There has been, in the later half of the 20th Century after WWII, and continued into the 21st Century, a proliferation of real estate ventures that have taken the form of gated communities, time sharing or as one place around here put it, interval ownership. For the most part the sales presentations have been high pressure, but above board. The ones that have been less than ethical have seemed to have been marketed to those who really can’t afford the inflated prices they are charging, or don’t understand the well-rehearsed patter the sales person throws at them.
The first experience I had with this method of real estate sales was 32 years ago and the dramatis personae were my ex-wife Jean, our friends Art and Sandy and their infant son Geoffrey, and yours truly.
We had met Art and Sandy after we joined Emmanuel’s U.C.C. Church in Hazleton. Ghulam Nasrani, the pastor, had asked Art and I to be the adult leaders of the youth fellowship of the church and through that the 4 of us became fast friends and socialized together on many occasions.
On a Sunday in late fall of 1972 Jean and I had gone to Valmont Plaza after lunch, to one of the few stores that was open on Sunday in those days. When we came out there was a flier under our wiper suggesting that the reader come see the flaming fall foliage at Valley of the Lakes, a private resort community which had begun selling lots down 924 almost into Sheppton. The added incentive was that they had free sausage sandwiches, birch beer, and each couple taking the tour would receive a basket of apples.
Jean and I discussed it on the way back from the Plaza and thought it would be a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon. One of us called Art and Sandy and they thought so too. They drove to our house in McAdoo and the five of us drove out to the entrance to Valley of the Lakes, which proved to be past Oneida on the back road headed toward Weston. The parking lot proved to be unpaved but smooth enough, and we soon found the outdoor tent where the sausage sandwiches and birch beer were located.
I’m not sure if we registered or if they just kept an eye on the ups, as I subsequently learned the sales people referred to the customers as, but soon we were approached by Hal Steare, who would have been a credit to the generation of Southerners known as Irish travelers. Despite appearances, he had all the charm and warmth of a funeral director, who smiles at you while he is sizing you up.
We exchanged the requisite pleasantries with him when he asked where we were from and did we have any trouble finding Valley of the Lakes. After a few minutes wait, while he was oh-so-nice and warmed Geoffrey’s bottle, we were off in one of the Jeeps the sales people used to take their pigeons, I mean customers, on tours of the resort, which at this time, was still in the construction phase and really had nothing of any immediate use available to show us.
There was a 2 way radio in the jeep which crackled to life in staccato bursts with "Is Lot xx available yet? Or "Lot xx has just been sold to the Blank family." After a while we got the impression that these outbursts were not real and were somehow being orchestrated from some great room full of radio transmitters unavailable to all but the chosen few amongst the leadership of the sales force. After showing us around the incomplete parts of the resort, which included at that time 7 lakes that were being dug in the valley (hence the name of the place), Steare seemed to be homing in on this one particular lot. It wasn’t lakefront and as I remember it 35 years later it wasn’t even cleared yet. I’m not sure how big it was but 2 acres runs in my mind. These resorts don’t sell very small lots because privacy is one of the selling points they use.
Anyway, as we drove up, he told us that in order to appreciate the fine opportunity we were being offered, we should get out and walk the property, which we did. It really didn’t seem any different than any other lot we may have been directed to on the same road. But we played along and got out. Like magic, as if they were called from some special place on the property, several other Jeeps pulled up to the same lot and their pigeons, I mean customers, got out at the enthusiastic urging of their versions of Hal Steare, and walked the property.
We thought it strange that out of all the other lots that must have been on the same road that 3-4 Jeeps of customers are all converging on one lot. That proved to be one of their selling points or at least what they would use to try to wring a commitment out of us. We were told that we had to decide at that moment to keep the other folks from beating us to this valuable real estate. Presumably the other Hal Steares were doing the same thing for their ups.
I don’t know about you, my dear reader, but not only is a decision to buy real estate not one to be rushed, but the average person doesn’t have the financial independence to make a snap decision like that. That kind of a major purchase must be weighed carefully by those asked to make it. But we were told that the decision had to be made right there and then. Jean and I had only been married a little more than a year, and Art and Sandy a bit longer, but suffice it to say that together we would had a hard time floating any kind of loan for anything, no matter how good the opportunity.
At being informed that neither family would be taking advantage of his fine offer at this time, Steare’s whole persona changed. He could not get us back to the sales office fast enough, all the while berating us for not buying into the once in a lifetime offer he made to us. Unceremoniously dropping us off at the sales office he went off in search of his next pigeon, I mean customer.
In Steare's defense, having done a few sales jobs in subsequent years, if he was working on straight commission, I can understand his not wanting to spend much more time with us after we dug in our heels and refused to buy at once. Time is very much money to a straight commission salesperson. But that does not excuse the tryout for the Indy 500 we got on our way back to the sales office, or the unceremonious way we were dumped once we got there. If he had driven in a civilized manner and maybe even explained to us the difficulty of making a living that way, we might have been more sympathetic. But when he turned into Mario Andretti pulling away from the starting line at Indy, our blood began to simmer just a little.
No one said anything about the apples, but Art and I made sure we got a case for each of us.
As we drove back to McAdoo, we discussed the topic of ethics and legality in real estate dealings. Sandy was somewhat more knowledgeable than the rest of us because her mother was a real estate agent in New England, and to the extent that Sandy had been exposed to the nuts and bolts of the profession, she understood a little of what was ethical and legal. By the time we got to McAdoo we had decided that Sandy and Jean would make supper and that Art and I would compose a letter outlining what our experience had been, what we thought was unethical about them, and threatening to report the situation to the state real estate board if we did not receive written apologies from both Hal Steare and the management of Valley of the Lakes.
We received a more or less standard apology letter from Valley of the Lakes, which contained about as much sincerity as the Democrats applause at President Bush’s State of the Union address. I don’t recall if we ever got even an insincere apology from Hal Steare but I seriously doubt it.
No comments:
Post a Comment