Real Estate Lament
I hesitate to make a list
Of all the countless deals I’ve missed:
Bonanzas that were in my grip-
I watched them through my fingers slip.
The windfalls, which I should have bought
Were lost because I over-thought:
I thought of this, I thought of that;
I could have sworn I smelled a rat.
And while I thought things twice,
Another bought them at the price.
It seems I always hesitate,
Then make my mind up much too late.
A very cautious man I am.
And that is why I never buy.
How Nassau and how Suffolk grew!
North Jersey! Staten Island, too!
While others culled those sprawling farms
And welcomed deals with open arms-
A corner here, ten acres there,
Compounding values year by year.
I chose to think, and as I thought,
They bought the deals I should have bought.
When tracts rose high on Sixth and Third,
The prices asked I felt absurd;
Whole block-fronts – bleak and black with soot
Were priced at thirty bucks a foot!
I wouldn’t even make a bid,
But others did- Yes! Others did!
When Tucson was cheap desert land
I could have had a heap of sand.
When Phoenix was the place to buy,
I thought the climate much too dry!
“Invest in Dallas- That’s the spot!”
My sixth sense warned me I should not.
A very prudent man am I
And that is why I never buy.
The golden chances I had then
Are lost, and will not come again.
Today I cannot be enticed
For everything’s so overpriced.
The deals of yesterday are dead;
The market’s soft—and so’s my head!
Last night I had a fearful dream;
I know I wakened with a scream.
Some Indians approached my bed-
For trinkets on the barrelhead
(In dollar bills worth twenty-four,
Nothing less and nothing more)
They’d sell Manhattan Isle to me;
The most I’d go was twenty-three.
The Redman scowled: “Not on a bet!”
And sold to Peter Minuit.
At times a teardrop drowns my eye
For deals I had but did not buy.
And now life’s saddest words I pen-
If only I’d invested then!
Author Unknown. This poem was published in Farm and Land Magazine – October 1917
