Skip@RR | ReallyRedding

December 7, 2007March 13, 2012

Hard times hit Redding

There are always hard times. Even in times when the local real estate market is booming, with nany people looking into buying a foreclosed home to renovate and live in you can find a hard time story. It’s just humanity. Lately, there seem to be more hard time stories than usual. The area just isn’t what it once was. It really should come as no surprise that many people are moving away. Some of the Florida homes offered at unionpark.metroplaces.com have proven to be too irresistible. I expect more people to be tempted in the future. Anyway, a couple of days ago, I was in a hurry to make an appointment and stopped into a local Title & Escrow company that shall remain nameless. As I stepped into the lobby, there were about a dozen or so people standing there and looking at me like I just walked in on something important. They weren’t smiling. Looking more closely, it was evident that several were crying. Obviously I interrupted something here, and my first reaction was that I should leave, but I needed to get something done for a client leaving town. One of the women offered to help me, and the group broke up. The tension was evident, but she put on her best game face as she helped me locate the file. She was wearing slippers like you might wear at home and wiping back her tears as she worked. I guessed she had just gone into the lobby from her desk at whatever news had just hit, and I was the only non-employee in the office. I got what I needed and left, but I felt like she needed a hug. I didn’t hug her, though, because that would be weird to hug a stranger. Which is kind of weird, also.
Anyway, I was haunted all day by the image of her flushed face, tears glistening under the harsh office lighting. No one offered to share what had happened, and I wasn’t going to ask, so I had to pry a bit later in the day with some other folks in our real estate community. As it turns out, she had just lost her assistant to a layoff. Merry Christmas!
There’s a lot of layoffs in housing-related services here. Today’s paper had a photo of 84 Lumber closing it’s doors. Merry Christmas to you too. I don’t know if their 5 employees stood in the lobby and cried. Or hugged.
I was once laid off from a company after 20 years, right around the holidays. It stings. I decided to go into another career where the only person who could lay me off was me, and here I am. It hasn’t been easy. It won’t be easy for these folks either.
The Record Searchlight article also said that there were 600 fewer real estate related jobs in October in the Redding Area. I expect that the diminishing number of employed accelerated in November and December. When housing catches a cold, Redding employment gets pneumonia. All those folks will need to find work.
The cliche is “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Perhaps more appropriate, that which doesn’t kill you leaves you standing for the next assault. Best wishes to all in our housing-related community.

Hugs, but only if you ask for one.

December 7, 2007March 13, 2012

Turkey day, Redding style

No, I’m not talking about Thanksgiving here. This is about real turkeys who wander the streets where I live in suburban north Redding. Seeing them walk by in a small flock, it’s easy to equate modern birds with prehistoric dinosaurs, as the theory goes. Tyranosaur-Turkey, who knows how closely related they are? We have a lot of human walkers where I live. It’s a nice area to get a little exercise by walking around, but lately some folks have been known to carry a stick. It seems the turkeys wandering about can be aggressive. Turkey-Velociraptor perhaps. One of my neighbors drives a little Honda car, and she said a big Tom chased her car one day. Hmmm, they do seem to have a tough old bird look…..
Seen above, a gang, er, flock of menacing omnivores.

November 13, 2007March 13, 2012

Screams in the Mall

After years of working in the Mall Kiosk, you get used to the hum and activity associated with being there. This is one of the few places in Redding that bears similarity to a pedestrian street, and I am in the middle of the street. Mall walkers walk, shoppers shop, and staff people gossip to one another. Just like life in any small town, except with security staff just a phone call away.

Every so often a terrifying scream cuts through ambient sounds and muzak. An infant’s cry. Not just a squall of hunger or fatigue. This sound is unmistakably a cry for help. A scream that cuts right to your very DNA that screams to your core “AN INFANT HUMAN IS IN TROUBLE! HELP!” You can’t help yourself. You have to look. The scream is a stunning imperitive. There can be no mistake.

Of course you look, at least the first few times it happens. What could possibly be happening, and how can I help that baby in trouble? Well, you can’t help them at all. That baby just got pierced.

Often the newly pierced baby has an entourage of mother and aunts and whomever else is in the family. Welcome to the world of getting pierced in a shopping mall, my fellow human. I like to look at the entourage and their faces. That scream is breathtaking. Everybody is looking. I think even the entourage are often taken aback by the urgency of that special scream. Uncomfortable smiles ensue.

I think the sound is like crows communicating that a predator is nearby, or similar. Not really words that they use, rather the tone and urgency communicate the message. The message here is urgent. You can see it in the faces of passerbys. The scream cuts across all our consciousness.

Little baby so-and-so, with her new ear stud. Her face is red and twisted into a mask of despair. “Mom, how could you let this happen to me?” I never get used to it. A human pain ritual at a shopping mall jewelery cart. Well, maybe I am getting used to it. But it’s still remarkable.

As I blog about it, why is this human pain ritual considered so mundane that we would take our precious young to a minimum wage employee in the middle of the mall to have their newly minted flesh pierced by sharp metal? It’s much more than just getting a haircut. This I know from the scream. I guess I find it less weird when it’s adults getting piercings, rather than babies and young children. But when you think about it as a concept, it’s still very weird, and yet it’s so widely accepted. I must know at least one person with every type of piercing possible. Yes, even the more peculiar ones… let’s just say that someone from work has a piercing that’s in a place which is not your average stud placement. Ouch.

Why not start a business in the mall to serve that clientele with seating, dramatic video and lighting, and climatic choir music, a priest-like figure holds the infant high over an altar of some sort. Or maybe a feng-shui scheme, very Zen like. Day spa style. Heck your choice. Name a theme. I think there is a business here waiting to happen.

Or just another piercing scream at the Mall Kiosk.

March 20, 2006March 13, 2012

Portrait denial

You can hardly blame us.

Here we are getting older everyday, our youthful good looks fading in the mirror until we hardly recognize the oldster in the reflection. Meanwhile, our portrait photo remains ever-young, frozen features glowing with optimism and youthful vibrancy. So unlike that stranger we behold in the mirror, battered by years and stressful transactions.

We do like to have portrait photos in our advertising. Our cards, our ads, our signs, you name it. Working in this business for a while, you come to associate the photo with the name, so apparently it works. Where it becomes interesting, at least for the purposes of this blog entry, is when the agent photos no longer resemble the agents in real life.

It happens. Oh boy does it! Agents hand you their card, and you look at it, and look at them, and look at the photo again, with a baffled look on your face. You wonder if this is an impostor, impersonating the agent whose card you hold in your hand. Nope, just a human being in portrait denial. As I said at the top, you can hardly blame us.

Still, when it gets slow among agents in my office, this topic sometimes comes up, and can get big laughs for false advertising. Page through an issue of Redding Homes, and pick your favorites. Page after page of shining faces, so unlike our actual colleagues. Kinda like whistling past the graveyard though, for all of us. Dark humor, for sure. Salesfolk are terribly insecure, notwithstanding our outward bravado. Clinging to an outdated image of ourselves comes with the territory. We all need our fictions, just to get by sometimes.

Just be prepared, when you meet that agent for the first time in person. You are warned.

February 27, 2006March 13, 2012

Candy Tyme

This has little to do with real estate.

When it’s slow at the real estate kiosk at the mall, you can people watch. There’s this candy store adjacent to the kiosk, Candy Tyme. To be honest, I don’t visit too often because it can be cheaper to buy bulk party snacks online. It features big bins of loose candy that can be opened with the idea that you fill bags below. Bulk candy sold by weight. The thing is, the bins are an irresistible attraction to little kids who(surprise!) just open the bins up and grab candy, or let it spill onto the floor. It happens all the time (or Tyme). I watched an incident again today with a kid grabbing candy and running off.

Here’s the interesting part. Sometimes, a dopey parent is so protective of their kid when caught that they threaten the employees in some way. The best defense is a good offense, obviously. Today a goofy mom started shouting repetitive curses. The weird part, and there always is a weird part, was that she kept repeating that it was good thing she had her cell phone(?). It made for a big scene.

The last time I saw a big incident there, the defensive/offensive parent decided to accuse the hapless Candy Tyme employee of pushing her, after her little angel was caught grabbing candy. The employee beseeched me to act as her witness to the security guard that she had not pushed anyone. It was good trick by the mom, and security sent her packing, not really fooled. It worked OK though.

The most troubling snatch and grab I witnessed was not only seen, but encouraged by the “dad.” Get in quick, and get out quick. Both laughing. It happened so fast I wondered if I had seen it at all. Hard to know what to think about that. I remember thinking of coyotes, showing their young how to hunt. Candy coyotes.

The mall is main street in Redding, and it takes all kinds.

February 27, 2006March 13, 2012

Trailer Joe’s coming soon!

Announcing a new franchise Trader Joes finally coming to the Hilltop area, bringing to an end the continual speculation of the “Buzz on the Street” guys in the Record Searchlight. Just today, there was ink spilled regarding how they just can’t get enough dried organic fruit and other snooty stuff at the Chico Trader Joe’s.

Trader Joe’s continues our community trend toward franchises and big box stores.

Seriously, where were the “Buzz” boys when local Bry’s Market was clinging to life?

December 26, 2005August 5, 2011

Welcome to my world

My name is Skip. I am a Realtor. I am a team leader in the Peak Performer team at Coldwell Banker C&C Properties of Redding California. More than that, I am husband, son, dad, and contributing member of my community.

The purpose of my blog is to invite you inside my world and town for a glimpse. I figure the more you know, the better things will be for everyone. Redding is a quirky place. I like that.

As for work, real estate is endlessly fascinating. Sometimes it’s like a wildly complex game, where the rules and the players continually change. Other times its not like a game at all, because people put their lives into their housing. Their emotions, dreams, and futures are on the line in any transaction, and you cannot play games with that.

Nevertheless, its my intention to have fun and help people who need real estate related services. And I want to help my colleagues too. This can be a tough business. I figure what comes around, goes around, so I hope that if I help others out, they will help me when I need it. We are all interconnected.

That’s about it. Anyway welcome, dear reader. I hope that even if you don’t learn new anything here, you will at least have enjoyed reading. My intention is to make the reading interesting. See what you think.

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