I attended the University of North Carolina at Wilmington for most of the 90’s, attending classes for my BS in Chemistry while I worked a full time job. During those years, each year, starting in October,  ‘the flu’ would rage through both the university and the corporation where I worked, with people certain to fall out of step for a few days while recovering.  SOMETIMES that ‘flu’ led to bronchitis.  In my case, it did every time.  So, when flu season arrived, I was always livid because I knew I’d be down for about a week.  But wait for it…I did not die.  Neither did any of my colleagues at work nor fellow students at UNC-W.

Don’t get me wrong, I was PISSED.  I don’t like being sick and I HATE going to a doctor.  ANY doctor.  I am a well and strong person and I like it that way.  I have things to do that a red nose and scratchy cough interfere with.  It made me angry that people would attend wherever without even covering his/her mouth while coughing.  But the point is, that bug spread like CRAZY until it burned through everyone, and then we went on with life.  There were no fear crazed bug-eyes above masks that don’t work anyway, no cowering in closets fearing death.  No.  We got our brief cases, book bags, tools, whatever, and walked into the venue knowing we were going to be struck down at some point and BIG DEAL.   No whining, no spitting, no cowards.  If we got sick we went to bed, and then we got up when we felt better and went back to work.  Oh, and shedding?  NOBODY talked about shedding and carrying.  You shed ALL the time, my friend.  ALL the time.  You should read about how much of yourself you leave behind you…all the time.  You will be amazed.  

I had Covid.  The ORIGINAL Covid and aside from the length of the chronic fatigue, it was no worse than some flu viruses I’ve had that DID seem to want to take me out.  I didn’t go to the doctor nor God forbid to the hospital.  I did not die. I’m one of the ‘long haulers’ in fact, slowly coming back to where I was before.  I get winded a bit more easily but getting better by degrees.  Here’s a surprise for you:  no intubation, no crying, no wailing and gnashing of teeth.  I don’t put chemicals into my body that are often guaranteed to take me out.  God, how hard is THAT to figure out?  

Let me just pull into the turn-out for a second:  I had a kidney stone.  I RAN to the doctor and took LOTS of pills until the stone passed.  I took pain meds AND antibiotics.  So I do have my limits, just so you know.  It takes surgery or a kidney stone to get synthetic chemicals into my body.  I’ll eat an ELEPHANT if I get a kidney stone.  Now back to the rant. Hahaha.

YES I KNOW there are at-risk people.  I get that.  What I will NEVER understand is how this nation of strength became populated with cowards who are incredibly easily manipulated.  Never would I have believed we would become a nation so afraid of our shadows that our doctor appointments are our SOCIAL calendar, and we’re so afraid that we think we’re not supposed to feel pain when have a bruise.  I’m glad my father, a war veteran, is not alive to see this cesspool this county has become.

Remember I said I was pursuing a chemistry degree? Well that means I’m data driven.  That means I know that this latest strain of covid is like a really bad cold…it’s like bronchitis.  Okay.  Still not bug eyed running for the closet to hide.  And hello, the ‘flu’ goes around every year.  Remember H1N1?  It killed a friend of mine.  BTW no fear mongering about THAT, just sensible warnings.  Nobody isolated. No masks.  What about the time Ebola came home to the US?  No masks, no shut downs.  Doesn’t that make you wonder at ALL?  No masks with EBOLA?  EBOLA DISSOLVES your internal ORGANS.  No masks.  Even the evil ones making viral WEAPONS won’t mess with EBOLA, and yet nobody panicked and told us to go get poked.

When was the last time you had a polio ‘booster’? 

I realize that the covid virus was most likely either BEING weaponized or WAS weaponized, but by God it put Ebola right out of business, AND all of the OTHER flu viruses.  Oh we’re free!  A silver lining.  Let me get back on track:  Yes, this original covid flu can be deadly, but so were the other types of flu for the ‘at-risk’ population.  And yes, the at-risk ones have to take precautions.  My sister is one of the at-risk.  She washes her hands, sanitizes, keeps her distance…and let me tell you, this women NEVER cowers.  Rather, she uses her brain.  Yea, I said brain.  No she doesn’t wear a mask UNLESS she’s in a crowd of crazy-eyes, but she’s intelligent so she keeps her HANDS off of her face, which is the ONLY good a mask does anyone anyway.

And I’m wondering.  If covid is an inflammatory illness and you put a tube down your throat, which causes irritation, isn’t that dangerous? That’s a legit question.  I don’t have any numbers on how  many intubated patients died, but I wonder if the intubation exacerbated the issue.  And how much anti-inflammatory was used in that process… 

Listen, I did Scanning Electron Microscopy for a living.  I KNOW how big the weave is in these ridiculous masks.  The virus can dance right through with a thousand friends.  They keep us from touching our nose and mouth, but what about our EYES?  OMG the eyes are a BIG entry point for a virus!  Better get goggles RIGHT NOW. If you are wearing a mask without goggles, you’re so vulnerable!  And because most people, I have discovered, are too stupid to cover their mouth when they cough, at least THEIR mask catches THEIR germs (some of them).  I, on the other hand, was taught to cover my mouth and anyway, I could SEE what comes flying out of the mouth of others when they DID NOT cover their mouth.  How stupid do you have to BE not to learn that lesson?  Look around you; the answer surrounds you.

I go down the rabbit trail far to easily

This virus has been politicized and offers up the pharma companies as a get-filthy-rich-while-I-am-in-office scheme.  Yes the flu numbers are huge.  But guess WHAT?  They were always huge during ‘flu season’.  The difference was we were not TRAINED to be scared little rats.  

And…anybody want to guess how many of the ‘covid’ cases are not really covid? Think about it: I dare you.  I just saw a post on social media where the woman said she had fever, nausea a cough…but tested negative for covid.  She wanted to know if anybody knew what it could be.  I slammed my laptop closed before the stupid could jump on me.  

I cite Florida.  That’s where the idiot coward politicians are running TO for vacation, so they can stop acting out their ‘play’ that’s designed to keep you frightened.  Grow a backbone and a brain.  You are NOT at the level of risk you’re being told you are.  At risk, not talking to you right now.  Florida has some of the BEST ‘numbers’ and they’re going on with normal life. Normal life, people.  They refuse to be manipulated.  Yay Florida!

80 percent of adults are now ‘poked’ (if you can believe the numbers) (you can’t), so now the target is children.  Oh God, will our pets be next?  Will they become the next invisible carriers of covid??  How WILL pharma keep making money off of this farce?  Oh wait, BOOSTERS.  And of course, other types of viruses that will force you to vaccinate and boost. Bring out your wallet!

What happens when another virus ‘escapes’ from a lab?  Will you then have to get your entire body filled with a synthetic chemical to be ‘safe’, virus after virus?  I mean look what happens when you get the first chemicals injected.  Oh wait, there’s no data on that.  

Do you remember thalidomide?  Yeah, a miracle drug that caused newborn babies of mothers who took it, to be born without ARMS.  But pregnant women LINED UP to take it. And it was their babies who paid the price for an untested drug. No, it didn’t hurt the ones who got poked; but some of their BABIES were born without arms.  Would you take that risk now?  Clearly, yes you would.

The original covid killed a lot of people.  Yes, we needed to be very cautious about that one, but that one is gone, and as all viruses do, the original has morphed.  It is now very contagious, but also much less harmful.  Everyone I know who has had it had symptoms of a “very bad cold”.  Kind of like, oh I don’t know, bronchitis maybe?  I get it.  We have to be careful, but for me, I’m not interested in creating a pharmaceutical government.  Wait.  Too late.  

Bottom line is this: 80-20 rule.  Eighty percent (approx) will follow along in lockstep while the other 20 percent will be divided between the ‘hell no’s’ and the ‘I don’t knows’.  Check my work.  Difference is the little ‘soldiers’ will scream and spit and act like they know what’s going on when they really don’t, trying to force the 20’s into going along.  That’s a great tool for pharma, by the way.  In other words, the 80’s don’t follow the data and I mean ALL of it, not just what shows up on one channel.  And fear is a GREAT tool for manipulators.

I believe what we have is a group of scaredy cats who grew up and are now in charge.  They’re called politicians.  They live in fear and can now impose that fright onto the world.  They were spoiled kids who never worked on a farm, I’ll wager, and were taught that they were SO smart, smarter than EVERYBODY else, that everything they said was GENIUS…and now they’re in charge.  Parenting is important, can I just say?  Let your kids make mud pies; it’ll make them better adults.  As for the lock step ‘soldiers’…how about this?  How about you look in the mirror at that big area behind your eyes.  That’s a brain.  Yes!  Isn’t it great?  And get this:  You get to USE IT!

My parents used to give us “something to cry about”.  Hahaha  Remember that?  Turns out it makes brave adults who never scream and spit at an 80 year old man on a plane.  And go to jail, by the way. Made MY day, I’ll tell you.  Funniest thing of all: That idiot screaming at the old guy didn’t have her mask over HER face.  You can’t make this shit up.  Somebody show that person where her brain is, will ya?  ANOTHER funny thing?  They were on a PLANE! Where they recirculate the air! HAHAHA.  I’m dying over here.  Planes are safe because if they were NOT safe, millions of dollars would be lost.  OOOPS, I said dollars, didn’t I?

Every time something scares you, you should ask who benefits from the ‘cure’.  If it is a politician, don’t do it.  And it will be a politician.  

How about this: We wear our masks THROUGH the restaurant UNTIL we get to our table.  Then we take it off and breathe into the SAME air we just walked through that is being recirculated throughout the room…and we’re SAFE!  HAHAHA.  Because we’re sitting DOWN.  HAHAHA.  We were always safe people.  

And here’s a question for you: How do the politicians know that people who are vaccinated are less likely to get the virus?  I mean, what if they were never even exposed to it?  You can’t prove a negative.  Oh and wait.  A thought is coming….oh yeah!  Vaccinated people ARE getting the virus.  That’s RIGHT!  But their symptoms are less severe, you say?  Well yeah, it’s a different strain.  The one you are NOT vaccinated for.  hahaha.  And the numbers are going up so high the politicians are dancing with glee, I mean, feeling concerned. hahaha.  But how is this possible? We are VACCINATED!

And how do they know the symptoms will be less severe if they DO get sick?  How do they know that the new strain is not just less severe to BEGIN WITH?  They can NOT prove this shit, people.  They are SELLING so called vaccines and boosters.  And they are testing how much manipulation the population will swallow.  I say 80 percent-ish.  Some of the 80’s have found their brains.  So it might be 70-30 soon.

Fauci is now the highest paid government official.  HAHAHA.  And he has changed his story too many times to COUNT.  And CITIZENS ‘must’ be vaccinated but NOT people illegally entering the country because, well “that’s different”.  HAHAHA.  And he’s the highest paid governmental official.  You can’t make this shit up.  By the way, it is the UN-vaccinated who will show the world the true nature of the virus strain.  Think about that.

There will ALWAYS be viruses.  There always have been and always will be.  Better just make sure the mad scientists…yes, scientists…aren’t weaponizing them.  They are, by the way.  And…viruses can get into bunkers, in case you were wondering.  Hahaha.  I mean, you have to laugh at some of the ridiculousness.   

Listen, if we have another killer, meaning we see the dead bodies stacked up where the virus begins, then I will lock down, for sure. But these money making schemes and the cowards who fall down in tantrums just plain piss me off.  Bet you could tell that.  I’m a pretty smart cookie.  I can tell when there’s a turd in the punch bowl I’m being offered.

This whole blog entry is wasted.  The smart ones already know it and the cowards will wail and gnash teeth.

Good morning, my real estate friends!  I hope you are enjoying a wonderful Christmas season!  Listen, I saw another movie about a real estate agent…and things happened.  You know what that does to me.  It gets me going.  I know you guys laugh.  I hope you do.  But I GOTTA say this.  Why?  Because I worked throughout my holiday and I’m a bit tired. hahaha.  The life of a real estate agent.  Ready?  Let’s go.

First thing is this:  Remember that we are people too, and we have feelings and families and illnesses and joyful times and stress…just like everyone else.  Second:  Nobody else gets berated to the extent that we do.  Nobody ever resents your salary, or constantly says you don’t work, don’t deserve to be paid for your work.  No, it’s just us.  I blame a lot of that on how we are portrayed in the media, and that some people think we’re too dumb to do anything else.  If you think that, you’re wrong.  In fact (squirrel) when I worked part time in retail, where there’s a lot of bad treatment, ALL of my associates were college educated.  Not stupid!  Most of my real estate colleagues are educated as well.  Most of us have college degrees or multiple degrees, and most of us also have enough education in real estate to add up to another degree in terms of course hours we take.  Best of all, we know how to get you money, get your dream home, get you the best deal, get you in that house you want to see, keep you from making a mistake that will get you in trouble. 

And please don’t attach a dollar sign to everything we do.  “I know you won’t make much money on this” is one thing that offends me when I hear it.  I do not chase the almighty dollar; money is not my God. Some of the wealthiest people I know are di….I can’t say that word here.  Don’t say things like that, please.  Some of us are just as honored to help you buy a little tiny cottage as a huge million dollar home.  In fact, the ones buying the little cottage are often more appreciative of our help.

A couple of things got me thinking about this subject.  First, I saw a movie where the protagonist depicted real estate agents as ‘pretending to work’.  That shows an ignorance of the whole process, which is insidious in the industry.  We try very hard to both tell you about the process and show you through documents, so that you have the info you need.  We give you docs, we text you, we call you, we send emails, and we actually talk to you.  Nobody listens, nobody reads.  I’ve studied statistics and I can tell you that even the two folks who listen don’t make that stat change from ‘nobody’, statistically speaking.  So we get put down because others don’t understand.  Where else does that happen?  That’s rhetorical.  There are times when I ask my clients, “Can you tell me what you heard me say?”  That’s so I know that THEY know what I said. And speaking of ignorance of the process, once upon a time a client fired an agent because she put an ‘appraisal waiver’ in the doc package.  That waiver told the potential buyer, that yeah, you’re gonna pay above appraised value so be ready to bring that extra to closing.  It was there to protect that client, but he went nuts…because he didn’t listen, did not understand that document was there to get him more money, and listened to a work buddy who clearly was a genius. Probably cost him tens of thousands of dollars in this market.  

The second thing that got me to thinking was about me trying to help someone find a home, a person who would not do his up front ‘homework’ he needed to do.  I got a text from this guy at 10:30 Christmas Eve night, and in the morning on Christmas Day, with home addresses for places he wanted to go see.  He asked, “So I guess this means we have to wait until after Christmas?”  That was when the attorney closed their office for the holiday.  Christmas is the biggest holiday in our country, and even those who don’t believe in the reason for it, respect the ones who do believe in the reason. Usually.  When I got a text at 2:15 am on the day AFTER Christmas, I thought a family member died or was injured. The sound of the phone jolted me awake.  I was afraid to pick up the phone.  A death: That’s the only reason for a text at that time of day, period.  But no, this was a client with no respect for my need to rest, nor for my desire to enjoy my family and friends during my holiday.  Folks, that’s inappropriate.

I have very good radar for people who are trying to play games or pull one over on the system. I’ve had my license for a LONG time, have a lot of real estate experience, and more importantly, I have PEOPLE experience.  So when I smell a rat, there’s always a rat.  Not unusual for me to step away from situations that make me go hmmmm.  Yeah, we agents get to do that too.  But really, if you call us you are calling for a professional advisor.  Professional.  If we tell you that you have to have ‘this’ or you have to do ‘that’, we’re not saying that for fun.  We’re saying that to get you in a winning position!  It is POINTLESS to show homes to someone who can’t even do a simple phone call or answer a critical email from an attorney, and if you are trying to buy and won’t do the simple things, you’re going to have a terrible time in this market.  I love ya, but I’m not a tour guide; I’m a professional real estate agent and realtor.  So are my colleagues.  So please remember that when we ask you if you’ve talked with a lender.  If you have NOT done that, then you can’t make an offer on ANY home so WHY are you asking to look?  And if you have not done that, well, you showed up without having done your simple homework.  In this market, repeat after me, you MUST have a pre-approval letter to send WITH the offer.  If you don’t HAVE IT, that house will be GONE by the time you do get one.  Repeat that?

By the way, the first time we talk, I will go over your up front homework and get ready to jump when you are prepared to go.  Most times I start sending you homes online to look over and I will discuss many other things you need to know before you start.  I don’t expect you to wake up knowing what to do.  

Let me say that all of my favorite colleagues and actually everyone in my office, are in the business because we have a heart for service.  We actually like helping people!  I know!  Isn’t it great?  We’re servants, and we work.  VERY hard.  Every day.  And let me tell you, there are some of the MOST creative problem solvers I’ve ever worked with in my office, including me thank you very much.  We do some really good work! For you.   By the way, we have engineers, scientists, business owners, property managers…lot of smart people to help you.  And we have deep benches.  Lots of connections that can also help you.  

Let me share some things with you.  First, buyers, you don’t pay for our services, except in very rare instances that you agree to up front.  SELLERS pay us.  SELLERS pay our AGENCY commissions and those of their listing AGENCY.

AGENCY.  The COMPANY.  That big old number you see goes to the companies, BOTH of them.  And then that’s split at LEAST FOUR WAYS.  It can be a lot more than four.  And then your agent gets a PERCENTAGE of the actual agent piece, not all of it.  So because people think we don’t deserve to be paid, let me just say that we only WISH we made that much money.

Out of our cut comes gas money, wear and tear on the car, hourly pay, if you like, for the time we spend arranging showings, talking you through the process, doing the required paperwork for you and for our company, time we spend getting your documentation in order, time arranging appointments with attorneys, inspectors, times to get you in houses, time we spend meeting service providers for you.  We have to make sure you don’t miss any of your ‘time is of the essence’ dates because it is a rare client who actually notes those dates, and they are normally associated with a lot of money.  We make sure you get the checks you need to hand over, and we hand them over for you.  Each step of the process has its own set of real estate obligations and your agent does those things on time, every time.  Most of what we do for you, you never acknowledge or appreciate.  That’s not sour grapes; it’s just the reality.  Honestly you often don’t even know what we did for you most times.  Just know, we’re working.  We do actually guide the process, and yes, we are often working on YOUR transaction late at night and early in the morning…while you are still sleeping.  And remember, if you’re the buyer, you don’t pay us.  If it takes a year for us to find the right home for you, we don’t get paid for a year.  But we ALWAYS tell you not to settle.  Take your time to find the home that will make you happy.  Because that MATTERS to us. It honestly does.

If you’re a seller, we help you know what it will take to get your sales price (if you will listen to us) and then most of us help you do what needs to be done.  I’ve bought mulch, flowers, I’ve staged homes, touched up paint, weeded flower beds, cut dead limbs off of trees….BECAUSE for me, this is the cost of doing business.  If you can’t do it and I can and it helps you, I step up. I want your MLS photos to be fantastic.  Why?  Because aliens in outer space can see them!  I want them to be AMAZED!  And I want them to drop in and buy your house!  Again…service.  By the way, if your agent puts up crappy pictures to advertise you home, you picked the wrong agent.  Just saying.

But again, seller, you hired an advisor who knows how to read the market, knows what houses like yours go for, what kind of pricing strategy to use…yes STRATEGY…to make you competitive.  Please don’t tell us to price your 500K house at a million.  You hired a professional; listen to us.  At the end of the day, we can price it high for you, but it’ll take months and sometimes multiple price drops to sell it.  And, if your agent doesn’t talk to you about strategy, wrong agent.

One last thing.  It is expensive for us to be real estate agents.  Out of that little cut we get, we give back a LOT of it to use the office space and supplies, for dues and fees and for classes.  There have been times when, at the end of the day, I made under 10 bucks an hour for my work, for those who keep track of that sort of thing.  And I still love those clients whom I had the HONOR of helping to find their very first home.  My heart!  No I did not make a lot of money, but the happiness I felt for THEM was priceless.  That’s why I do this.  To help others.

I came home one evening before Christmas.  It was late, after dark, and I was tired and hungry.  I saw something on my porch.  I picked it up and saw that it was a gift basket.  One of my clients had bought me a beautiful gardening basket full of gardening gifts.  There was a watering can, gloves, three different kinds of pruning shears, flower pots, flower bulbs, a mister and watering stakes…I was shocked and so very touched.  Not ONLY did they give me gift to thank me, but they actually knew that gardening is one of my complete life joys.  I couldn’t wrap my brain around that.  They actually listened to me and paid attention, and they said thank you.  That sort of kindness from clients is rare.  I cannot WAIT to plant the bulbs and I will think of that couple every single time I see the flowers in the Spring.

Care and feeding?  Just remember we are people too, we work to pay our bills, just like you do, so yeah, we do deserve to be paid.  And, like you, we don’t appreciate being put down, talked down to or even berated.  Ninety nine percent of the time, agents don’t deserve that.  Yep, there are some bad ones out there, and they’re the ones who get us all downgraded in peoples’ minds.  Most of us, the vast majority, actually want to serve you well.

I’m sick of propaganda.  By that I mean ‘news’.  

How does pushing for the complete annihilation of a race of people in ANY way equate to EQUALITY?  In my many IQ points, annihilation means DOMINATION, ERADICATION, violent elimination.  Stop telling me you are tired of all of the KILLING while you are KILLING people.

What we witness now is a perfect illustration of the eradication of LOGIC from society’s loudest mouths. And correct me if I’m wrong (I’m not), but logic comes from intellect and a mature brain.  Forgive me (don’t care) if you’re twenty years old, but your brain isn’t even fully developed and I’m not interested in having you design my future.  You can certainly contribute, but you don’t have the ingredients to build that logic all by yourself.  Sorry, not sorry: TRUE.  If you don’t believe me, keep reading and then THINK about what you read.  It’s called reading comprehension.

By the way, why would anyone want to completely destroy a foundation, when they’re just going to have to rebuild it?  We live in one of the greatest countries on earth.  If you don’t believe me, TRAVEL.  GO.  SEE SOME OF THE PLACES YOU THINK you want our country to be like.  I’m telling you, you will not like it.  You will sigh a huge sigh of relief when you board the plane to bring you HOME.  And I’m willing to bet that the majority of people who are whining the loudest have never been anywhere.

Stop trying to destroy the very thing that gives you the rights you have.  Take a LOOK at the super rich telling you that the super rich are BAD.  Watch the ones so old they can’t walk a straight line, trying to relate to you.  Am I in a nightmare here?  Does an old, super wealthy group of white people telling you how to live your life have ANY idea how it feels to worry about making ends meet?  Let me help you: NO, THEY DON’T GIVE A DAMN about you as long as you hand over your money to THEM.  You guys had better wise up about this shit.  These old coots have never worked a day in their lives!  What they do is get YOU to do the work and give THEM the money. HELLO??

Oh they’re going to give you a check?  Oh so they get to decide your worth, right?  Can you be bought so cheaply??

Am I the only one who wonders how much STOCK these people own in the companies whose products they force you to buy?  Is there any common sense and logic out there, to make anyone question the ulterior motives??  Oh you think one of the tech giants would make a good dictator?  There’s no such thing as a GOOD dictator.

It’s time for people to start using logic.  Time for people to start ferreting out the truth, find out whose bank account is going to benefit from the next ‘mandate’.  Why bank account?  Well because it’s all about the MONEY, ladies and gentlemen.  That’s what our ‘leaders’ are now: Greedy, power hungry, and so strong they keep grasping the desk long after someone else should have been using it.  You’ve seen it: That blank stare in the middle of the sentence.  On the INSIDE they’re saying, “Oh shit, I forgot what I was saying.”  These are the ones telling us what to DO.  And I bet they’re all wearing Depends!

We are not in a dictatorship yet, people, and if you want to know what one looks like, investigate the dead dictators, or even the live ones who routinely make people disappear from the earth.  Then think about this:  What if you were one of the ones locked in a concrete box for eternity.  See that’s another sign of zero logic.  People who want a dictator can’t even imagine being one of the ‘bad’ ones.  Fifty fifty chance, folks.  Fifty fifty.  And there are people HERE who came from Socialism.  Ask them what it was like. And don’t forget to listen.  First hand account if you actually ask one of them.

And the day will never come when a journalism graduate is going to tell me what words I can and cannot say.  This is a nightmare, isn’t it?  An SUV cannot ‘accidentally’ drive into a parade.  There was a PERSON in that car who DELIBERATELY drove the SUV.  It’s a nightmare, I know it.  Please wake up please wake up please wake up.

If you are not thinking about this stuff, you are being manipulated and controlled because you are gullible and your brain is smooth.  And if you get your way don’t you dare bitch to me.

I just finished another continuing education class about marketing, and it’s all about being up to speed with current trends, being ready to roll at the drop of a hat…you know how it goes.  Well, here’s something you won’t hear about, future and contemporary agents: GRAMMAR and correct use of LANGUAGE.  Listen, if you can’t spell or you consistently use the wrong word, or the right one out of context, you are not going to get my business.  Period.  By the way, if ‘like’ is used every third word as you speak, goodbye.  Like, gone!  If you’re going to present as a professional in a difficult profession, then present as a professional.

I just heard a statement, or more accurately, PART of a statement, about how certain people are ‘weary’ that they may blah blah blah.  The blah blah blah part comes because I didn’t pay one iota (that’s a little teensy punctuation, often used with ‘jot’; or a greek letter) of the REST of that statement because the word is LEARY, not ‘weary’!  Can I just say that this level of frustration comes through because almost nobody, NOBODY these days even knows the word ‘leary’.  Leary means ‘wary’.  It means ‘suspicious or fearful.  That person was LEARY that they may…and finish the story.  In other words, nobody is WEARY over something about which they may be fearful or suspicious. They are either LEARY, or they are WARY.  Too bad nobody’s going to actually read this.

The problem here is that if people misuse those words, it’s a sure sign they have not ever READ them.  They are just repeating what they either head from another nonreader, or what they THOUGHT they heard, and never bothered to look up the word.  In other words, this person is operating from a position of hearsay, and hey, that’s inadmissible in a court of law.  If your client asks a question and you say, “Well, I heart somebody SAY….”, you may have lost that client (and you should)….unless they operate from the same position.

Okay so you don’t like books?  Well there are words in print on the phone and computer too.  I’m just pointing out that there are people out here that hold you accountable to the standard  you claim to represent, and that with us folks, you don’t get by on the skin of your teeth.  Oh wait!  The class talked about how clients hold us accountable.  Okay then.  GRAMMAR!

You can tell a lot about the level of service you’re going to get by listening to how your leader speaks.  Seriously.

Question:  Is there a housing crash coming?

Answer: No.

Don’t be fooled by what is around the corner, folks.  There ARE going to be a lot of short sales and foreclosures popping up in the feed, but that’s not a housing crash.  What you will see happening is due to an ECONOMIC slide, due primarily to Covid shutdowns, but also to people having been paid to stay home and not work.  Business have gone belly up because of this cash-strike (my terminology), and so has their income production for past employees.  Here’s a good illustration of how, when something seems to be too good to be true, it isn’t.

Remember when there were rental and mortgage payment moratoriums?  Well those are over. And NOW we face the music.  It has always been a really bad idea to forgo making your rental or mortgage payment, but in some cases, this was unavoidable.  I understand that some mortgage companies said they could tack on the payments to the end of the mortgage (I never believed that), and if that is true, then those folks should be fine.  But what I hear more often is that the banks will require pretty much instant catch-up on those skipped payments as soon as the homeowner goes back to work.  Well we all know how that’s going to work, if it’s true.  People were hurt financially by the shutdowns but the banks…well, they’re gonna want to get paid.

A short sale is a mortgage holder allowing the homeowner to sell their home for less than they owe on it, and those are just around the corner.  You can smell them.  Certain conditions have to be met in order to qualify for short sale status, and just know that in the PAST, you paid taxes on the amount that wasn’t covered by the short sale, as though that was actual income to you for that year.  It was a bad time for a lot of people.

People walked away from million dollar homes in the 2008 crash; but this isn’t that.  THIS one is going to be a true accounting of how many people were financially injured by the shutdowns, and I have no doubt that it will be shocking.  It will be a sad thing to watch, to say the LEAST.  But know, when it  comes, it’s not a housing crash.  And then, I implore you, sit down, be quiet and THINK about what brought this on.  If you keep asking “why?” at the end of each conclusion point, you’ll be taken back to one place.

Remember that there is still a housing shortage, there are still people clamoring to buy, and the real estate market is not crashing, has not crashed.  So don’t panic, and remember, if you think you could be heading to short sale territory, PLEASE talk to a financial advisor to find out how you can avoid that place.  It’s tough to recover from a short sale or foreclosure.  There could be a better way.  Don’t give up without investigating.

For those of you thinking of making a good deal during this next crisis, remember your gain is a direct correlation to someone’s great loss.  I’m dreading this.  I don’t like to see people in pain.  But I am a short sale and foreclosure specialist, and I can help with your listing.  But first I’m going to try to help you find a way not to go there.  That is a promise.

Listen, if you think you’re teetering on that edge, give me a call and let’s try to do some good old fashioned problem solving.  

I’m Brenda Briggs, realtor/broker, Coldwell Banker Advantage 919-210-6113

This is going to be one of the posts which has nothing to do with real estate.  It is just me, thinking about an important issue that’s being slanted, misrepresented and corrupted, relative to the definition of the word or condition we call grief.

As I have said, I spend most of my TV time watching Youtube videos and reading nonfiction books, staying as far away from mainstream media as possible, as that venue has become completely owned and adulterated by nearly a single point of view, often at complete odds with the actual ‘mainstream’ schools of thought.  Much of media is now owned or ‘sponsored’ by pharmaceutical corporations, in fact, and if you find that unbelievable, please do your research.  You will find it to be true and it should give you pause, at the very least.  We are being herded like sheep into a corral where we hand over money to the super wealthy, as in corporations, as in stockholders, while the very ones picking our pockets are railing against ‘the wealthy’.  I can’t believe this is happening and that the mules on the cart path are just doo-dee-dooing along with the ‘program’.

I think that Scientific American article I read about how humans would breed ourselves out of existence was true.  That article said the average IQ would continue to decline to the point we were too stupid to come in out of the weather.  Well they said it more eloquently, more scientifically, than I just did.  Still, I believe I am seeing that paradigm unfold before my very eyes. 

I’m hearing the phrase ‘mental illness’  a whole lot, and from a particular couple who are pushing into media in order to survive financially, in my opinion.  Easier than getting a j-o-b.  This whole concept of mental illness is being coupled inexplicably with grief, in this case over the death of a family member who died decades ago by the way.  This couple are working very hard to get us to believe that grieving over the loss of a loved one is a mental illness.  Oh my God.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about a time in my life when I was in deep grief as well, and felt as though I was being chased around by people trying to lock me away due to ‘mental illness’.  It is as though more and more people are determined to have no emotions other than HAPPY! and never feel any pain because…there’s a drug for that, side effects be damned.  Ah, folks, pain is the signal that something is wrong somewhere, and if you don’t feel it, well…you can do more damage.  But I digress yet again.

Life is not supposed to be easy.  Life is complicated and intricately woven together with other lives and a profusion of circumstances over which we have no control.  So yeah, shit is going to happen, and resulting emotions will ebb and flow.  That is what we call normal.  There seems to be an effort to erase that word as well, but the truth is still the truth, and emotions are normal.

Merriam Webster dictionary defines grief this way: deep sadness caused especially by someone’s death; a cause of such suffering.  So yeah, grief doesn’t HAVE to be related to death, but there are events in life that feel like death… like divorce, the end of a family, a safe home, an important relationship.  It is normal to have grief in those situations too.

I heard, on one video, a person say that this person grieved more than the other person, both children of the deceased parent.  Well, no, talking head, they grieved ‘differently’.  And it is important to know that sudden, extreme grief effects people differently psychologically, depending on the age of the one grieving.  A nine year old will react differently than a 30 year old, and it is my strong belief that a person in puberty is MAY BE damaged more by grief than any other age, because of the stage of BRAIN development at that age.  And no, I am not a doctor, don’t even play one on TV, but I do pay attention, and I am a data collector.  So I see what I see, over and over and over.  In my PERSONAL observation of grieving people, the ones who are hit hard in puberty tend to get stuck there, psychologically, unless they have some really good support through the darkness of grief.  And for goodness sake, the one who seems to be ‘grieving less’ is STILL GRIEVING, so don’t hang that person out to dry.  Try to do a little research about grief and get it as right as you can from the perspective of support. 

In an article by Michael Merschel, he writes: Grief can reinforce brain wiring that effectively locks the brain in a permanent stress response, per Dr. Lisa Schulman.  Reference

How grief rewires the brain and can affect health – and what to do about it

By Michael Merschel, American Heart Association News

So yeah, grief is complicated.  It, in and of itself, is not a mental illness.  It is an emotional response to loss.  And it can be dealt with and it is important that it IS dealt with.   Any ‘spectator’ as I called the ones labeling me, should understand that grief is a perfectly normal response to loss, and that it NEVER goes away.   Rather, it shrinks back into the shadows until something triggers the memory of it.  Those triggers become weaker and happen less often over time, and I am talking years.  Therefore it is important for ‘loved ones’ to step up and offer support, a presence in the darkness who is there to keep the grieving one safe, to give them someone to lean on.  And it is important for the ‘spectators’ to understand that some of us grieve quietly and undemonstratively, while others wail and gnash their teeth, so to speak.  Grief is personal.  Pay attention and offer help accordingly; mostly not assuming that just because a person is quiet they are A-OKAY!  Just because a person in grief is not screaming does not mean they are not suffering.  And spectators need to allow the grieving person to grieve in their own personal way for as long as it takes, even if it is ‘inconvenient’.

I used to equate grief with dusty closed boxes in a dark attic.  If you want to get well, YOU have to go into the attic and turn on the light. See the boxes, and then with your big girl panties on (or big boy as it were), start opening the boxes one by one and examining the contents.  By facing the dark attic, putting light on it and examining the contents, one can conquer grief and REALIZE that grief is not a monster called ‘mental illness’.  Rather, it is much smaller, much more manageable, more ‘normal’ in the light.  But there can be a lot of boxes up there.  Could take a while.

Now, back to the point of all of this.  IF we suffer a loss, it is normal to grieve, and that grief is never going away, and it can cause permanent rewiring of the brain.  Why?  Because the worst grief causes us to look deeply into our connections in life, the ones still there, and do a thorough assessment.  Things change when you do that.  Trust me on that one.  Grief opens your eyes to things you may have never seen and forces you onto a completely different path, one without that loved one you lost.  Grief forces your insights inward, too, turns the mirror right back onto you, and makes you tell yourself the truth, and that is hard.  Still not a mental illness, folks.  But you might think so if you are are a permanent victim with a tendency to whine for the pacifier.

We seem to be turning into a society of victims, of pity seekers, of people in search of excuses for inappropriate behaviors.   Heads up:  There is not always “a pill for that”.  Sometimes you have to stand UP, face your pain, understand it is there for a REASON, and go about finding how to mitigate it.  That might be art, it might be walks in the park, it might be talking to someone you trust, it might be exercise, it might be meditation, all of which I highly recommend.  I wrote a book.  It focused my mind and kept me from picking at the wound.  Most of all while we are standing up, we need to give ourselves PERMISSION and TIME to grieve.  It is a PROCESS through which one must go, and it does get better.  And remember, grief doesn’t HAVE to come from the loss of a person; it can be from other types of loss.  So get busy with the process of healing yourself!  Yes, it helps to have others, but YOU have to be proactive about your own life!

That is, unless you choose to sit down and whine for pity.  My God you have to have as a goal, letting go.  You have to, at some point, stop hugging grief and welcoming it as a permanent resident.  I, as you may guess, have ZERO patience with that kind of behavior.  And this idea that because you lost a parent you have permission to tear down the world, particularly that of others, is just plain pathetic and frankly, unintelligent.  When someone says they had nobody to reach out to?  That’s a pity ploy.  There is ALWAYS someone, or many someones, THOUSANDS of someones, whom you can reach out to.  The difference is this:  If you are on the pity pot, you expect others to run to you while you sit and snivel; but listen up:  It is your job to reach out, your job to seek to release it.  Unless you are 7 years old or a pity seeker.  By the way, nobody can ‘make you feel better’.  That would be your job.  

And finally, remember that stress is a killer.  It makes all of the sense in the world to find a way to mitigate the stress of grief.  In my opinion and that of actual doctors, it is true that stress can and will kill you.  Not saying you have to go dancing, but you can paint your bedroom or rearrange furniture…or write a book.  Get busy.

And for goodness sake, STOP calling grief a mental ILLNESS.