This past weekend I drove up to Columbus Ohio in order to help my daughter move her things back to St. Louis
after having graduated from "The" Ohio State University and as the Robert Cray song said, "The Forecast Called For Pain!".
The Weather Service was predicting a winterly mix along Interstate 70. The storm was supposed to arrive here in St. Louis during the evening hours, so Kathy and I decided to get a jump on it by leaving as soon as she got off work. So, I got the truck ready, picked up the Uhaul and we hit the road at 4:00 pm on Friday.
After fighting our way out of St. Louis rush hour traffic, we got as far as the Ohio/Indiana state line where we stopped for the night. When we awoke it wasn't snowing yet, but the air was thick with moisture and you could tell that it was going to start at any moment.
I parked the truck and trailer to run into the McDonald's to grab some breakfast and when I came out, it had started. We hopped back on the highway and out ran it for a bit. We had no sooner gotten the trailer backed up to her apartment when the storm arrived in Columbus. Wanting to waste no time, we went to work getting her stuff loaded.
As we did several of her neighbors expressed their condolences that we were moving on such a crappy day. Fortunately, Whitney didn't have all that much stuff and we got it all loaded in a couple of hours. So, with a hug and a kiss, we were off on our return drive back to St. Louis. Only this time, we knew that we were going to be driving into the teeth of the storm.
We had no sooner gotten on I-70 when it came to a complete stand still. After sitting for about 15 minutes, we decided to see if we could navigate around the accident, so we got off of the highway.
Now, I've been to visit Whitney on several occasions, but I'm definately don't know my way around Columbus and we didn't even have a local map. As it turned out, by using a certain amount of common sense and by being pretty lucky, we made it back to the highway after the blockage.
That problem solved, we drove into the thick of the storm! The forecast had it right. The driving sucked! Kathy
counted over 20 vehicles, including a big 18 wheeler off the side of the highway. I was stressing big time. To the point where I was becoming ineffective as a driver when some azzhole blasted by me going a good 20 mph faster than everyone else on the road. That's when a funny thought crossed my mind,
"Have you ever noticed that when you're driving in these conditions that anybody driving slower than you are is stupid and that anybody driving faster than you are is a nut? "
Well, that thought broke the ice (ha, ha....I said ice....wasn't that funny). Anyway, I decided that I needed to adjust my out look on things right then and there. No matter what, I was going to have to make it back to St. Louis, so it really didn't matter how long it took. If we had to stop, we had to stop. If we had to slow down, we'd slow down.
So, that's what we did. Did it get nasty out? Oh yeah! But, we made it through by putting one foot in front of the other and being careful.
Thinking about this drive made me wonder if this current storm in the real estate and mortgage banking world won't turn out the same way?
Have quite a few companies slid off of the road? Have a few of them been big companies that you wouldn't have thought would make the mistakes that they have? Is there a good chance that the storm will get worse before it gets better? Can you still get to where you need to go by being careful and by taking things one step at a time?
I think that the answer is yes....this storm was bad, but we made it through and the storm did eventually pass. I think that the current storm in real estate will be the same way.
R.B. "Bob" Mitchell
ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.
Bob Mitchell is the president of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. To find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program please feel free to visit our web page, valuelistre.com
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