The Best Advice I Never Took

Part 1

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I’ve joked for years that I’m going to write a book called, The Best Advice I Never Took. We all have plenty of stories under that umbrella I would imagine. To kick it off, three of the best pieces of advice I ignored are below and I hope you will leave some of yours in the comments. Maybe we’ll create a book together!

When someone you love deeply dies, don’t make any major decisions for a year.

My father died in December of 2003 and I bought my first house in March 2004. There were a lot of reasons I did it. First, I thought it was how my father would want me to spend the money he left me and I could gain some of the approval I never felt from him when he was alive.  Second, I had someone in my life at the time who knew this and used it to nudge (OK I’ll say it, manipulate) me into purchasing an adorable two-bedroom bungalow in the Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa.

To this day, I don’t know what his true motivation was for pushing me so hard – I had just moved into a new apartment a few months earlier and wasn’t even looking for something else. One afternoon while we were out and about, he drove to a neighborhood I’d never been in before and parked in front of this cute little house with a zero-scaped front yard, a giant oak, and a beautiful magnolia tree. I noticed the for sale sign. He finally admitted he had been looking at houses for me because he thought it would be a great investment.

The real estate agent showed up a few minutes later and showed us around. The house was amazing! It had a fireplace and hard wood floors. Behind it were a pool, a mother-in-law cottage and a pond tucked in a fenced back yard that made you forget you were in the city.

At the time, this part of Tampa was quaint – a neighborhood diner, a Cuban bakery that announced Fresh Bread Now on a neon sign, a few local restaurants and easy access to major thoroughfares and the interstate. Logically, it was the best way to invest my inheritance. Or so I let myself be convinced.

I spent six years there. I threw plenty of parties and loved nothing more than taking care of and using that pool. But in the last three, I struggled tremendously to keep up with the expenses of owning a house built in 1923. In 2008, the real estate market crashed and by the time I admitted to myself that the best thing for me to do was sell, I couldn’t even recoup the balance of the mortgage.

The truth is I wasn’t thinking clearly two months after my father died. I was still grieving. Even though things felt like they’d somewhat returned to normal, they had not. Making a decision this big when I was actually still in shock (my dad was not sick; he literally dropped dead while pumping gas) is not something I would do again. I needed a year, at least, to integrate the reality of his passing into my life. I thought I knew what I wanted, but how could I have? My life had changed forever.

This is advice I will heed in the future.

Don’t buy something unless it has everything you need.

In 1985, I got my first big-girl job. But it was a thirty-minute drive away. Over an hour by bus. Obviously, it was time to get a car.

I found the one I wanted – a shiny metallic blue Plymouth Turismo. It was a stick shift, which I love, and the test drive showed me it had what it took to handle the hills and curves of Pittsburgh. I fell in love.

The only problem was it had no air conditioning. This was before global warming and the cycles of nature had warmed Pittsburgh to the temperatures we see today. My best friend and I used baby oil and an aluminum foil reflector and still couldn’t get a tan in July. Did I really need AC?

If I ordered from the manufacturer rather than taking the one the dealer had, it would be a month or more before it arrived, and the job started in a week. My dad told me to wait. I didn’t even think about it.

I’d live without AC.

A little over a year later, things with the job weren’t going so well – an equal balance of my youth-driven entitlement and a really bad boss. Suffice it to say, my time there ended and within six months I decided to move to West Palm Beach.

FLORIDA.

With no air in my car.

I moved in October, so all was good until March when the winds of Hell blew through and the princess in me was not having it. I had to buy another car.

The trade-in value wasn’t great – selling a manual transmission without air conditioning in Florida – who’d have guessed? I was desperate and there is nothing a car salesman loves more than the smell of desperation in the morning. In the end, I lost a ton of money, both because of the trade-in and the fact that all I could afford was a lease, and a five-year one at that.

Now I wait until I have all of what I need before making a purchase, especially one of that size.

Don’t share a real estate agent with the seller of the property you’re buying.

This lesson is tied to the first.

I knew nothing about buying a house when I purchased that bungalow. Lisa, the seller’s agent couldn’t have been nicer. She took me under her wing and explained the ins and outs, cautioned me about what to look for during the inspections and offered sage advice. She invited me for lunch and coffee and encouraged me to look at other houses before I made a final decision.

Over a glass of iced tea, she told me she could be my agent, too, and I thought: that sounds great! My mom had a different opinion, which I ignored because what the hell did she know having already bought several houses in her life? Lisa was the expert.

We went through the inspection and the subsequent hiccups like termite damage in a sill beam, which required that corner of the house to be lifted off the ground so the beam could be replaced. For the first time in my life, I felt like a real adult. (As an aside, we’re really sold a bill of goods about what defines a responsible grown-up. These days, I ask who’s profiting from my decision and that helps me to be more objective).

Anywho, the closing date came, and I arrived by myself at the title company excited but telling myself if anything went sideways, I was willing to walk. The receptionist ushered me into the conference room. The rep from the title company sat at the head of the table and the couple selling the house sat next to Lisa.

I took a chair on the opposite side of the table by myself.

The power dynamic was clear. She may have been getting the commission from my part of the sale, but she wasn’t representing me, and as it turned out, things did go awry.

When Lisa didn’t offer to look over my mortgage docs, I reviewed them with a fine-tooth comb. Fortunately, I noticed the interest rate was incorrect. Unfortunately, the mortgage broker who’d made the deal was on vacation in Miami.

To no one’s surprise, Lisa jumped in to help the title guy locate him and get the paperwork changed. We were told to grab something to eat – as if my nerves would allow that and come back by 2. Before I left, I told them I was prepared to leave if it wasn’t changed.

Three hours later, we were back at the table with revised documents.

I still remember feeling very alone and wishing I’d heeded my mom’s advice. I had no one to lean on or advise me. But it taught me not to ever buy property without a representative who’s solely mine.

So what great advice have you ignored? Why did you do it? Let us all know in the comments or shoot me an e-mail. I’d love to know I’m not the only one!

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