If We Build It They Will Come
Posted by Kerry on Jan 27, 2009Last spring an opportunity presented itself that I must say appeared to be too good to be true (!). I was going to get to do something fun, make some money, and help out some clients! I work selling real estate in an area of Martha’s Vineyard known as East Chop. It is fairly exclusive and many of the homes and properties have been passed down generation to generation. Though it can be a difficult market to work, I have been relatively successful because I was literally brought up there. Playing in the houses and running down the dirt roads in the summertime. My parents would drive down from Canada and always rented on the chop, so I am familiar with many of the old homes. When something comes on the market on East Chop I usually have some first hand knowledge of the property.
Anyway, back to this opportunity… So I had these clients, multiple families, who had been looking for houses on East Chop. Of course, They all wanted the same house. Four bedrooms, three baths, walk to the beach, walk to tennis, walk to town…and all these clients were on me to find them this one exact house. Well the house never materialized because as I said earlier, most of these properties are passed down generation to generation and when one does come up, it is quickly and quietly scooped. Hopefully when that does happen I am part of the mix, so that would explain the client roster. What did come up, was a vacant lot. It was a perfect lot, but it was a hugely expensive lot. And low and behold, it sold. Immediately. Scooped, just like that.
Within a few months another lot came up. Also hugely expensive, but the seller was limited to a short time frame and so a window of opportunity presented itself. That is when my husband the builder, and I the real estate broker decided we would figure out a way to get this lot and build that one highly coveted house. We pooled our resources. We offered, the seller counter offered, we counter offered, and he accepted. We were ecstatic. In the late winter of 2008 we had bought ourselves one prime piece of dirt on East Chop and immediately got to work designing the house that all of these clients had been clamoring for! How great we thought! We are going to build THAT house. The one that everybody wants. We were beside ourselves with excitement.
East Chop Lot
Despite all the signs pointing to a deep and serious recession, we forged ahead and became real estate developers in an uncertain world.
Well last summer was a reality check, not just for this project but for my real estate business in general. People became extremely cautious and the sense or urgency of years past has completely disappeared. We delayed building during the summer so as not to disturb the summer residents that are deep in the neighborhood during July and August, and by September we found ourselves lucky enough to be entertaining an offer on the land itself. Despite having shown the project to all of my prospective house hunters, and many others, the offer that I had was on the bare land, and it did not come from one of my clients. As a matter of fact, none of my clients had expressed more than passing interest, and we were very relieved that we did not find ourselves sitting on some very expensive real estate.
In the late fall, when the leaves fell, our land deal also fell apart. For a couple of months we toyed with the idea of selling the land and cutting our losses, paying back our loan. But let me ask you this, where would be the the fun in that? Where is the hope or the dream or the excitement? I don’t want this to be just about making a living, I want to enjoy myself and hopefully get a little creative and maybe even set an example. So off we go, we are going to build and it will have six bedrooms! And I know that if we build it they will come!
