So there is this piece of property, down the road from my barn, that has had little For Sale signs on it since we moved to the barn last April. They are sort of cute little yellow signs with a strawberry on them, and a realtor’s phone number. Like, we’re not talking David Lyng here. I think I wrote about this property at some point? Remember how much I used to write about property when I thought we were actually going to be able to sell our house and buy one? Back in the bad old days?

This one is out of the Gary zone. Why did I even start stalking it? I have a sickness, that much is true. But it had this sort of cute house on a knoll, and a big flat parcel, that was possibly 5-7 acres according to another home made sign up on the fence. Long access road, and on further stalking (you know I am completely shameless and will just go up on anyone’s property) it turns out it’s a shared access road down to some ag fields and runs through the parcel. There was also a mobile home, some sheds, pump tank, stuff like that. Another side backs up near the giant commercial nursery.

The house is raw and kind of chintzy but of a sort of charming design and bone structure-not unlike the DREAM RANCH M$%%&*CK S$#T Sorry Cannot Even think of it WITHOUT FROTHING MOst DAYS- but lacked some basic things like floors and such. My standards are pretty low. Had a little creek (ie, runoff ditch) running through some willows behind, and was well placed on the parcel with the long flat Horse Section out behind. No fencing or anything like that. And also this weird sort of hippie earthship I live in a house made entirely of trash by my cousins houses/structures/farm running alongside the narrow property edge on the adjoining parcel.

In short, far from perfect, very Watsonville, but intriguing in a way that indicates how sick my mind is and how I need some sort of life or therapist to help me figure out my whole real estate thing and how do we solve it.

And then, a couple weeks ago, a Countrywide Financing sign got added to the fence. Small and simple, with a phone number. Out of the blue. Little strawberry For Sale signs forever, house never on mls, and then, kaboom. Countrywide.

Foreclosure?? Could it be? So I started further stalking. Leaving messages for the realtor and for the cell phone number on the sign. Gary even drove by there one day on the way home from a work field trip to a far away dump, sort of assessing the distance. Because foreclosure! What if we could get the property for like $500,000?? This is the number I stick into my head.

No one calls back ever. Curious? More mysterious and intriguing and price lowering in my mind. I drive by it and sometimes drive up there and do mental property layouts of where barn could be and arena and some pasture space. There is a seperate flat area for trailer parking and dog field! I am not supposed to do this. Finally one day, I get the realtor to pick up the phone, I called her cel on a Saturday afternoon.

I introduce myself, and tell her I’m calling about the property for sale at 294 Casserly.

She says, “What do you want to know?”

Um, I sort of ramble how I drive by it every day and wanted to know the pricing and acreage and I just happened to notice that Countrywide sign just went up.

She says, “Oh-it’s not for sale.” She has a TONE to her voice, of unpleasantness and like she is scowling at me and all I’ve done is call her cel phone. I recognize this tone. I have used it when I am providing Poor Customer Service-it is the Tone of Irritation! It means How Dare You Call My Phone Right Now! Can’t you see I was busy doing something better than talking to you?

I sort of pause, thinking, um, ok, weird. I say, “um, I thought maybe it was BECAUSE IT’S HAD FOR SALE SIGNS ON IT FOR 6 MONTHS and a Countrywide sign just went up last week.”

She says, “well, it’s not for sale.”

I am like, “Well, is it going to be for sale?”

“Yes, it will be for sale in the future.:

“How much?”

“One Point Three Million Dollars.”

I am sort of puzzled by how this exchange is going. I ask about the Countrywide sign that Just Went Up there! I think I use the F word. She says it is definitely not in Foreclosure but won’t indicate why that sign got posted. And keeps re-iterating the not for sale thing. She is a realtor with not one but 3 signs on the property’s fence!

The conversation kept going in a sort of circular fashion from here. I tell her that is not my price range so I guess I won’t try to follow up In the Future with it. She asks my price range. I come up with $8-900k. Not that we can afford that anymore but it was my price range for so long that it just flows off my practiced tongue of real estate talk.

She sort of pauses again and is like, “well, it probably won’t be for that. One Point Three Million.”

That was kind of the end of that. This is how the real estate market goes these days. Just a little funny? And not really real.