Want to shake things up? Merely attempt a vacation!

Well, the pattern held again for me this week.  I have been in real estate for over a decade now, and pretty much every time I decide to leave town (which has been more rare lately), my business activity seems to explode.  Thankfully, I have a business partner who is great about covering for me when I am away. 

I received offers on two of my listings, and my business partner got an offer on one of his as well.  That may not sound like a tremendous amount, but it is the biggest flurry that we have had in months on our listings.  It seems that I occasionally reach a point when I think that I don't want to list homes anymore, then they all start to sell again.  Overall, the activity picked up dramatically during my getaway to Houston with my family to visit our in-laws and to just be tourists for five days. 

In addition to the good stuff, it seems like the bad things tend to happen during my "away" time as well.  The main page of our site disappeared from Google's index on Sunday evening, only to reappear in a slightly stronger position on the first page last night after we got home.  I credit this one to prayer. 

Not surprisingly, my cell phone apparently decided to give up the ghost (needs a new battery - won't hold a charge) at the same time that a high-maintenance buyer's agent was trying to reach me about one of the aforementioned offers.  I plan to devote an entire post to this agent soon.  It will not be pretty.

I sincerely don't know why I don't leave town more often (barring, of course, the obvious logistical details of travelling with three children and arranging for special care for my mother-in-law who lives with us).  It seems that I almost always end up making a killing financially when I do.  That being said, I am also terrible about checking my voice mails when I am trying to have a good time and relax, so I end up getting a ridiculous number of messages -

"You have....one hundred sixty seven....new messages."

Okay, that is a (slight) exaggeration.  I'm sure that my friends who call on the front end of my vacation (just before I change my outgoing voice mail greeting) assume that I have ditched them and their relationships completely by the time I get around to calling back 10-21 days later.

"Hey, man, sorry it took me so long to get back in touch.  I have been BUSY lately!"

As if I have been too busy to call for five minutes at some point?  But I digress, as usual.

I have a list of "to do" items for tomorrow that could choke a horse.  I have to meet with a client, finalize at least one of the offers, conduct some agent training, follow up with about 70 emails or so, exercise, blog, pray, spend time with my family, sleep, eat, achieve immortality, and floss. 

I can hardly wait to leave town again.  Seriously.