Think house prices are through the roof? We recently came across this poem about investing in property, and thought you might find it interesting. Once you have read it, and only then, take a look at the date of first publication. Makes you think!
“PROPERTY INFLATION”
I hesitate to make a list
Of all the countless deals I’ve missed.
Bonanzas that were in my grip
I watched through my fingers slip.
The windfalls that I should have caught
Were lost, because I over-thought.
I thought of this, I thought of that
I could have sworn I smelled a rat;
And whilst I thought things over twice
Another grabbed them at the price.
It always seems I hesitate
Then make my mind up much too late
A very cautious man am I
And that is why I never buy.
How Nassau and how Suffolk grew
New Jersey, Statten Island too
When 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
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 yesteryear are dead
The market’s soft
And so’s my head
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!”
Farm and Land Realtor Magazine
October 1917 – over one hundred years ago!
