Realtor gift BFG’s

It’s the American Dream. Get married, have 2.2 kids, and buy a home with a white picket fence. Of course, not all plans come to fruition. But some do.

Let’s go back to the beginning. I was born to a couple of parents in a hospital, by a racing track, near a Rose Bowl. I don’t remember much of the first few years. I cried, pooped and slept a lot. My first memories include leaving an English Muffin out in my bedroom and when we came back, there was a trail of ants leading directly to the English Muffin. I remember getting some Superman jammies and thinking I was a superhero, so my brother and I left on our own, with bare feet to our local elementary to play in the sandbox, before realizing that as 5 and 4 year olds we should have informed my parents before endeavoring to go on such a journey.

I remember the capes my mom made us out of a few pieces of felt and a button that attached it around my neck. I don’t remember walking outside with just my birthday suit and some sandals, but there is photographic evidence, so I can’t deny that one (unless my mom knew photoshop before it existed). I remember a canal running through our backyard, and thinking it was the San Andreas Fault, only to realize it was just another of Los Angeles’s many canals.

All those things happened in our house in California. But my dad decided that he wanted a better job, so he moved us to the opposite coast, a tiny village called Long Island, NY, near a village called New York City, a sleepy place named after the state it resided in. I remember living in a cul-de-sac where I rode my orange banana bike for what felt like 8 straight hours once I learned how to ride it for the first time. In that same cul-de-sac, I remember a kid who had a massive baseball card collection throwing all his cards in the air (what we called chuck-ups) and grabbing as many cards as I could. I remember drawing mini-streets, stop and yield signs, and maybe even some San Andreas faults on the cul-de-sac so my friends and I could navigate our bikes through our long and drudging commutes to the other side of the cul-de-sac.

We didn’t last long in the cul-de-sac, before my dad declared that he hated us, because he moved us to farming state of South Dakota. Little did we know how much time we would spend inside our home in South Dakota, especially in the months between October and March, where snow would come once, freeze, come again and freeze until it was just a part of the road. In the summers there, I remember playing as professional NBA player in my driveway during the hot summer and having to guard the ball from getting loose or having to chase it down the hill. In the winters, I remember having to wake at 4 am to plug in my car, shovel 4 feet of snow, just so I could do my paper route that was uphill both ways. After braving those storms in -100 degree wind chill, I had the pleasure of coming back to shovel the driveway again so my siblings could wake up at 7 am, use the heated up care that I plugged in and go to school after a good nights sleep.

For the next decade, I spent my life in dorm rooms, small missionary apartments, or college apartments, until I got married. Even after getting married, home ownership was but a distant dream. We lived with my wife’s family for almost 15 years, until they died, and with a little luck, endurance, a lot of suffering and lots of brown nosing, we convinced my mother-in-law to put the house in our names and in the will when she died. Finally, at the age of 40 something we were home owners. We even had the two kids (.2 short), but we were still looking for the picket fence.

Picket fenceless, we decided to move to Utah, and a year and a half later, we finally got into the home that we chose. It doesn’t have a picket fence, and it isn’t white, but it is a fence (that doesn’t really fence anything in). We worked with a realtor to find the home. Realtors are these useless people (at least ours was) that “help you find a house”. Really, they get paid 3% commission to find houses on Zillow, and negotiate with another realtor that you get to pay another 3% to.

But don’t worry. When a realtor finally gets you into the house, there is this tradition that realtors do called a closing gift. It’s supposed to be a show of appreciation for a client for giving you whole bunch of money for not doing anything.

We were never a high end client, but I’ve heard of some pretty extravagant gifts given by generous realtors. Such as Smart Home Packages, Premium fire pits, tickets to local symphonies, private chef experiences, even sunset cruises. On the smaller end, I’ve heard of realtors giving clients useful things like Lysol wipes, dish soap, sponges, dish towels, etc. Many others do gift baskets with food and wine, or cheese and crackers.

The mighty Jim Rome, a nationally syndicated sports talk show host, recently told of his experience of buying a luxury home near Los Angeles, which I’m sure cost him at least 5 million. His realtor gave him chips. No joke. Almost as if he forgot to get him something, so on his way over, he stopped at the grocery store and picked up one of those multipacks of chips. When he recently told that story on his realtor’s closing gift, it reminded me of ours.

Our guy got us a plant. When he gave it to us, we realized how much he hated us. We felt like Charlie Brown during Halloween. All the other home owners got Smart Home Packages, and we…got a rock. If he knew anything about us, plants would be the last thing he would have got us. Neither me, my wife or my kids ever cared about plants, and we don’t have green thumbs. We just bought a house that was in an HOA that had a small yard and no room for gardens. Maybe if the plant was Groot, we would have thought he cared. At least we could have counted Groot as our .2 of a child. And he would have been the first successful person in our family, by saving the galaxy a few times. Honestly, we would have been more excited with the multibag of chips. We would have at least eaten those. We may not have green thumbs, but we do love orange thumbs.

For any of you who have purchased a home, congratulations. In this day and age, that’s an impressive feat, so good for you. If you bought through a realtor, what closing gifts did your realtor give you? Or did they not give you one at all? Curious.

Here are some Bitter Friday Giftures to help your realtors think of better closing gifts…

It’s the American…