Simply Marvelous!

I live in Bend, Oregon. It is marvelous! Lately, some jealous, or just mean, people have been saying it’s past its prime. That’s ridiculous–Bend is just as marvelous as it always has been.

Recently, Bend (indeed, my little Awbrey Butte neighborhood) made it onto the cover of the Wall Street Journal. It was very exciting. My neighbor Joan Grundeman was even quoted in it. She’s a wonderful woman with an impeccable house. Some part-time nurse had strung up clotheslines to dry her sheets. Can you imagine? Clotheslines on Awbrey Butte? That’s quite below us. We can all afford dryers (and believe me–the best dryers) on Awbrey Butte.

Frankly, I’m not sure what a part-time nurse is doing on Awbrey Butte. She must have bought before prices got up to where they belong. I hope she is kicked out. Next thing you know someone will be stringing up a shortwave antenna, or putting a scarecrow with ratty clothes in a garden. You can’t let these assaults on the senses start, or people might even start wearing loud clothes, just to be obnoxious.

Fresh on the heels of this Wall Street Journal excitement, I found out that a house down the street is going up for sale. I wondered what on earth could be happening to make someone move off Awbrey. I knocked on the door with some cookies and a stunning woman with amazing eyebrows and boobs answered. I asked her where she got her eyebrows done and she gave me a card. Turned out she’s in the makeover business. I complimented her and asked why her house was for sale.

“Oh, we’re going back to California. My husband doesn’t like the winter.”

“But winter is ski season,” I said. I must say I already knew that I did not like where this conversation was going.

“Well, we like the warm weather better. Bend is beautiful, but we miss all our old friends and family.”

“Well, family, yes. But aren’t the friends here–the people here–better?”

She just smiled. I awkwardly handed her a plate of cookies I had bought at Newport Market. Lovely little things. “I baked these for you,” I said. “Doesn’t the time fly? I meant to make you some when you moved in.”

She laughed. “Thank you so much. But we were here before you were, you know.”

“Oh really?” What a rude woman. I would be glad to see her go. Not the Awbrey type at all. A woman painting eyebrows all day. Imagine.

Her house is lovely. I imagine it will sell right away, as soon as she and her husband get all their obnoxious belongings out of it. This weekend they went down to San Diego to look for a house. I must admit that I was so peeved at her that when I woke up at two p.m. last Saturday night to tinkle, or I guess it would be Sunday morning, I snuck down the street in my nightgown and straddled a little bush near her front door and tinkled on it. After all, she must have known that I’m a Realtor. She could have at least asked me if I would list the house.

Business in Real Estate is great now. I have more listings than I ever have had. In fact, I’ve started to turn sellers down. I enjoy my life of leisure. It’s really my husband’s job to bring home the bacon. I just sell Real Estate for social reasons. I like to meet people. Especially the beautiful people on Awbrey.

The sellers are just lovely. The buyers, though, have become a chore. They are puffed up by stories in the paper about it being a “buyer’s market.” Please. That’s just what we say to get them over any hesitation they may have. You never know what some joker, who doesn’t really want to buy and is just playing a prank, will put into an offer.

For instance, I was selling a little house for a lovely lady–Mrs. Moss–who was moving into a retirement community. Oh, she loved her birds! She had all kinds of feeders for them. Now, birds aren’t a favorite of mine. First of all, my darling Persian, Contessa, just rips them to shreds. But, also, there is all the fecal matter to clean up. But, anyhow, this Mrs. Moss loved her birds. She wanted to sell only to someone who would keep up the feeding.

Two years ago, buyers would do anything for a seller. But this man who wanted to buy the house… Well, he seemed so nice at first, but he made a face when I told him about the birds. And when the offer came in, a paragraph that I didn’t even see was in there. I don’t know how I missed it. But I passed it along to Mrs. Moss with a smile on my face (I will never forgive the prospective buyer for this). The clause said that Mrs. Moss (“aka The Old Bird,” as the contract said), for the rest of her life, must come to the house every Halloween DRESSED AS A BIRD and eat a bowl of birdseed for the amusement of his party guests.

Never in my life have I seen buyers wearing such scorn for sellers on their sleeves. It’s as if they think they are calling all the shots. It’s unbearable, really.

Needless to say, Mrs. Moss had some alterations to make on the counter-offer. I’d really rather not discuss it anymore. Let’s just say it escalated into a ridiculous tit-for-tat back-and-forth. Eventually Mrs. Moss did sell to him. She said she “had to.” Unfortunately for her, the bird houses were gone the day the new people took possession. A tragedy, from her perspective.

Still, Bend gets better and better. We will have our Trader Joe’s soon and then we’ll be able to say that there’s nothing California has that we don’t have! I can’t wait.

As my good friend Norma DuBois insists, “This is Central Oregon. This is Bend. People want to live here.”

Sally Heatherton,

Bend

Tags: bubble, real estate