DAY ONE - Sunday
Well, now central Ohio doesn’t usually get hit with hurricanes. Whenever hurricanes hit Texas, we often get the remnants as heavy rain and some strong winds. Sunday was different. In addition to Ike’s winds, there was a cold front overhead with 110 mph winds. When the two mixed together, we ended up with 75 mph winds that lasted from around 3:00 in the afternoon until around 8:30 in the evening. Nearly 6 hours of that wind force is bound to do quite a bit of damage.
Lots of downed or split trees as the wind often pulled different sides of the trees in opposite directions. My neighbor’s street tree split off a large limb and it is laying in both our yards. Lots of damaged roofs. Cars smashed when trees fell on them. And nearly 500,000 AEP users out of electricity here in central Ohio. Over two million without power in all of Ohio. The governor declared a state of emergency since 84 of the 88 counties were impacted by the storm.
My brand new roof with shingles guaranteed up to 80 mph made it through in good shape. Not so, for many of my neighbors. In addition to losing large sections of shingles, some lost siding and one home behind me had a 20 ft section of gutter banging against the side of the home.
Many were unprepared for the storm as only strong winds were forecast. The Murph and I spent Sunday evening sitting in candlelight while I worked on my laptop for the hour or so that the battery lasted. I plugged my cell into my car to charge it up, but didn’t have any such accessory for the laptop. After checking in with my kids to make sure they were all OK, Murphy and I went to bed since there wasn’t anything else to do.
DAY TWO - Monday
The first thing I needed to do was to check on my listings to make sure they were OK. A couple had trees down but no damage to the homes. None have electricity. Thank goodness it’s not raining so we don’t have to worry about the sump pumps not working and flooding finished basements.
I was most concerned with my Worthington listing since Worthington with all its big old trees was hit pretty hard. On the way to my Worthington listing, I happened to pass my office manager’s home. A very large neighbor’s tree is now resting on the back of their home. It was awful. Thankfully, they’re OK. My listing was OK … just a lot of debris that will need to be cleaned up.
Getting gas was a challenge. Many stations didn’t have electricity so those that did had lines of cars at the pump. I got into line and was about 3rd from the pump when they ran out of gas. Batteries were in short supply and ice was not to be found. Since we really didn’t have a warning that the winds would be this bad, people simply weren’t prepared.
I purchased an adaptor to recharge my laptop using the power supply in my car. I bought the last battery powered AAA weather alert radio/TV at Radio Shack. Now at least I can listen to something in the dark evenings. I also bought more candles and had to buy another flashlight in order to get DD batteries. At the grocery, I bought food that doesn’t need cooking. Did you realize that a lot of unhealty, but really good food doesn’t need cooking. 
Oh, well, I’ll worry about that diet later!
My Worthington office doesn’t have phones or electricity, so I spent a few hours at the Powell office gathering email, and doing necessary computer work for the homes I have in-contract.
AEP has reportedly called back most of the crews they sent to Texas to help out, plus, they’ve requested help from nearby states.
During the early evening hours, instead of listening to the sounds of birds, I heard the humming of generators and the razzey sound of chain saws. Other neighbors were cooking food on the grill to use it up rather than having to throw it out. Still other neighbors were walking their dogs and checking to see how fellow neighbors were coping.
At night, The Murph and I sat by candlelight again, but at least this time I had a radio to listen to. When it came time to go to bed, I noticed that my waterbed was no longer toasty warm. Yes, it’s one of the original kind - don’t laugh - bought back in the mid 80’s. I love my warm, comfortable waterbed but it’s not too comfy when the heater doesn’t HEAT!
DAY THREE - Tuesday
News reports are saying that my area won’t get electricity restored until Sunday night. We’re hoping that they’re just saying that to prepare us for the worst. The accessory cord I bought for the laptop works fine but still the battery only lasts for a little over an hour. I may end up sitting on a chair in my garage with a cord plugged into the car. Could be a new kind of office.
I don’t have wash ‘n’ wear hair, so yesterday I bought some foam curlers in all sort of pastel colors. When I checked out at the grocery, the cashier looked at the travel pack and asked me what “those things” were. She was young with long straight hair so she wouldn’t understand. So, today I have a hair-do that LOOKS LIKE it was curled with sponge rollers. Oh well, better than flat hair!
The Worthington office is still without phones or electricity, so I went into the Powell office to handle the work. One thing I noticed was that traffic moved better through the stoplights that DON’T work than through the stoplights that DO work. Some of the agents said they are now staying with relatives who’ve had their electricity restored. There was the usual discussions of how we’re handling inspections without electricty in the home and some were dealing with insurance repair estimates to be held in escrow until after closing.
No matter what our own homes are like, we still need to meet the due dates of contracts.
When I got home in the evening, I had a nice surprise … my neighborhood’s electricty was on. There are now 16,000 homes in Delaware County without power. On the way home, I saw a crew from another state working on a transformer at Home Rd and Liberty Rd. Thank you to whatever state they were from.
DAY FOUR - Wednesday
I’ve been on the phone a lot so far today. People are starting to regain electricity, but still others will have to wait for the weekend. I’ve spoken with a couple agents I’m co-oping with and they either can’t retrieve their email via their broker’s system or they don’t have an office with electricity to get faxes and no fax in their home. We’re trying to work through it though and to stay in communication via our cell phones. One agent I spoke with “forgot” she had a landline she could use when her cell battery died. I did the same thing. We get so accustomed to carrying on our business the “new” way that we forget how to use the “old” way!
Delaware County is now down to 11,000 without power. The treed areas of Worthington are still not projected to have all power restored until Sunday. I spoke with another person in my office who said that in addition to the tree on our manager’s home (which will require a crane), one of the agents has a tree on parts of her home as well.
So far, people are trying to be cooperative and maintain good spirits, but you can tell by their voices that the situation is wearing their nerves a little thin. We are all SO thankful that the weather is cooperating. The mild temps allow us to be comfortable without AC or heat.
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was. It took several minutes for me to get a word in, but I managed to tell her I would come right over. Here’s what I saw:
Oh, BTW, I put about 75 miles on the WEENR-mobile and didn’t make $1.
Elaine Reese
614-825-8860Real Living HER
A decade of selling homes in central Ohio
September 7, 2008 · 3 Comments
This month is a fairly important month for me. First of all, it marks a milestone birthday for me, but I’m not going to talk about that … it’s too depressing.
Secondarily, it means that I’ve now been in the real estate business for ten years. When I took the 120 hours of coursework in August 1998, the instructors told us that for every three of us in the room, only one would still be in the business after three years. So I guess I’m a survivor.
During the past ten years, the business of real estate has changed quite a bit. Few brokers even had a web site. I started my own web site in 1999. The MLS system was DOS-based and we could only load one photo which took 24 hours to show up on the listing. Many of us used 35mm cameras and had to have the film developed first before we could scan it to load it into the MLS. Within a year we had digital cameras that used the big floppy disks. We thought we were in heaven.
DOS-based MLS - oh, my!
We searched for homes, sometimes via the MLS DOS system, but big thick books were easier to use, however, they were quite expensive and out-of-date by the time they were printed. Because we couldn’t see photos of the interior of homes, we would often show 20-30 homes to find one that was acceptable. Now we may show only 5-10, because the unacceptable ones are eliminated online.
The paperwork required to complete a transaction was far simpler. Now it seems we have disclosures for the disclosures. The Purchase Offer is now up to 10 pages. We can thank lawyers for that.
9-5 … what’s that?
Ten years ago, agents went to the office daily and unless showing homes, the agent was there all day. Now when I go into the office (only a couple times a week), it’s like a ghost town. Most agents work from home because technology allows us to do that. Of course, it means we must buy all the equipment for our home.
Newspapers and pretty home magazines were the primary source of advertising our homes. Now per NAR surveys, only 7% of buyers found their home using this source. That survey was done a couple years ago, so it’s probably even fewer than that now. Now the Internet is the only game in town!
Aren’t computers supposed to SAVE time?
When we took a new listing, it used to take only an hour or two to enter the data into the MLS and prepare in-home brochures. Now it can take nearly 24 hours just to upload the info and all the photos to ALL the many Internet sites. It’s much more time consuming.
We had pagers not cell phones. People called during regular business hours. Now with our cells, we’re on call all waking hours. I’ve had people call as late as 11:30 pm to ask about a home because they were sitting in front of their computer.
I’m not a pop-tart!
It’s become a less safe business. Now few agents will pop-up to go show a home without first having the caller come into the office. Anymore it’s just too risky to meet a complete stranger in an empty home. Plus, with the complex mortgage programs of recent years, we need to have the buyer pre-qualified first before showing them homes.
The cost of being in the business has increased. Our fees to CBR, OAR, NAR and to our brokers has increased. Realtor.com charges us quite a bit more to have our listings be a Showcase listing. Newspaper ads have gone through the roof - too high for the lack of results. The fees for our web sites has increased. If an agent hasn’t bothered to learn basic web master knowledge, then they must pay a techie to do the work for them. And then there’s the price of gas …….
Clients are still the BEST!
The one thing that hasn’t changed are our clients. They’re still a great bunch of people to work with, to get to know, and to become an important part of their life for a few months.
Copyright © 2008. Reproduction of any portion of this blog post or the images is prohibited by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If this post is being viewed on any site other than www.ReesesPiecesOfRealEstate.com then the material has been stolen without permission. Violators will be reported.
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