a disaster, tip toe over this, crap in the hallway, but I'm ok with it, no one should live like that, F'it, I'll get to this when I can, this is no place for a lamp to rest, or screw it - the broom can stay here for days... oh yeah, gotta go to work, serve people, keep paying bills, take care of life shit, home early, time to move this and take that to here... damnit, where did that tool go, shit the phone's ringing, wait - what?!.... where's the broom?!..
Not only has our house looked like that, buddy, my shop is just as bad! Things everywhere, furniture, tools, dust, debris, leftover material, just enough space for this, not enough for that, grind, grind, slightly finished.. now pack up all my tools to go serve people... put tools back, anywhere is fine, this spot will do, hope i didn't forget anything..
repeat.
repeat.
do you remember that?
All while that kind of mess is at home, you still need to go to work and put on a happy face, appear organized, together, and ready for action.. meanwhile, holy shit bro! if you saw my house right now you'd never hire me! hahah
That has been at home and life for over a month now.. It adds to the stressors and the exhaustion of moving forward... it's more so the psychological torment of rembulding. For me, comparatively speaking, this is like going without food for a long time, but still needing to truck on.
During the work week I would be at customers' houses grinding away on handyman work. Oddly enough it's the quiet kind of work. The detailed, "let me leave you alone kind of work"... So I'm left to my thoughts along with random calls and scheduling of other things.
As the gracious universe would happen to have it, we were asked by a handful of wonderful people to help sell their homes and also help others buy homes as well. Leading up to Covid, things were happening, then when Covid showed its asshole face, it knocked everything and everyone over on its end. Fast forward to today, somewhat a state of normalcy with this asshole, things started getting more traction in the market. So much so, that no houses are lasting... like nothing.
Amongst helping our buyers close on their homes, throughout the course of these home projects, we have also had 3 listings hit the market... When we list a home, we strategically list on a late Thursday or Friday morning ish time. This allows for people to show all weekend while commanding the ability to hold off on accepting offers until late Sunday... our belief is that just because you started the race first, does NOT mean you default get first place.. we believe that everyone can cross the finish line at the same time.. therefore capitalizing on the best possible outcome for our sellers..
Having done just that, Thursday - Sunday, for 3 weeks in a row now has been insane. All of which had multiple offers and endless showings... between all three listings, in three ironic weeks as well, all totaled near 120 showings, (that's the phone pinging all weekend with entering and exiting), between all of them, there were north of 35 offers.. each having an email or 7 each, a phonecall about the hows and whats.. AND.. about 12-15 heartfelt written letters from families who want to call this place home.
This is where it feels like I'm almost asleep, now finally asleep and then bam! someone startles me back awake.. repeat. repeat.
This dance is going on while we're trying to tackle things at home, meanwhile have you seen the mess?!.. hahha... this is where I feel like I'm in a dead sprint then BAM. grinding halt... cool, that's taken care of... RUN! .... STOP!!... RU! STOPPP!.. oh buddy! a total test of patience.. and I'm wildly ADHDDD. I would get up at 5-530 in the morning, jacked and ready to get after it cause this mess is out of control... then i'd look up and it'd now be 11-1230 and I'm like.. shit?!.. I've not done a single F'ing thing... but I have to remind myself that, that's all the "unmeasurable things''.. the things that have to get done, the things that if not done, shit wont work... meanwhile I'm plagued by the visual mess of this place and I can actually SEE things not getting done... talk about self inflicted psychological torment.
None of this is a complaint. As silly as it sounds, I can actually appreciate the balance, the challenge of a what to do list and half to do list while maintaining a smile on my face, but have glimpses of sheer panic cause shit's not getting done..
Although demanding through the weekend, which made for a crazy long, never leaving your office long Monday... Listing this way ended up being very helpful for our sellers. I'm happy to say though that these efforts of listing on Thursday/Friday helped earn our families over $35,000 EXTRA between all three... that's hella cool for them :)
Grinding this hard through what's here at home, balancing the schedules of jobs, clients, and appointments is wearing. Now at the point of exhaustion, the fatigue works on the emotion of the heart... especially after reading the heartfelt letters. Seeing this side of home ownership tears at the heartstrings... we also serve buyers... our letters, thankfully have led to multiple accepted contracts from other sellers... letters work... and we're happy for our clients that it does!.. but boy, reading other people's letters just magnifies the emotion.. being in the conscious state of "so called" power of decision making is exhausting.
On one listing of ours we had 22, TWENTY TWO offers... 9 letters.. holy crap?! .. to sit back and know that there's a 4.5% chance of an offer being accepted and we, I, have to reach out and lay the final blow of "im sorry".... all knowing that 22 families below our feet are asking for help, but we can only reach out to one and welcome them home?!... man... heartbreaking.
So we spend the extra time to talk to them all as if individually spoken to. Letting them know where we're at, what's on our plate, how the decision was made, why it was made.. it's the single nicest thing we can think about when so, SO SO SO many other agents (primarily men) can be total power seeking asshole-dickheads that it makes the buyer feel even worse.
Being so worn out already, being scatterbrained already, simply telling people no almost brings one to tears. But it's the right kind of feelings to have when you're doing it correctly and with grace. Although torment on heart, I'm beyond grateful to be the one to do it.
I mention the quiet kind of work I've been doing.. the work that I'm lost in my head kind of work.. like being in solitary, but having a job and task you can do, at your own choosing though, to distract too, like a musician losing themselves in the violin solo, finding themselves emotionally wrought when done.. That's how I feel when I get home from my customers' houses.. or how I feel at night when everyone's asleep... looking at this mess and the almost done project..
I find myself half dead, gassed out on the couch, pegged to the max.. now with a crick in my neck, still need to shower.. so, I muster the energy and turn in for the night.
The alarm is just 5 hours away... I lay in thought...
I got this.
I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't share this with you... Given the status and tempo of the market, now is the single best time to make selling a home an easy and profitable process. If you or someone you know is considering selling their home, we are a safe place to ask questions without expectation. :) and would be grateful to help however we can. :) and lastly.. Thank you for letting me express myself. I really needed that - especially after missing last week. We're almost done with the projects and it will be all so worth it. I'm excited to share the cool shit we're building. Have a grateful weekend friend. Chas and I are here if you need anything. :)
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