[View the post in original format at The Real Estate Lounge Chicago]
Pity me not as I cross my legs at a bistro table near the Cancun airport, delaying the inevitable return to my Chicago home by one more day.
And please feel not a need to mock me as I don colorful shorts that pleasantly match a momentary dash of color afforded by a weeks worth of tropical sun.
And please don't think, should you be warming numb extremities, that I am taunting you. I am not. I am simply lumbering toward a point.
The picture below is the madhouse that was the Cancun International Airport today, the first Monday of the new year and the first non-weekend travel day since 2010 announced its arrival. Had the line to the United counter gone any more slowly it would have gone backward. And despite the slowness, moods among travelers were positive.
Even I, who truly abhors lines, waits and crowds was in an okay mood. As we finally neared our destination word came that volunteers were sought to stand down. In return to make room on the overbooked flight back to Chicago volunteers would be remunerated with flight vouchers, food stipends and overnight accommodations. Because the shiny device on which I now type enables me to work from wherever, whenever and because of my wife's beauty and flexibility and our kids' ability to travel well, we opted to volunteer.
And so I write to you from a hotel some 10 minutes outside of Cancun as Jackson and Lucas nap.
Taking an offer from United is a value proposition. They make an offer and it is up to the recipient, in this case me and my family, to determine if what they offer has worth to us to accept. It compares, if you allow me a degree of artistic license, to buying or selling a home in today's market.
Across the board each and every one of my clients engaged in buying or selling a home in the Chicago real estate market are intent on getting the best possible deal. Makes sense. Nobody wants to leave money on the table no matter what side of the transaction they occupy. Nobody wants to be the target of Barnum's maxim that a sucker is born every minute.
And so we run comps that consider recent activity noting trends three, four and six months back as we attempt to capture a snapshot of fair value. And sometimes no matter how much we analyze, how much number crunching we do, how much we edify ourselves it comes down to a moment in time when we have to decide.
Today as we stood at the desk at the Cancun International Airport it took us less than a half minute to determine that the offer from United was fair.
So we accepted.
It's not always so easy. But, if we flip the language around, maybe it's also not that hard.
What is hard, though, is facing the fact that the weather earlier today in Chicago was a single digit. Feel free to mock me tomorrow as I sprint from the international terminal to find our car service home wearing linen pants and a blazer without a scarf.
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