Comparing the 130th Rose Parade's Finish & a Real Estate Transaction

  Comparing the 130th Tournament of Rose’s Parade’s finish and a Real Estate Transaction...

First you might ask how did the Rose Parade’s Finish, remind me of a Real Estate Transaction? Well, allow me to digress a bit.

“Proper Planning Prevents  P… Poor Performance”, has been pounded in my brain when I was in a Cadet at USMA and it continued to be reinforced in Ranger School and my entire time in the military.

 This concept of proper planning has stayed with me all my life. From planning vacations or handling special or ordinary assignments at work, the concept empowered me to prepare for any situation . I was always prepared for different scenarios, options and potential challenges that might need overcoming. Just like when I used to play chess and planned six or eight options with every move. Yes, it continued to stay with me in a Real Estate Transaction too.

 Augmenting security for the Boston Marathon the principles were the same. The Boston Marathon entailed a lot of planning and coordination between various agencies, from Security, Police, Fire Dept, First Responders and the list goes on and on.   I was involved in the Command Center and near the finish line, clearly a very small part of the big picture, never the less I was able to see the entire planning, coordination and quality control as the John Hancock Security Leadership provided seamless security to the Marathon.

If you watched the entire  Rose Parade  on Tuesday, you might have wondered what a strange finish, what happened? Well there was a float that malfunctioned and caused a traffic jam near the end of the Parade. “The Chinese American Heritage Foundation’s train float”  had what it looked like, either a small fire or their transmission blew (white smoke). This in turn called for a large tow truck to rescue and move them off the middle  of the Parade Route.

The float depicted two locomotives meeting face to face upon the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. The Tow Truck tried to move it out of the way, but was unable to do it.

Hence things that ran through my head were, that the organizers were not properly prepared for various contingencies. Clearly someone like me who has watched the Parade year after year. I knew that the planners  did not consider every situation.

Over the years I have seen many floats break down and two or more tow trucks were prepared and stepped in when needed. The size of the floats determined the type of response. Clearly that was not the right response in this case. Inaddition, I noticed that there was a shortage of crowd control and a shortage of communication between the crowd control and the spectators.

Numerous floats backed up behind the disabled Float.  Bands  tried to maneuver around the floats,  one of the Norther European Bands from Sweden was in the traffic jam. Not only did they meet the “obstacle of the float” then they were met by spectators who thought that the Parade has ended, due to poor crowd control. They were obstructing traffic as well.

There has been a change at the Leadership Level of the Tournament of Rose’s and clearly the new leader was not a ‘Leader’. The finish was poor. Not wanting to take away from the fantastic floats and the hard work the volunteers and the various teams that made it possible the Parade ended on a poor note.

This of course reminded me of a Real Estate Transaction, as Realtors we must handle a number of different agencies and if we include them and handled them as a” Team” we end up having a successful finish i.e.: a “ Closing”. If we do not, then it can become an obstacle near the finish line and might result either in poor closing or no closing at all.

Either way, the Buyers and Sellers are seldom aware of all the drama that is involved and all the coordination that is involved in the background when we have a “smooth finish”.