BILL CHERRY

and your commission on your first deal was a BILLION DOLLARS. Here's how to comprehend its value:

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were
living in the Stone Age.

D.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E.
A billion dollars ago was only
8 hours and 20 minutes,
at the rate our government
is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain...
let's take a look at New Orleans ..
It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator,
Mary Landrieu (D)
is presently asking Congress for
250 BILLION DOLLARS
to rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number...
what does it mean?

A.
Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans
(every man, woman, and child)
you each get $516,528.

B.
Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in
New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.

C.
Or... if you are a family of four...
your family gets $2,066,012.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

SINCE 1964

214 503-8563

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THE BIG HURT

By Bill Cherry, Realtor

I don't know who had chosen which records would be among the 100 on the Seeburg Selectomatic jukebox with the neon-style lights that added the only tinge of brightness in the teeny night club, but it didn't matter, really.

Because out of the 100 possibilities that were in the jukebox's record slots, five had inadvertently been found that the clientele would play over and over again, almost always ignoring the rest.

The favorite one was sung by a one-tune wonder named Toni Fisher. And even though it had come out in 1959, seven years later it remained Number 1 on the Metropole Club Hit Parade, six plays in succession for a quarter. Its title was "The Big Hurt." It went like this:

Now it begins, now that you've gone

Needles and pins, twilight till dawn
Watching that clock till you return
Lighting that torch and watching it burn

The Metropole Club in Galveston was no more than 15 feet wide by 50 feet long. There was a bar on the right with about 12 stools. Along the other wall, front to back, were leatherette overstuffed chairs and a couple of loveseats.

Next was the Seeburg jukebox.

At that point, an archway separated the front portion from the back where there was a small dance floor surrounded by a series of tables for two and a spinet piano.

Around the dance floor's walls were little wooden lockers where members of the Metropole kept their own individual bottles of liquor.

The club's owner, president, manager and bartender was Dorothy Graham, a holdover from the days of slot machines, and the all night debauchery that Galveston had been famous for as recently as ten years before.

Next door to the Metropole Club was the Busy Bee Cleaners, owned by Ed Wheeler, who was also Miss Dorothy's landlord.

Miss Dorothy would open the Metropole Club each morning just before noon, and she would try to abide by the law that required her to close no later than midnight.

But if the place was jumping and she was partying with the others, she would oft times run over into the wee hours of the morning.

The Liquor Control Board didn't seem to care enough to catch her.

A number of Miss Dorothy's regulars were doctors. Of those, two or three were on the staff at John Sealy Hospital, and the others, St. Mary's Infirmary.

Four of them would come in together about seven each evening, begin buying each other drinks, and then the one of them who was called "Dr. B" would make a bee-line to the spinet piano to play his theme song, "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi," with a banging segue and extreme rhythm change into "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Others customers came and went, but these four doctors usually stayed late, playing, singing and drinking.

One night when the four rang the doorbell, one of the regular customers did the peeking and admitting. Miss Dorothy was asleep on one of the loveseats.

That hadn't stopped the customers from making their own drinks, ringing up their purchases and listening to "The Big Hurt."

Someone said to the doctors that Miss Dorothy was not feeling well, and had been on the loveseat for at least several hours.

Dr. B felt her forehead and proclaimed she was OK, that she just had a bad cold. Miss Dorothy didn't move or open an eyelid.

Dr. B went to the spinet and started banging out his "Sweetheart of Sigma Chi"--"When the Saints Go Marching In" medley, drowning out Toni Fisher's "The Big Hurt."

The next night when the doctors arrived, again they were greeted by a customer when they rang the doorbell. Miss Dorothy was still asleep on the loveseat.

Since she had on the same clothes, it was fairly certain that she had been there since the previous night.

One of the doctors went behind the bar to fix the four their toddies. Dr. B. glanced at Miss Dorothy on his way to the piano. Miss Dorothy didn't open an eye. Toni Fisher was warbling. "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi" began.

On the third night, everything was the same as before. And Miss Dorothy was still lying asleep on the loveseat.

But this time, Miss Edna, one of Miss Dorothy's friends and a customer said to the medical four, "I'm very worried about her. I've been waiting for you to come in. Could one of you examiner her and maybe give her a shot of penicillin? I think she should be in the hospital."

Dr. B and the boys walked over, stood above Miss Dorothy and proclaimed that she just had the bug that was going around.

"She'll be fine in a few days. She can take aspirin if she wants. It might make her feel a bit better," Dr. B said, now on his way to the piano.

Toni Fisher continued to sing.

Oh, each time you go
I try to pretend
It's over at last
This time the big hurt will end

The next morning Mr. Ed, Miss Dorothy's landlord, noticed that her little Mercury was in the same parking spot where it had been for the past four days. It was three hours before the time she usually arrived. He decided to investigate.

The Metropole Club's door unlocked, so he went in. Miss Dorothy was stretched out on the loveseat. Mr. Ed was shocked. He called for an ambulance. Later that day Miss Dorothy died.

That evening the doctors moved their activities to a neighborhood bar that was nearer to John Sealy and St. Mary's. Toni Fisher and "The Big Hurt" and the memory of Miss Dorothy stayed behind at the Metropole Club.

Copyright 2009 - William S. Cherry

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

214 503-8563

ON THE WEB

OK, here's the deal. I have a client who would like to buy a contemporary home in the heart of Dallas -- Highland Park, University Park, Preston Hollow -- in the $800,000 to $1,100,000 price range.

A kitchen that says WOW and bathrooms that are spectacular are important. And my client is not interested in taking on a remodeling project.

If you're a Realtor with a hip pocket listing that matches up, email or call me. If you are a homeowner and you'd consider selling, call me.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

Our 45th Year Selling the Fine Homes of Texas

214 503-8563

cherrysells@aol.com

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BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

214 503-8563

Fax 214 666-9985

OUR 45TH YEAR SELLING TEXAS

ON THE WEB

Here is how select Texas cities faired in August (data current as of Sept. 24, 2009):

The National Association of Realtors reports that, nationally, sales of existing single-family homes fell 2.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.48 million from 4.61 million in July. However, that was 2.5 percent higher than the 4.37 million-unit pace reported a year ago.

Meanwhile, the median existing home price was $177,500 in August, down 12.1 percent from August 2008.

Source: Real Estate Center - Texas A&M.

Copyright - Texas A&M 2009

Reprinted with Permission

One of the facets of the real estate business that generated itself during my years as a Texas real estate broker was the advent of the licensed professional home inspector.

It was such a positive step because it provided a more credible source of home structure and mechanical evaluations than had been available before. And it gave everyone in a real estate transaction -- buyer, seller and agents -- a state regulated source for those answers.

But as the inspection profession and its use have evolved, it has often times caused more problems than it has solved, and many otherwise good and solid deals have been lost, the result of simply overbearing inspection reports, and their misuse by buyers.

In general, a professional inspector's charge is to locate and enumerate the current substandard parts of a home's construction and its plumbing and mechanical parts. It is not to point out chipped paint, squeaking doors, stained carpet and the like.

What the untrained eye could see, it should be reasoned, was or should have been taken into account when the buyer submitted his contract. The resulting contract should either point out that those items will be repaired by the seller prior to closing, or the buyer makes an adjustment in his offering price to cover taking those parts " as-is".

It is also not the inspector's charge to opine how structural and mechanical errors should be resolved. His job is only to list the items and suggest why they should be evaluated by contractors licensed in those fields. He should make it clear that he is not (in most cases) a substitute for the eye and advice of, say, a licensed electrician.

It seems to me that if the inspector is not a licensed structural engineer, master plumber, etc., and further, that it would be illegal for him to make the repairs himself, then the state obviously does not have confidence in his ability to do anything other than point out what he feels is worthy of further evaluation by a professional.

What has developed is a profession with members who all but run wild when they receive an inspection assignment, often times their oral and written reports are so full of nonsense that as a minimum, hundreds of dollars are spent to find out that the inspector was incorrect, and as maximum, the deal is not consummated. The inspector does not share in the responsibility for the loss.

Realtors should explain to their clients what comprises the scope of the inspector's training and what he is supposed to evaluate and report on. We should remind our clients that prior to making their offer and retaining an inspector, they are expected to make adjustments in their offer for anything that the naked, untrained eye should see.

And that they must take into consideration that the seller and his Realtor also tried to make fair adjustments for those deficiencies when they determined the price the property would be offered for sale.

There is a time-tested Jewish rule that offers good advice here: At a good dinner, there must be something on the table for everyone. A buyer should not use the inspector's report to attempt to take unfair advantage of the seller. Instead, it should be used exactly for what it was designed to be -- a manner for knowing about, thus resolving those building issues that neither the seller and his agent or the buyer and his agent knew about prior to the inspection.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

214 503-8563

On the Web