Local Area And Real Estate News

A poem for the New Year

By Todd Anderson
Jan 01, 2009

  • I hesitate to make a list
  • Of all the countless deals I've missed;
  • Bonanzas that were in my grip -
  • I watched them through my fingers slip;
  • The windfalls which I should have bought
  • Were lost because I over-thought;
  • I thought of this, I thought of that,
  • I could have sworn I smelled a rat,
  • And while I thought things over twice,
  • Another grabbed them at the price,
  • It seemed I always hesitate,
  • Then make my mind up much too late,
  • A very cautious man am I
  • And that is why I never buy.
  • When tracts rose high onSixth and Third,
  • The prices asked I felt absurd;
  • Whole block-fronts bleak and black with soot
  • Were priced at thirty bucks a foot!
  • I wouldn't even make a bid,
  • But others did -- yes, others did!
  • When Tucson was cheap desert land,
  • I could have had a hip of sand;
  • When Phoenix was the place to buy,
  • I thought the climate much too dry!
  • "Invest in Dallas-That's the spot!"
  • My sixth sense warned me I should not,
  • A very prudent man am I
  • And that is why I never buy.
  • A corner here,
  • then acres there,
  • Compounding values year by year,
  • I chose to think and as I thought,
  • They bought the deals I should have bought.
  • The Golden chances I had then
  • Are lost and will not come again,
  • Today I can not be enticed
  • For everything's so overpriced.
  • The deals of yesteryear are dead;
  • The market's soft -- so's my head!
  • Last night I had a fearful dream,
  • I know I wakened with a scream;
  • Some Indians approached my bed --
  • For trinkets on the barrelhead,
  • (In dollar bills worth twenty-four,
  • And nothing less and nothing more),
  • They'd sell Manhattan Isle to me,
  • The most I'd go was twenty-three.
  • The redman scowled: "Not on a bet!"
  • And sold to Peter Minuit.
  • At times a teardrop drowns my eye
  • For deals I had, but did not buy;
  • And now life's saddest words I pen
  • "If only I'd invested then!"   
I don't know who to attribute this poem to, but I found it timely given our current market and peoples' wish to buy at the bottom. 
  • Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous 2009 
  • Todd

 
 
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