Soapbox

My dream –

Compelled by interest expressed to you by others in my writing on real estate, claims that I was its bard, its poet, you invited me to meet with you. There was no insinuation by you that this was an interview for a position in your brokerage, nor any presumption by me that such would be forthcoming.

‘You are licensed, right?

‘Of course. My first renewal is behind me, with far more courses logged and completed than minimally required, especially in the realms of real estate and contract law, and real estate financing. As I have never financed any purchase myself, that was the biggest grey area for me. It remains an area of ethical dilemma for me, even more so now that I fully understand all of its nuances and ramifications.’

‘What do you mean? Why, or how, does financing pose a moral dilemma for you?’

‘The American culture of immediate gratification, of debt manoeuvring – with its debt pimps, debt whores, debt pushers and users – is repulsive to me. My reaction to it is visceral; it turns my stomach. As a real estate agent, I am the pimp. The home, the material gratification, is the whore. The loan brokers are the pushers; the  home buyers, the users. Prostitution itself is more open, honest, and appealing.’

‘Wow. That’s extreme. How can you be an agent, and talk like that, feel like that? That’s just the way things are here. Your writing, too, though much of it is outstanding, is sometimes critical to the extreme. It’s offensive to some, to listing agents and sellers, in particular.’

‘If there were an “standard” real estate agent, I am not he. Though my experience with real estate has been decades in its unfolding, that experience has been international, and thus divergent from the common expectation here. Rather than a sales person of any description, I consider myself a conspirator of sorts of destiny, a  liaison uniting buyers with the addresses wherein their lives will evolve anew, and enabling sellers to begin anew their lives under the influence of differing configurations of  global coordinates.’

‘This conscientious dedication, my calling, if I may, includes as well those perhaps less obvious participants, the homes themselves, elusive only in their seeming lack of animation, yet nonetheless possessing of their own histories, their own stories to tell, often where new fires are, and colours unseen, phantasms by the thousands, weightless, which need to be revived, their realities restored. I listen, I feel, I converse, as I am able, and then I write, acknowledging the voices of all parties to these collisions and unveilings of destiny.’

‘I see where you’re coming from, kind of, but you can’t step on people’s toes like that. This is their livelihood. It’s your livelihood, too, for that matter. I haven’t checked your record. Have you listed any homes? Have you sold any?’

‘As this is not an interview, nor is it show-and-tell, I’ll let you do that homework. In support of my approach, though, I have sold every home that I have listed, and more than fifty percent of those I have shown. As the professional, I set the rules for my clients. I ascertain their needs, wants, and desires, then respond specifically to those. There is no objectivity to any of it.’

‘Capacity for discernment, feeling, impression, understanding. Imaginative penetration. Subjective awareness. Observation. Vision. Judgement. Sensitivity. Intuition. Perception. Comprehension. All of these are subjective. By any definition, insight is not, can not, and should not be objective. I tell it like I feel it.’

‘House whisperer, I have been called. The appellation elicits a smile, to be sure; were it only said of me by the houses themselves.’

‘Writing came first, and will remain long after this foray into real estate has ended. In all integrity, any effort to elude the odd negative criticism for my honest portrayal of homes, for the most part from those who profit from their misrepresentation, would be unconscionable. I alone am accountable for my original words, and make no apologies for them. Just because one is offended does not mean that one is right.’

‘Now you’re sounding defensive.’

‘The sale of homes, as an industry, has earned widespread ill-repute, not, certainly, owing to the homes themselves, but to those who sell them. For better or for worse, I side with the homes.’

‘It’s a good thing this is not an interview, because I would have to end it now, and show you to the door. You’re whacky. Maybe, in some regards, it’s a good kind of whacky, but I’d be on pins and needles all the time just waiting for the axe of litigation to fall, owing to your well-intended but wholly unconventional methods.’

‘That’s all fine. I don’t have a cure for any of this that riles me so, but nor am I afflicted with the disease. Having lived abroad most of my life, the virulence of so much that is American surpasses that of anywhere else on earth. Amongst the masses, deluded through mass indoctrination, mass hysteria, there is little that is wholesome. Once the home of the free and the brave, the States Once-United of America, as I call them, irreverently, is now the home of the debt-fettered, the debt-slaves; a land where nearly everything flatters taste but feeds not; candy to the eyes, perhaps, but, in reality, swollen insufficiencies swallowed as names and appearances of better things.’

‘Well, you are determined, I’ll say that. I’m glad I’m not out there anymore. If I were, I’d have to hope and pray that you never came to a listing of mine that you didn’t like.’

‘I am hands-on, and I do my homework. When the listing description of a home is mere fantasy, complete and utter fiction, so far is it from reality, am I not bound by fiduciary duty to proclaim that to my clients and prospective clients? If you or anyone else wishes to avoid the embarrassment of revelation of the truth, then tell the truth to begin with. In real estate, the poetic license of concealment and invention when juxtaposed to honesty and reality is not a valid device of professionalism.’

‘Destiny may not coerced, cajoled, or counted on. What’s yours, is yours; what’s not, is not. The addresses of the houses that you call home are etched indelibly on the windowpanes of eternity with your names. There’s no bullshit to this, no rocket science, no contrivance, no artifice, no debt-pimp, debt-pusher exploitation.’

‘The homes sell themselves, in whatever condition they are found. Artificially raising the value in response to deceitful debt-pimp urging of sellers, to ensure a greater agent commission, contradicts, but cannot thwart, the true and ineluctable course of destiny.’

‘That’s why I write. That’s why my license, though current, is inactive.’

‘In an ideal world, homes would fit individuals, couples, families, precisely. Any excess in a particular structure would be devoted to someone else, to another couple, another family. Enough is perfect when it is enough – nothing more, nothing less. For a home to be perfect, it must be sufficient, that is all. So sure will it be then of its adequacy, it will require no affirmation of such to establish its integrity.’

‘Life does not give itself to one who tries to keep all of its advantages at once.  Between something and everything, there is enough. The more one has, arguably, the less any of it is valued; so the less it is appreciated. Desire for more, for everything, suggests, too, that one does not desire anything badly enough. This is how mediocrity is generated, nurtured, abused. This is the American sickness, the American virus.’

‘Now you’re sounding downright unpatriotic. You’d better be careful.’

‘Is that a threat? Make a promise, if you’re serious. It is better to be hated for what one is, than loved for what one is not. I am as I appear; I appear as I am. Fuck the lairs, the cheaters, the cowards, the betrayers. And as far as my country is concerned, that is a place, not an ideology, not a political system, not a false promise, not a broken treaty, not anything that acquiesces to the prevarication of any autocratic, oligarchic regime.’

‘What ever happened to Thomas Jefferson’s Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? They were replaced by intolerance, prejudice, hate…inequality, indifference, cruelty, inhumanity…by just getting by, just making ends meet, by merely surviving.’

‘Thomas Jefferson wrote originally – “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” In the movie, from the graphic novel, “V for Vendetta”, that quote is rendered thus – “People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people.”’

‘We started out talking about real estate, and now we’ve moved all the way to revolution. You are fervent, I’ll give you that.’

‘Sorry to have taken so much of your time. I guess I’ve been I’ve been on a soapbox.’

‘Just one more thing, if I may, and I’ll get out of your hair. Regarding country and patriotism, mine is Wales, and my love for the rock, the earth, the sky, the rivers, the valleys, and the sea of Wales…the land of my foremothers and fathers, is mine by blood, by destiny. No one can take it away. We, the Welsh, have a sixth sense, called hiraeth. It is both our longing for the home of our birth, and the assurance that we will always be welcome there.’

‘Now I get it. You’re not from here.’

‘You’re right. I’m from that other planet. We call it Earth. And its inhabitants, we call them our own, not foreigners, but people, just like us, sisters and brothers.’

‘Have I offended you?’

‘No, that wouldn’t be possible. I would have to speak your language for that to happen. Thanks for your time. Maybe one day all that stuff that you think you’ve got working for you will actually work. My best wishes to you.’

‘You, too.’