Austin Weather, Cowboy Boots and Why We Were Behind Schedule

The weather in Austin this spring has been somewhat unusual.  We've gone from a 3 year drought to a plethora of water in just a few days.  I think we're up between 8-12 inches over normal, which is GREAT!  Our lakes are full again, everything is lush and green.  My water bill is almost non-existant which makes me awfully darned happy.  We live in Cherrywood in east Austin on a lot of about .25 acres.  It's pretty unusual to find lots of this size in central Austin.  Most "city lots" are about 50'x100'.  As you can imagine it takes a lot of water to keep a quarter acre of St. Augustine grass green in the TX heat.  I'll do another blog someday about why that's a horrible choice for grass for our region. 

We get a lot of buyers in from places far away from central TX and often they want to soak up some of our local culture, which I think is a fantastic idea.  So, this particular buyer comes to town and immediately goes out and buys himself a pair of the fanciest cowboy boots that he can find.  Probably spent $500+ on them. 

The next day, we're having some of the aformentioned weather and things are a little moist.  So, he comes trotting out to meet us, sporting his new boots that he's so proud of.  I have to admit, they did look good!

We're off to look at houses and as we enter the home, we see a sign by the front door, "Please remove your shoes, we have new carpet".  As our client is reading the sign, I can see a concerned look come across his face.  He sits down, on the floor and proceedes to ~attempt~ to take off his brand new boots that he bought a little tight so they could stretch.  After a few minutes of watching him roll around on the foyer of this home, I offer to give him a hand.  So, there we were, he's looking for something to hold on to and I'm pulling him across the tile entry like some kind of human floor buffer.  The boots aren't moving.  Literally, we've been there like 10 minutes when he finally decides, "I don't like this house anyway" and we just turn around and leave.  So, my client is angry, frustrated and probably more than a little embarrased.

I ended up taking him back to his hotel to change shoes after that (not sure how he got them off in his room) and we rescheduled our appointments that morning to take into account our delay. 

So, the moral of the story is, always inform your clients that they may have to remove their shoes for each home they see, so be sure to bring something easy to slip on and off!

Maxwell McDaniel

www.AustinAPlusHomes.com