Fair Market Value

A little lady shot past me and down the hallway of my open house. She glared at me from time to time as she zoomed from room to room, muttering “heh!” and “bah!”

I caught up to the little lady in the back yard where she stood with fists on hips, scowling as if she were surveying a landscape so foul it could be the County dump.

“Just a regular old house,” she said, “and you’re charging a king’s ransom for it!”

The truth is, the house was a tad over-priced, but that was the seller’s idea, not mine.

“You Realtors keep raising the prices on these houses to where a regular person can’t even buy one!”

I heard the front door slam. I excused myself from the angry little lady, and went back in the house, where I came upon my mentor, the wise and wily KDV.

“Hey, babe,” said KDV, “just checking up your open house. What’s shakin’, grasshopper?”

I told him a lady accused me of raising home prices. I neglected to tell him she was still here at the house.

“Absurd!” said KDV. “Home prices fluctuate with Fair Market Value, and Fair Market Value is like the Mississippi River. Its level rises and falls in response to forces beyond our control, my friend.”

The little lady skittered in and stood behind KDV, unseen by him, with her fists on her hips, scowling. I nodded toward her surreptitiously in an attempt to clue KDV in, but he raged on, unaware of her presence.

“Whoever suggests we as Realtors have such power is simply uninformed. Here, let me wave my magic wand!” he said sarcastically and rhetorically, “Where would you like the price to be today?”

“Show me this person who says Realtors are the cause of rising Real Estate prices, and I will show you someone who sounds like an ignoramus!”

The little lady stomped around from behind KDV. Caught off-guard, he hopped a foot in the air. She stuck her finger in his face and screeched, “You’re a nincompoop!”

She shot back out the front door, muttering.

KDV said, “Oops. That’s the lady you told me about, right?”

“The very one,” I said. His shoulders sagged.

“Rule number 4507, grasshopper: ‘Never shoot your mouth off.’

“Anyway, babe,” he said, “that lady is wrong about Fair Market Value. But she’s right about one thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I’m a nincompoop.”