New Omega

In addition to my consulting business that I’m working to grow, I also have my real estate license on the side. Because of my limited time, I typically work with residential investors, but every so often I enjoy working with home buyers too…

Last year a friend of mine came to me asking questions about real estate. Him and his wife are immigrants who came to the US with little money, and they were nearing the end of a several year journey towards becoming US citizens. With citizenship approaching, my friend was looking to buy his first house, but with limited funding he was weighing purchasing a home versus buying a plot of land over an hour away from his job. I talked him into buying a home, because in the long run building a home from scratch would have cost him far more. It took us nearly the whole year, and we had many hurdles to jump through to obtain financing, but he eventually did become a citizen of the United States last November, and we closed on his house in early December. He got a heck of a great deal too, despite what everyone says about the market. The smile on him and his wife’s faces when I gave them they keys to their home was priceless - I know how hard they worked to make this happen. We all worked hard, it was definitely the most challenging situation I’ve faced to help somebody buy a property.

Since closing, it’s been awesome to see all the work he’s done to his house. This guy would give you the shirt off his back, and whenever someone calls him to help with a house project he drops whatever he’s doing to help. So now that he has a home it has been great to see how many people have been helping him out in return - such the electrician who worked three Sundays to replace the electrical panel and install recessed lighting throughout the house as payment for my friend building him a new deck four years ago. My friend has also refinished all of his wood floors, replaced windows, and has redone one of his two bathrooms so far, and there’s still much more to be done. But he is so happy to be finally working on his own home.

I know, I know, this is a watch forum…

The day before Easter my friend called me to invite me to his birthday party the following day. Of course I wanted to go, and I was also looking forward to seeing some of the renovation work he had completed. So after having a nice holiday dinner with my family I drove up to my friend’s house to give him a gift and celebrate for a bit. But I never thought that I would be receiving a gift as well.

My friend knows that I love watches, especially Omegas. So before I left to head home he gave me a box with an Omega logo on it. “Michael I really appreciate everything you did to help us get the house, so I want you to have this.” Inside was this beautiful quartz De Ville.

For those who have seen my previous watch posts, you know that every watch in my collection has a story. And, now, so does this one. I am happy to wear this piece on my wrist to celebrate our friendship.