The other day I was at small store out in the nether regions of the county snagging a cup of their lousy coffee.?ÿ A younger gent asked me if I was "that surveyor guy".?ÿ I had to admit I was at least one of them.?ÿ I didn't know him from Adam until he joggled my memory.?ÿ I had met him in 2012 on a RW project.?ÿ At the time he was a college student living on what I would probably still consider the prettiest place in the county.
The property was on 160 acres with about 80 of those acres occupied by a large beautiful pond.?ÿ At that time I noticed the native stone house on the property looked more stately than just a "farmhouse".?ÿ An old concrete skeet shooting array close by made me wonder if it had been some sort of 'country club' in times past.?ÿ I was right. The story goes that its hay day was in the '20s and '30s and then declined in the late '50s.?ÿ
This young man had fallen into ownership of the property in an odd way.?ÿ Seems his mother had married an older man that owned the place when this guy was very young.?ÿ The step-dad passed not long after and left the place to his now wife.?ÿ Sometime around 2012 when I met this fella his mother had passed and left it to him.?ÿ He had never seen the place until after his mother's probate.
At that time the place was largely uninhabitable except for an apartment over a garage.?ÿ I'd call it a carriage house. That was where this kid was living when I met him in 2012. He was close to graduating and wanted to relocate.?ÿ He had no love for the place and was only living there because it was free rent.?ÿ He told me he had been offered $500K for the place and was seriously considering selling.?ÿ
I apparently had told him it might be worth a million if someone had offered half of that.?ÿ I remembered him thinking of selling but I didn't remember anything else about our conversation.?ÿ According to him I told him he might think differently if he was older or had children.?ÿ I must have told him to hang on to the place if he could.
Well he's older with a family now.?ÿ He kept the place.?ÿ He and his wife have remodeled the stone club house and now live there with their two children.?ÿ He also told me the offers for the place have skyrocketed over the years but he's hanging on to it.?ÿ He thanked me for my advice.
I'm glad he's taking care of the place.?ÿ I bet it looks great.?ÿ I haven't seen the place but I've got an open invite to visit.?ÿ Keeping that place out of the hands of the developers is a small victory I guess.?ÿ Happy to help.?ÿ ;)?ÿ
Makes one think of all the years behind you instead of how many before you. ?????ÿ
I'd say you, Mr. Cash, are the winner of this story.?ÿ A young man taking the unselfish life advise, resulting in that young man providing a higher quality of life for himself and his family, and being fondly remembered for it.?ÿ It appears as if he accepted you as a father figure.?ÿ Great story.
Great ideas are quite regularly contained in a small group of words being conveyed in a heartfelt manner by a relative stranger.
Great ideas are quite regularly contained in a small group of words being conveyed in a heartfelt manner by a relative stranger.
yeah.?ÿ?ÿ?ÿ?ÿ?ÿ?ÿ 'The light's green, @$$))*!e, Any day now.'
My father-in-law bought a five acre plot out in the desert to help my brother-in-law get his real estate career kicked off.
Twenty years or so later he got an offer from a lawyer to buy it for $2,000.?ÿ He called me and asked what I thought of the deal because he paid $5,000 for it. I told him to drive out there and buy a local paper to see if anything was going on in the area.?ÿ Turns out the property was at the lowest elevation in the area and perfectly suited for a sewer treatment plant.?ÿ The city offered him $20,000 with no fees or commissions.?ÿ The check was in the mail as soon as he said yes.
And that was one of my first lessons about dealing with lawyers.
