For some years we watched a charming little place that a real estate investor had acquired at such a partition sale.  It was first offered “in the rough.”  Then the abandoned household gear and accumulated trash were removed.  With growing nervousness the investor applied a coat of paint to the house and hung neat painted shutters at the windows.  He tore down dilapidated outbuildings and converted the barn into a garage.  The place still hung unplucked on his commercial tree.  After three dismal years he parted with it at a price but little above that paid at the partition sale.

It was a desirable property but the investor had been over greedy and had put his original asking price far too high.  By the time he was chastened enough to listen to reasonable offers, most of the prospective buyers had crossed that place off their list.  The ultimate purchaser acquired a real bargain by happening along at the psychological moment when the investor was sick of his deal and ready to part with it at little or no profit.

This was, of course, very much a matter of luck.  It is also a matter of luck when buyer and seller deal directly with each other to mutual advantage.  For that reason it is poor economy to try dispensing with the services of a real estate broker.  A reliable one is an invaluable guide, mentor, and friend to the lamb fresh from the city.  Let him know what you want and what you are willing to pay and he will do his best to find it.  If a place interests you, look it over well but don’t insist on so many showings that you wear out the patience of its occupants.  Never, never belittle any property in the hearing of its owner.  There are all too many people, cocksure but ignorant of human nature, who believe this helps to get a bargain.  It works just the opposite.  One would not expect to please a man by telling him that his son was wall-eyed and therefore no asset.  The same man is no better pleased at hearing that his house is ugly or that the interior is something to shudder at.  The prospective buyer who admits he covets the house but cannot quite meet the purchase price is much more apt to get the benefit of easier terms.

Real estate buying is still a dicker business.  Get your own idea of values and then make an offer—­to the broker.  It is part of his job to negotiate this difference between asking and actual purchasing price.  Theoretically buyer and seller should be able to meet and discuss the little matter of price in sensible and friendly fashion.  Actually, there is usually as much need of a diplomat here as between two nations.  One very successful broker recently admitted that he tries to keep buyer and seller apart as much as possible when negotiating the details of price, terms, concessions and the like.  He stated that it is amazing how ordinarily sensible people, in the heat of a dicker over a piece of property, can get at a practical deadlock over the disposal of a cord of wood or whether a cupboard, worth possibly five dollars, is to be left with the house or removed.