Well, it’s just me here now. Everyone else has left. The roads are quiet. The houses dark, excepting the one lamp left on to ward away any robbers. But we don’t have robbers here, because it’s Lake Geneva, and everyone knows you’re gone anyway. The lamp tells us so. The gas station is closed, but there’s no one here to notice. The sign says GAS but the attendant is away, for a week, maybe more. The lamp in his window is neon, bright. There’s no one here because it’s spring break and I’m the only one in town. My kids have nothing to do now, no where to go, no friends to play with. They’re all gone and we’re the only ones here, but it doesn’t feel like spring anyway so what’s the point of a break?
Agents like to take spring break as well. They leave in the spring and they leave in the summer and in the winter they leave. They leave town for days, weeks, months. Some spend the whole winter someplace else, and they tell you that it’s fine because they have help. There’s someone to write the contracts for them and someone to show the houses for them. Someone will be there when you need them, they promise. It’s spring break this week, but for many agents, this week is no different than many, many other weeks of the year. It’s just a break.
Saturday, I didn’t have any real reason to go to my office. I had appointments that I had already prepared for, and there was no need to sit at this desk and type anything on this computer. But on Saturday, late into the afternoon, I felt compelled to drive here and sit here and type something. I needed to review some deals, think about some people who are mad at me, think again about some deals that are close to be putting together. I needed to get out of my house and into this place, for no other reason than I hadn’t been here since the day before.
In the summer, and in the winter, and in the spring and fall, I like to fish. I fly fish in streams and I spend the day driving, fishing, and driving again. I do this in a singular day, sometimes a brief overnight, and I return to this desk when I return to this county. I make my absences seldom, not because I miss this desk and I have some desire to be here, but because the business of real estate and the market I serve is continually and constantly changing. This is the case on a daily, hourly basis, and in a market where inventory is sparse and buyers are many, being first in the know is something remarkably important. This is why I leave for a day, rarely more, unless it’s a family vacation that rarely, if ever, spans more than five days.
When I do leave, it’s a mess. Travel disrupts everything and leaves me scrambling to figure out what I’m missing and what I’ve already missed. Vacation is needed and it’s wonderful, but today isn’t about the merits of letting a mind rest for a while under the same sun in a different place, today is about choosing a Realtor that’s present. More simply put, it’s about choosing an agent that is so wrought with anxiety when they leave their desk that they tend to rapidly return to it. Today is about picking an agent that doesn’t winter in another place, that doesn’t leave their work to assistants and fill-in cubicle-next-door-agents. Today is just about making sure your agent is full time, present, and ready to work even when everyone else is on vacation.