Went to the annual Home Show at the World Trade Center. Jam packed as usual. Even ran into S.D. and E.C. (former ATers). They just bought a new house and discovered they are now living right near another former AspenTechhie! It's definitely a small world.

Went to Dunn and Gaherins for a bite to eat. Decided it's time to pull out the letters and artifacts I found in my basement and turn them into a story of some sort--either a series of short stories or a novel. Could be fun. I find the letters, etc. fascinating and they were all in an envelope addressed to William Claflin who happened to be the Mass. Governor in 1870. I had started research back then to find out more about him. His obituary is fascinating. He hung out with Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and many other well known people. They would all visit him at his home in Newton that he called "The Old Elms." There is a strong connection between Wellesley and Harvard in these papers which should make it interesting. I'll dig out the papers soon and maybe post something about them here.

Back on the desk at work. Finally got a promising lead if this guy is for real. He just came walking in the front door to ask for directions to a house being auctioned off and he stuck around talking for about 15 minutes. He's an investor--he buys cheap or abandoned properties and fixes them up and then sells them for big money. He talked about one deal in Cambridge where they paid maybe $200K for a house and rehabbed it and sold it for around a million! I think it only took them about 6 months to fix it up and flip it. He also does a lot of work on Nantucket and down in Cohasset. I gave him my card and will probably give him a call tomorrow to see how the auction went. It would be fantastic if he is for real and I'm able to help him out in some way. My manager had us cutting out ads in the newspaper of the For Sale By Owners (FSBOs or as we say, Fizz-Bo's) to start calling them to get them to list with us. Apparently only 10% of the FSBOs actually sell their own home. The other 90% give up and list with a broker.

By the way--did you ever feel like the world was just beating up on you? Had one of those days today. BACK OFF!

My niece's 9th birthday today!

Another 9:00 shift to work today. I got two phone calls today though they each called about houses that have already been sold. I spent some time putting together possible houses that are similar to the ones they called on and now I just need to make an appointment to meet with them. Very busy day.

Another caravan today. One beautiful Georgian home in North Walpole and 3 houses in Westwood, with lunch at the last home. One of my colleagues, R.R. drove today--he is one of the really great people in the office and we had a great conversation on the ride to these houses. He is a real go getter and pretty successful at selling real estate so he was giving me some advice.

Oooh. One of my stocks dropped about 27 points today. Ouch. Check out SEPR.

Worked the desk for a while today. One of the other agents in the office approached me with an idea to improve the computer situation in the office. We're going to write a proposal for this and present it, with the hopes of getting paid for something like this. We'll meet Friday evening to discuss further.

I had already had an idea for creating better, more efficient software for the real estate world. My downfall is that I don't know how to code. I can do some HTML, but just basic stuff or maybe a little beyond basic--not enough to create what I have in mind. Anyone interested in helping me out??? It won't make us rich but should supply some income, especially if it's on a subscription basis. Currently, we have to go into about 5 different programs, all with different usernames and passwords to gather up info and it's all very inefficient. There are so many repetitive tasks as well--every morning we have to go and pull out any new listings/updates/price changes/expired listsings, etc. and print out. Not sure why it can't be pushed to us in some way.

Mostly, I'm just trying to figure out an edge that real estate agents can have over web savvy consumers. Right now, they have access to most of the info that we have and the info they don't have access to, they don't even need anyway.

The Dedham house (from Tuesday) is already sold. Couldn't get my buyers in fast enough. Grrrr.

Another warm day--about 65 degrees. Had another caravan today with 3 houses. 2 were so horrible we didn't even walk through the entire house. One of them had a "hunting lodge" feel to it as well as being very messy and decorated horribly. And expensive for what you get--almost $400K! The 3rd one was very nice, though obviously more expensive.

We have 3 more new real estate agents in our office--one is the son of the owner, an actual DeWolfe. This ought to make things very interesting in the office. Someone asked if he was cute but I can't decide since he looks so much like Greg Brady and that's all I can see when I look at him.

First of all--just read that Larry Evans, CEO of AspenTech is stepping down and David McQuillan will take over. Wow.

Second of all--can I say that selling real estate is a very expensive hobby and that's about it?

And third--real estate agents (many of them anyway) are evil! I've never worked in an environment where this many people that are probably normally decent people, turn into Lucifer on the job. Lotta crap going on inside the office--just trying to keep my distance with as much of it as possible. But, I'm hearing from people in the other offices that it is the same there. They even say to watch out for the people that seem the nicest--since they are usually the most vile. I think the industry and the real estate companies foster this environment to some extent. Consumers also do but inadvertently.

Having said all that--I'm still actually having fun, just going very broke. I'll have to set some goals as to how long to try this out before I have to get a real job.

Wasn't going to go into work but did after all. Had to make some phone calls, etc.

Had dinner at the Stockyard in Brighton with some friends. Had a really great, fun time. Everyone there were in great spirits, many of them in their cups. And many had an authentic Irish brogue, which is tough enough to understand, but add many, many pints on top of that and we couldn't understand one work they were saying.

Sent out a few resumes today for a "real" job. One was for a company that had actually approached me last year to join them and start up a usability group. At the time, I was working and enjoying my job so I said no. The posting this time still says they are looking for someone to start up and develop a usability group so I am assuming they never hired anyone last year. The job is in Burlington but at this point, a paycheck is a paycheck is a paycheck, right? I could still sell real estate (or TRY to sell real estate!) on the weekends and evenings. Hmmm, wish I knew what I wanted to be when I grow up! The other job is something slightly different and don't know if I'm really qualified but I like the company so figured I would give it a shot. I know the usability people over there and I would be working with them a bit in that position. But, we'll see. I should probably spruce up my resume, too. I just threw it together a while ago and haven't really made it sound that great.

Worked the desk today again. Another new agent is starting. I'm moving up fast in regards to seniority. Today was the first day I had forgotten my name tag and of course, my manager had to bring that to my attention. She is the most miserable person I've ever met in my life. She constantly uses phrases like "the stupid IS department" or "the dumb attorneys" or anything with stupid or dumb attached. She manages by intimidation and everyone rolls their eyes when she comes near them. Some people refer to her as Jabba the Hut (yes, she sort of looks like that), though I prefer to be more subtle and call her Pizza the Hut (reference from Mel Brooks "Spaceballs"--the spoof on Star Wars).

By the way, can I tell you that I really hate the idea of having a job where I have to wear a nametag? I haven't had a nametag job since college and it just doesn't feel like a real job when you have to wear a name tag. Not that I don't like selling real estate--it really is fun--I just don't view this as a real job. It's just an adventure for now.

A very busy day indeed! First, there were 9 houses on today's caravan so we went from one to the next, running in and out of houses. There were a couple really nice ones and a couple really bad ones and then a few really, really nice ones! The first one had looked great from the picture I had seen but when we got there I knew it wasn't going to be quite that nice. It was a very old cape and the rooms are all chopped up into really small, angular rooms. Very disappointing. Another small cape was OK but the staircase to go upstairs was about 2 feet wide so I"m not sure how they got any furniture up there. And, the one bedroom was open to the staircase landing--no doors at all. This is fine while the child is young but, as everyone knows, as they get older they will want their privacy. Another house, a contemporary was very interesting. It definitely had a 1970s feel to it but it was large and spacious and they had used a lot of natural elements to it. The kitchen floor was actually made out of real red bricks that you use to build a house with. The ceilings were made out of really nice wood, not cheap paneling kind of wood. It was sort of reminiscent of a Frank Lloyd Wright type of house. I liked it. Another house, from the outside looked small and typical, but when you walk in, it's extremely impressive, especially the living room with this huge stone fireplace. Wow. Finally get through all the houses and now it's time to get yelled at! The 3 of us from the other night's incident met with the manager. She actually handled it better than I had expected and didn't blame anybody, just explained how things are supposed to work, etc. Fine. Done with that. Now onto a training course in Franklin from 1-3. All the way there, we tried to determine if it started at 1:00 or 12:30. We finally decided 12:30 but it was very obvious we were running very late and none of us had eaten lunch yet so we made a quick stop at a deli, grabbed a slice of pizza and were back on our way. No matter if it was 12:30 or 1:00, we were still late! But, they hadn't quite started yet and besides, we had the owners son with us!! He's new in our office and should be a great person to have around for times like this! What's the trainer going to do, yell at a DeWolfe? The training ran over the 3:00 time so we had to sneak out of there to get back to work since 2 of us had the 4:00 shift together. We were only about 5 minutes late and had called ahead to let them know and to see if the previous shift would cover for us until we got there. Thank God they did!

I got a cold call from someone who wants to see the first house I had seen today--the old antique cape. I set up the time for tomorrow at 3:30 and am very excited about my first showing. The odd thing is that she said she has been working with a different agent from a different office but that the agent was out of town and she really wanted to see the house before the weekend. I specifically asked if she had signed a Buyer's Agency contract and she said no. So, we'll see if she likes it or not.

Again, I was planning on taking the day off from work but that didn't happen. One of the agents in my office left me a voicemail asking if I would take one of her customers. And, he wanted to go looking at condos today so I spent the day schlepping him and his friend around for about 4 hours to see a bunch of condos in Mansfield and Stoughton. They were very nice people but it's funny to hear what people's perceptions of property are. In Mansfield, we saw 3 condos in the same complex. Each condo had exactly the same layout, but one had been more professionally decorated. He liked that one best, of course, but didn't seem to understand that if he bought one of the other ones, that he could reproduce that look on his own. But, he's not unique in that way. Most people can't see beyond what is there visually. Especially the furniture which wouldn't stay anyway. On the way back to the office, he mentioned that he wanted to put in an offer on one of the condos. Ack! I've never gotten this far yet so I had a bit of panic set in. Luckily, once back at the office, all of my co-workers really showed that they can be good people after all and helped me out whenever I needed it. I started to write up the offer but then he mentioned that he wanted to go out to Natick and Framingham tomorrow to look at more condos. He assumed he could put in multiple offers on different condos. I found out that legally he can do that, but if each offer is accepted, he would have to either buy them all of lose his deposit plus another percentage or something like that. We decided to hold off on the offer for now and go out tomorrow and then make a decision.

I was supposed to go to the Chestnut Hill mall to attend a champagne reception for an artist at the gallery but by this time I still hadn't eaten anything all day and was so starving so I met up with some friends from dinner instead.

One of my buyers called to go look at a house in Qunicy.We met up around 12:45 to see the house. There were other people waiting outside for their agents as well. This house was described as a handyman's special. Whoa! Was it ever. The listing agent had told me that the door would be unlocked. Luckily, I remember our training instructor saying that, no matter what, always knock first. I knocked on the door and hear someone yell to come in. There was the owner, sitting at the dining room table drinking beer. We walked through the house---water stains on the ceiling and walls around the windows, dirt everywhere, oh my. And we weren't allowed to open the door to the second bedroom because there was a cat in there that was not allowed out. I had been warned ahead of time about this and there were also signs taped all over the door to not open it under any circumstance. I think we were only inside the house under 5 minutes and he was ready to leave. As we were walking down the front porch, I asked him what he thought--totally expecting him to say that this was horrible, etc. Instead, he said he wanted to put in an offer! I guess you just never know...

So, we went over to his car and started to fill out the paperwork (he had said he wanted to write it up right there instead of going back to the office). This is where I started to look like one of those dizzy real estate agents--trying to fill out the paperwork, papers flying down the street, me running after them, writing up the offer but then realizing I'm writing it on my sample offer form and not the real form which I had started writing it on (yeah, I felt like an idiot!) etc. Finally, he mentioned that he had not been pre-approved yet--oy! I need to remember to ask people about that from the beginning. But, this was a good excuse to head back to the office and do the paperwork in a more civilised manner. He said he would meet me at 2:30 which would give him time to grab some lunch first. This also gave me time to write up the paperwork properly. At 2:30 he did show up and I had him meet with our mortgage person first to try to get pre-approved as quickly as possible. Then we finished writing up the offer and I faxed it over to the listing agent. If nothing else, I finally got to this new stage--writing up an offer!

Found out that the offer from yesterday was not accepted. Someone put in an offer higher than the list price. Who'd a thunk it? Didn't help that this guy also put in a much lower offer than the list price, hadn't been pre-approved yet, and only wanted to put down $500.00 instead of $1,000. Now he says he'd like to buy a 2-family but only wants to spend $200K. Ain't gonna happen, my friend.

Had to work from 11-1 today. Had a nice couple walk in today, looking to buy a house in Westwood. It's too bad there isn't much on the market because they seem ready to buy.

The guy I took to look at condos last weekend was looking again this weekend. I couldn't take him so MAG took him around again. She was the agent originally working with him anyway. When they came back, they did write up an offer for a condo in Franklin but he put in a low offer so I'm not sure if he'll get it. We've tried to explain to him that you can't lowball too much or the seller won't even consider it. And he thinks he'll be able to close before May....

B.A. and K.A. stopped by for a while--good to see them again.