Is it the fall of Rome ? December of 2017, in bone chilling cold I was fumbling with my phone wandering around outside the fence of a condo building downtown. I was looking for a condo for an investor client of mine. This client wanted to get into the market before January 1st when the new Armageddon Mortgage rules came into play. I know, I know, the glamorous life of a real estate agent. I am on the phone with the selling agency…
“I don’t see a lockbox and I thought the selling agent was going to meet me here.”
“He was…but he had to run…The lock box is around the front of the building on a black fence past the parking garage…realistically in front of an empty lot. It is near the snowline with 2 other boxes.Just look around.”
My phone to my ear….fingers frozen….looking…looking….I find it. I enter the code. It doesn’t open. I call back the selling agency.
“I think I found it but the code doesn’t open any of the three lockboxes here.”
“What is the code we sent you”
I tell her….
“Oh… That’s the wrong one….We will resend the right one to your office.”
“But I am right here…It’s freezing….I don’t want to walk all the way back to the front of the building and wait for my office to call me….Can’t you just give me the right code ? “
“No !! “ Says the warm voice on the other end of the phone….”We don’t know who you are… You just phoned here… You could be anyone.”
HUGE EXPLETIVES INSERTED HERE
I wait…
In the cold…
Suffice it to say, long enough to consider chucking the whole venture.
I finally got the new code, literally RAN back to the condo entrance in a maniacal stumble and went upstairs to see the condo for sale in the middle of December “17 ,2 weeks before Mortgage rule death set in.
This condo was an AS IS situation….You really didn’t want to touch anything. Like… I walked in the centre and didn’t even brush against anything. It was listed above what it was worth in my humble opinion. I came downstairs with at least the hope that nobody else would possibly want to offer at that price on that condo at this time.
When I got to the lobby there was another agent….eyeing me greedily….
“Are you an agent ? Do you have the key for the unit upstairs for sale ?” ,He says hopefully.
And I want to say “…NO. I do not…What are you talking about?” and then take the key back out to the Hinterland and make him go through what I went through.
But I don’t.
I get his ID… and give it to him.
6 hours later there is an offer on the condo….an offer closing two days before the new year…the new rules….the new mortgage mayhem and sinkhole.
Well….my client was looking for a way in to the condo market before the rules naysayed it.
Turns out….
My client wasn’t the only one.
I can’t WAIT to see what happens now….
Also my fingers are a little frozen still….possibly forever.
I know.. I know…. Glamorous.

And Rome still stands….for now.

Is it the Fall of Rome ?

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