Villere Realty Blog

Reflecting on 2010, all I can offer is: to do business in this town you need thicker skin.  Forget our crazy property taxes and equally crazy insurance rates.  Forget Chinese sheetrock.  Forget the Saints and whether they win another Super Bowl.  What if oil seeps uncontrollably into the Gulf thereby crippling the local economy on many levels?  What if the city’s primary property database crashes and for all intents and purposes ceases the conveyance of property from seller to buyer additionally hindering the local economy on many levels?  And, most recently, what if you can’t even drink the water?  What!?  Really???  On top of everything else we have to question whether we can even drink the water?  Sheesh.  Thicker skin, I tells ya, thicker skin.

As 2010 revealed itself day by day I began to more fully appreciate many things, among them: timing.  In real estate we are taught (and it’s true): location, location, location.  But in life (and in real estate too): timing is everything.  Personally by the time the city crashed at the end of October and couldn’t record property (which is still in effect today 12-30-10, mind you) I had had 4 of my 6 deals close.  If it had been just another few days, perhaps none of those 4 would’ve closed.  As time passed (some) title attorneys gained the ability and confidence to close deals, so 1 of my 2 outstanding closed.  The last one, the 6th one, has yet close.  Part of that has to do with the seller being in a federal penitentiary, but I digress.

No matter what is thrown at you though, you gotta get outta bed in the morning.  No one ever succeeded by stopping.  Better mousetraps will always be built.  Will they be built by you?  Will you assist in their construction?  Or will you from the view of your bed lament their invention and doubt their effectiveness?

“No one visits New Orleans to drink the water,” said local Finis Shelnut on the national news back in late 2005 with regard to the query of will tourists return to our submerged burg when potable water was questionable at best.  Amen.  No one lives in New Orleans to drink the water either.  We live here because we do.  We’ve mused on this notion for centuries, moreso in the last five years, and undoubtedly it will be a topic of conversation until ? ? ? Until some other roadblock, carbuncle, or man made and/or natural disaster presents itself.

I was on a broker tour this fall when I overheard another agent bemoan the city’s state of affairs “I don’t know why I’m here.  I can’t do any business anyway.”  Ick.  Really?  Bad attitude.  Conversely this May I walked down Prytania to a midnight show with the heavy choking stench of petroleum crude hanging in the air, making me sneeze uncontrollably and my eyes water as if I’d chopped onions endlessly.  I marched on though my body physically protested.  All I could muster was “This sucks.”  Yes, yes, many things about this year could easily fall into that category, but so what?  Life goes on.  Always.