Gould's Inlet, St. Simon's Island Georgia

 

Gould's Inlet, St. Simon's Island Georgia

A beautiful spot where Floss and I used to happy hour when we visited St. Simon's Island, her hometown. 

On the surreal experiences of real estate

Well I probably should have know better. Faced with the prospect of attending cattle calls at open houses looking for an abode promoted me to seek some helpful referrals from my peeps here in SanDee. I sent out what was intended to be a qualified request to get some leads, to wit:

Hi have any of you worked with or know of a real estate agent that you like? I’m exploring housing options and I’d like to work with someone who's not too slick and calculating but has some degree of patience and empathy. I realize those traits are in small order in an industry that thrives on manipulation and competitiveness, but I am hopeful that that such a person may have accidentally found a niche in the jungle. At any rate, it never hurts to ask…

Hopefully,

Eric

Expecting at best a sparse response, I got instead a torrent of emails, texts, and VM's from the cybersphere, some copying both me and their recommended (and even beloved) real estate guru, who of course now have me in their "How can I help you" sights. I've become a "prospect". Precisely the outcome I was hoping to avoid. Now I feel saddled with an obligation to acknowledge all these efforts and perhaps return a call or two, just to avoid coming across as a lout. 

There is perhaps no industry this side of arms-dealing that typifies better in my mind the epicenter of rapacious, ethics-free materialism, gross ecological indifference and byzantine legalistic obfuscation than real estate. It is so irredeemably infused with an ethos of gratuitous hype, unctuous pandering and  mind-numbing data dumps that I can scarcely stand hearing the term. Every time I hear people talking real estate there is a blizzard of statistical and financial terms being tossed on the table like chips in a game of poker. And I can't be the only one thinking that when we reduce the sacred landscape to parcels of real estate we deepen out alienation. 

And yet, here it is. This is what one must do in 21st century America if one wishes to have something other than a park bench to rest your soul at the end of the day. Oy vey. 

Maybe, just maybe, there's a better way?