Hello Everyone,

I am excited to share this tale with all of you.  I wonder if anyone else has a client/friend like this?

There is a 75 year old, white haired gentleman I met on January 18,2002.  He received a post card I sent out and I ended up listing his mobile home in Rapid City, South Dakota and selling it for $12,500.  He said he wanted to move to Nebraska, he was single and wanted to find a girlfriend and wasn't having any luck here at the local senior citizen center and the dances they have. 

I wished him all the best and he was on his way.  A few months later he calls me and says he is back in Rapid City because the "pickins" at the senior citizens center in the small Nebraska town he lived in were worse than here in Rapid City.  He also wanted to look for a home.  In the $200,000 range.  I thought to myself, "WHAT?"  He explained that he was receiving these huge checks from a lawsuit dealing with asbestos that he was infected with in the military decades ago.

So we went shopping for a home and he went shopping for a girlfriend.  We found a great home and he found a girlfriend who became his wife.  (Wonder if the nice home had anything to do with finding the girl?)  He called me about 2 weeks later and said he wants to put the home on the market as he is getting an anulment of the marriage.  Seems like his new wife would not return his affections.   I said, OK and we put the home on the market, he lost about $15,000 and I found him a nice doublewide mobile home to purchase in the same mobile home park I first met him in.

In the next several months, he found a new girlfriend who didn't mind living in this new doublewide, and they got married.  But I got a call from him a few weeks later, and the lady left him (maybe she did mind living in a doublewide mobile home) and he wants to sell the home and wants me to find him a nice home in a town just 40 minutes outside of Rapid City.  He said he is giving up on this senior center and heard the one in this other town was really hopping.  So I sold the trailer, in which he lost about $20,000,  found him a home in this other town and wished him all the best.

6 months later came the call.  He found a nice gal there, married her,  and they both decided to move to Rapid City.  So they bought a nice doublewide again in the same trailer park and I wish I could say they lived happily ever after, but I CAN"T.   She decided to leave him and go back to her home town, I sold the doublewide for him, he lost another $18,000 and sold him a nice brick home in the center of town. 

The girl from out of town decided to come back, sold the brick home at a loss of $30,000 and they bought another brand new double wide, same trailer park.   This lasted about 6 months or so until I received another call and she had left him again, he wants to sell the doublewide and he has already bought a singlewide mobile home in a different mobile home park.  He lost $19,000 on this home, said he was done with this gal and he will be perfectly happy living in the singlewide alone.

This last sale just happened last week.  Today, guess what?  They are back together and want to buy a nice home again, no manufactured homes, etc.   I just can't believe it.  I should also mention that everytime he got a divorce he traded in his new car, for a shinier new car.   The big checks are still rolling in.  I am making money, he is happy buying and selling, we have become good friends in the past 5 years, and I am showing them 5 homes tomorrow morning.

"WHAT A COUNTRY!!!"

Duane Hosek in the Black Hills of South Dakota    www.duanehosek.com    duanehosek@hotmail.com