Real estate? C'mon, you remember

There was a time when I would have sputtered orange juice across my kitchen table upon reading news of a politician who can't recall how many houses and condos he owns.

"What a dunderhead!" I would have exclaimed indignantly, as I wiped dribble from my chin.

But in recent days, I've found myself using my morning paper to mop tears from my eyes as I read the poignant stories about John McCain's rather untimely bout of asset amnesia.

Although the good senator and I live under decidedly different financial circumstances - I pretty much blew through my beer fortune in my early 20s - I do feel McCain's pain.

As it happens, I recently sold a house in Florida. And I, too, am a victim of real-estate memory loss.

You may have heard the housing market is a wee bit depressed down in the Sunshine State.

OK, I'm soft-peddling. The market in Florida is so bad that wealthy folks are bulldozing entire wings of their McMansions and selling the scrap lumber to make hurricane shutters. It's so bad that even termites are turning up their noses at new listings. It's so bad that a palmetto bug of my acquaintance recently showed up at my office here, beseeching me to allow him and 6,759 of his closest relatives to move into The Virginian-Pilot building, where they could enjoy "a more upbeat climate - you know, a stable workplace, steeped in tradition and not at the mercy of the whims of buyers and sellers."

Oh, sure, I was one of the lucky ones in Florida. At least I managed to attract a buyer for my house, someone who was willing to crush my spirit, flatten my soul and drag the remnants of my battered hopes and dreams through a heaping mound of irate fire ants before forking over what I considered a rather paltry sum for my family's beloved hearth and home.

Then, of course, I promptly turned around and repeated the process here in Hampton Roads.

I blithely subjected myself to long, harrowing car rides with kindhearted Realtors who had only a slightly better sense of direction than I ("Um, that highway sign read 'Welcome to Tennessee.' Are you sure we're not lost?"); invasive demands for documents from mortgage processors ("A copy of my third-grade report card? Is that really necessary? And, I don't mean to be cranky, but you've already confirmed for me FOUR TIMES this week that you've received it. HOW DO YOU KEEP MISPLACING IT?"); and, of course, humiliating encounters with hostile strangers who simply refused to sell me their houses for a pittance - a pittance being the universally accepted sales price for homes these days.

I'm kidding, of course. Some of my favorite people are Realtors, even though their insistence on capitalizing the name of their profession grates on my nerves as a Journalist. The builder who sold me my new home is a gentleman of the highest order. And the folks who bought my house in Florida are fine, fine people who were merely looking out for their own best interests. I love 'em, as-is.

And the mortgage processor? I'm sure she has endearing qualities I would have grown to appreciate, if only I had not spent so much time on the phone on hold while she searched - AGAIN - for verification of my maternal grandmother's aunt's husband's sister's mother-in-law's maiden name. ("I give up! Was it Fannie Mae? That's the secret phrase, isn't it? PLEEEASE LET IT BE FANNIE MAE!")

So, you see, I have nothing but sympathy for John McCain. It's only natural that people purge their memory of the grubby, demeaning experience of buying and selling a house.

And if he went through this for six or seven or eight properties, or whatever the latest count is, it's a really a wonder he remembers his way home at all.

Daryl Lease is an editorial writer and columnist for The Virginian-Pilot. Reach him at (757) 446-2441 or daryl.lease@pilotonline.com.