Boston real estate
A hiccup on a downtown Boston real estate deal (Short Story)
While negotiating a downtown Boston real estate deal on behalf of my client, we hit a road block in the negations’. Now, in itself this is not unusual, some downtown Boston real estate brokers may say its part of the dance.
The other broker, a nice guy basically told us it looks like you guys have only two choices. Neither one seemed very attractive.
With out boring with all the details, my client and I came up with more creative solution which ended up being a win-win for both parties.
I bring this up because if you’re a first-time Boston condo buyer make sure the Boson real estate broker you select is not a part-time agent. One thing that experience brings is vison to able to see a potential problems and find creative solutions, that can only come with experience, they don’t teach you this at MA real estate exam courses.
I’m remanded of this famous fable:
Thinking Out of the Box (Creative Thinking)
In a small Italian town, hundreds of years ago, a small real estate business owner owed a large sum of money to a loan-shark. The loan-shark was a very old, unattractive looking guy that just so happened to fancy the real estate owner’s daughter.
The loan-shark decided to offer the businessman a deal that would completely wipe out the debt he owed him. However, the catch was that we would only wipe out the debt if he could marry the businessman’s daughter.
Needless to say, this proposal was met with a look of disgust.
The loan-shark said that he would place two pebbles into a bag, one white and one black.
The daughter would then have to reach into the bag and pick out a pebble. If it was black, the debt would be wiped, but the loan-shark would then marry her. If it was white, the debt would also be wiped, but the daughter wouldn’t have to marry the loan-shark.
He then asked the daughter to reach into the bag and pick one.
The daughter naturally had three choices as to what she could have done:
- Refuse to pick a pebble from the bag.
- Take both pebbles out of the bag and expose the loan-shark for cheating.
- Pick a pebble from the bag fully well knowing it was black and sacrifice herself for her father’s freedom.
She drew out a pebble from the bag, and before looking at it ‘accidentally’ dropped it into the midst of the other pebbles. She said to the loan-shark;
“Oh, how clumsy of me. Never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.”
The pebble left in the bag is obviously black, and seeing as the loan-shark didn’t want to be exposed, he had to play along as if the pebble the daughter dropped was white, and clear her father’s debt.
Moral of the story:
It’s always possible to overcome a tough situation by thinking outside of the box, and not give in to the only options you think you have to pick from.
