Dear Neighbor: ‘about those toppled Open House signs . . ‘

(That’s) One Way to Cut Your Property Taxes

To: the anonymous neighbor(?) who toppled all my “Open House” signs the other morning
From: your friendly neighborhood Realtor (me)
Date: 7/30/2010
Re: my Open House signs

Dear Neighbor:

I’m sure you thought you thought you were striking a blow against obnoxious advertising the other morning when you toppled all my “Open House” signs and left them in a jumbled heap.

But what you really did was make it more difficult for my Realtor colleagues to find me at your neighbor’s house last Tuesday, when I was there holding it open for Broker Tour (when Realtors check out all the new listings, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. each Tuesday).

Because the house is in a cul-de-sac and easy to miss, I set out several signs to provide directions.

I set out the signs at 10:55 a.m., and — had you not toppled them — would have retrieved them a little after 1 p.m.

With no signs to direct people, my traffic was low, and as a result of that your neighbor’s house will take that much longer to sell, and likely fetch a correspondingly lower price (sales price invariably declines as a function of market time).

So, not only will you get to see more, not less, of me while I work hard to sell your neighbor’s home over the coming weeks (months?), the value of you and your neighbors’ homes will be pegged to whatever (lower) price I’m able to fetch for your neighbor’s.

On the other hand, maybe you were just trying to reduce your property taxes??

Sincerely,

Your Neighbor’s Realtor