There’s always something to howl about.

Month: June 2013 (page 1 of 1)

Seven years of the dawgs: Reflections on BloodhoundBlog’s anniversary.

We started here, and still the question rings in my ear:

If almost-as-good is free or nearly free, what is the market value of slightly-better?

Big changes in the world since then. Brick ’n’ mortar retail is all but dead. Books, records and software ‘apps’ are aiming for a price point under ninety-nine cents — many of them all the way under. The supermarket real estate magazines are gone, and the thinning out of the classifieds put the newspapers on a strict diet. Their putative replacements, realty.bots like Zooliapads.com, are by now just sleazoid lead vendors. Unwired Realtors are enjoying their retirements while we are doing business without a fax line or even a land line.

That much is cool. I’m less sanguine about the people in this business than I am about the business itself. One of the things I haven’t loved about real estate has been seeing some of the incredibly scummy things people will do. Most of my clients have been great, and I love all of the people I work with long-term. But I’ve fired people who have left shit on my shoes forever, and this is not a happy outcome for me.

BloodhoundBlog has been a similarly-mixed blessing. I’ve met some wonderful people through this blog, and we’ve published some remarkable content. But I’ve seen the howling mob at its worst, and every day I get to see sleazy SEOs working overtime to make me regret sharing link juice with commenters. And meanwhile, the vendorsluts and their raving wraiths have turned our part of the internet into just another Realtors’ brothel. Don’t get any on ya.

And I am off to Planet Elsewhere. I wanted to hit the road for a while in the first quarter, but my Mammy died and then Odysseus started looking all deathful. So here I am mounting the expedition in the third quarter instead. I’m going to be in Las Vegas for the last three weeks (three nundinae, actually, but who’s counting?) of July, and then I will be in Orlando for the last three nundinae of August. I’m interested in making plans for September, October Read more

Practical ontology in real estate? Who ever heard of such a thing?

NewHomeBuildingInPhoenix

From KJZZ Radio in Phoenix, The Way of the Bloodhound:

‘“From now on whenever you’re driving on the freeway look for a truss,” Swann said, referring to a roof truss on the back of a truck. “And when you start to see a truss every day, then things have turned around. If you see three trusses a day, then things have really turned around. But if you can go five days without seeing a truss on the freeway, then no one is building anything.”’

The linked story is from Peter O’Dowd, a journalist for whom I have huge respect — not alone because he listens when I talk about bug’s-eye-view real estate.

Bidding farewell to brave Odysseus…

It’s a dread we’ve learned to live with. I wrote about this day in fiction a couple of months ago so I would have the choice not to write about the facts today. I can make death beautiful — big deal. Nothing can make death tolerable, nothing but time.

But: He died as he lived, game and eager, his face alight with love for everything. Cathleen was there to hold him and his favorite vet, Doctor Blackwell, was there to say goodbye and I was there to make fun of the most adorable big dumb doofus I ever knew and he left this life with a smile on his face.

One last time: “Lay down, Puppy. Go to sleep…”