A friend of mine became very successful in real estate in the last crazy cycle. He concentrated on relatively few clients, but he was buying and selling for them again and again and again.
I knew one of his clients, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, who trusted my friend Alex with everything related to real estate and beyond. Not nice, greedy beyond imagination, with poor English, but with money heck knows from where.
Then the market crashed, the wonderful business of making money out of the thin air got to a halt, my friend, who was working for years crazy hours thinking of retiring before 40, started losing his shirt (or better say shirts one by one)… He was exhausted, burned out…
His company closed the doors after his big name broker/owner ran to Costa Rica, probably, to avoid extradition. The real estate empires around were crashing, bankruptcies and short sales… you know how it was.
Alex put the license with our small company, but it was not easy to get back in the groove after falling from the Olympus, and he started looking for greener pastures. With his impressive resume, he found something in Miami, and left Daytona.
He kept in touch with his clients. We visited him when we were in Miami, and then one day he called and told us he was coming to Daytona. He came to our place and turned out he came because his client was not responding to his calls, and he decided to come and check on him.
4 hours driving one way to check on his former client, who did not answer the phone?
Seems like he sensed that something was wrong. His client started fainting, had a problem with orientation, speech got affected… the doctors found brain tumor, put him on medication and gave him up to 2 years to live.
Alex contacted his son, and his wife, who was out of the country. His son came, but did not want to stay, and went for a cruise, and let Alex handle the affairs of his dad. Alex called me and asked to list his properties. His client still wanted him to oversee his real estate. He told his son that he trusted Alex with his real estate and asked him to honor his wish and if he dies, to work with Alex on disposing of all his investments.
Alex was spending time in Miami, where he had work and family, and coming to Daytona to make sure everything was OK. His client did not live 2 years. He died 2 weeks later. His wife did not come. His sons were not at his dad’s bedside…
His son called Alex and asked for the list of all the properties his dad had, and all the details.
And shortly after that he took every property and listed them with some rookie agent. For unbelievably low prices. He was dumping the properties… he would reduce the price for an oceanfront lot by $200K, or price a $280K condo for $60-$80K less. Well, he did not put his money into the properties, there was no his sweat, his blood, his time, his effort…
Alex took it in stride… He, probably, was expecting this.
No, his client was not a nice man. Seems like his son grew up no different…
We reap what we sow.
The nice man in this whole story was Alex
Image by Pedro Salinas via Flickr.com
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