That's class act there buddy. I have two instances that really stick out in my mind on people whom did something for me when they didn't need to.
One was "our" Alex who bought me a nice bottle of Scotch just for taking him to a good place to buy an oven for his Sis.
Second was a guy whom I "sponsored" when he was trying to quit dipping. By chance he ended up living just 45 miles from us. All I did was Text or called him to check on him frequently and gave him access to contact me anytime he was in trouble. He sent us a nice Christmas package plus it turned out he was a pilot and we can now get free airfare from SW anytime we want plus he has his own plane and he will fly us around just for short trips or just for kicks.
That does show a good man, I agree...
heres a long story for you...
Back when we were building, I built a house for a nice young-ish couple, they were looking to buy a house already built but their wants and budget were no where near each other, like 90% of buyers... So I met them when they looked at one of my model homes and they loved it, but they were only preapp'd for $499K, they could get a little higher but they would have had to cash in 401K's and sell half of their belongings, which their realtor was trying to talk them into...
So they were in love with my model home, which was $650K way out of their range... Anyone that has ever looked at a development knows that you treat the model home like an office, so in one bedroom I had a table with chairs and blueprints, drafting table, ect... I pulled up to the model one sunday afternoon to meet a real estate agent, and that couple was sitting in the back yard of at a picnic table we set up, eating lunch lol, So I seen the car and seen them back there. They were apologising and embarrassed, and I was like "feel free to eat lunch here when ever you want, I am not selling this house until all the others are built", I had my meeting, and was about to leave and they were still there..
I went back to tell them I was leaving and for them to have a nice afternoon, thats when they told me they were trying to get money together to have me build the identical house as my model, it was perfect, even the colors, and the floors {in my model homes I would do all different floors in each room, so buyers could see the difference between hand scraped black walnut for $48 a sq ft and high gloss washed maple for $9... It sometimes turned people off because you normally do all the same floors through a house...} They even loved that part of the house, and your least valuable lot is normally the first corner lot on the traffic direction side, so you build your model there, since you are normally lucky to break even with it....
ANYWAY I asked them to come in and said I would look over their financial situation... I went through it with them for an hour, and they could not afford a $500K {which they were approved for} never mind any more than that... They were young and kind of confused, the realtors, bankers, builders, ect all told them they could afford it, no surprise there, but the truth of the matter was they could NOT... After I wrote it all down and showed them on paper, they understood it... They could afford around $380K and still live...
So, I took them for a ride, we went and looked at a model home a friend of mine built and sold to his sister but got back about 8 months later. It was not on the market yet, and he offered it to me at a steal... I took them there and they were familiar with the development, I had the code so wen tin and showed them around... They loved it but figured now they couldn't afford it.. I explained the entire situation, and said he offered it to me for $400K even, which is still over what you should spend but a heck of a deal {at the time, now its worth about what they paid maybe a little less, still not bad considering}, so to wrap this story up, I called my buddy and made the deal at $390K for them, he held the mortgage for a few months so they could get out of the deal with their agent {who was a bitch and I normally wouldn't have done something like that, but I don't like her at all, she used to leave coffee cups all over my properties and she lied to all her clients, and then I as the seller would look like a douche}.
So they were so happy that I did that for them from our conversations they new a frequented a certain local restaurant happened to be related to the owner of, they gave me a "free dinner for 2 for life" gift certificate, lol Now I am not sure if it cost them anything but when ever we go there I eat for free {I always end up leaving a really good tip because I feel funny just paying for drinks}... It may have been one of the coolest gifts I ever got...
