For Sale By Owner

Tonight on my way home, I sat at a stoplight in a town just outside of Rockford, staring at a dilapidated abandoned house.  It is a commercial property, with a commercial real estate sign staked in the tall grass and weeds of the fenced-in pseudo-yard.

I don't know when it exactly it became what it is today, whether it was a slow process or an overnight abandonment.  I only know that four years ago or so, I sat at this same stoplight, staring at this same house, cursing my luck at not being able to secure a meeting inside.  This house was never a house.  It was the design center and central offices of a major home builder whose work my company never secured.  

I pictured the former occupants of the office house, remembering the way my office used to function at the peak of the housing boom, the way the phone never stopped ringing, five to twelve lines lit up all at once.  I wondered which window leads to the room where the receptionist sat when she took my calls, patiently taking my messages for calls that were never returned.

These days, I talk to very few assistants.  The builders that are still standing are doing a lot more of their own administrative tasks.  They call me themselves, they do the scheduling they used to farm out to an army of expeditors and middle-men.  Often, I'm surprised to hear from them at all.  Months pass between new home starts, rather than days.  And occasionally, like today, when they do call, it is to inform us that a developer has surrendered a property back to the bank and the home won't be started, won't be finished, or has been vandalized while nobody was watching.

I thought about the old days for most of my drive home, as I passed at least two more empty sales center buildings constructed to look like giant custom homes, their vinyl siding warping, cracks in the brick visible from the street, gutters starting to pull away already.  I wondered how many of those homes are now sitting empty in the same shape.  I wondered about the admins that I used to talk to every single day.

And there, but for the grace of a seasonally vital industry, go I.