Talking About a Fried Gone By

When you buy or sell a residential property in Miami, a few weeks after the closing, the sale details get reported in the Herald.  Sure enough, this am, in the Neighbor's Section, I saw the details of our closing on the Palmetto Bay condo -- a testament to my real estate investing acumen.  I bought the place in '06 for $232.5 and sold it 11 years later for $155K.

But two spots above the listing, there was another report from the same condo -- the sale of my former friend's unit -- he was the bigger loser -- he paid $242.5 (his unit faced the pool) and sold the unit for $149K -- to his daughter and her new husband.

And it made me reflect on my friendship with Vince, a friendship that started in 1980, and died a few years ago.  He was the reason I bought the place.  Back in 2005, Miami real estate was soaring in value.  Vince called me, and said he was worried -- our kids, then in late high school, wouldn't be able to afford to live in Miami after college.  He told me about a preview sale of an apartment complex that was becoming condo -- and said we ought to take advantage.

I went with him, and the model was packed, like they were selling cheap burgers.  I looked around, and thought to myself, this is a unit that should sell for the low 100s -- it was a small 2 bedroom unit, in the sort of complex I lived in after college.  Like an idiot, I got caught up in the hype, and plunked down essentially double what I should have.  Sure enough, the crash came the next year -- at one point, following a fire that destroyed 1/3 of the complex, you were lucky to get $75K for the place I paid so much more for.

Vince plunked his son into his unit -- and he was there for years.  Sadly, the young man had drug addiction issues,  and had relapsed.  While Wifey and I were cleaning out our unit, I saw Vince's daughter and ex wife -- he had sold the unit to his daughter for the remaining mortgage balance -- $149K.  His girl and her new husband planned to renovate the unit, live there for a few years, and then flip it -- hopefully making enough to buy a house.  I wish them well.

Our friendship began in college -- we actually met in a Math class, staring from each side at the ample bosom of a young co-ed from the Midwest.  Our Dads went to the same high school in the Bronx -- his Dad was Italian, mine Jewish.  Over the years, we grew up together.  He met his first wife at a party at my on campus apartment, and was with her while he attended medical school and Barbara was in law school.  He sent her papers to end the marriage the week before he got his first paying doctor's job.

His second wife was his baby mama -- but he left her when the kids were young teens, for wife number three.  Number three became divorce number three, but then, later, wife number 4.

As we grew up, we were there for each other -- one of the worst nights of my life was supporting him through the legal kidnap of his son -- taken before he tuned 18 to a Western drug rehab program.  I stayed on the phone as the beefy guys removed his son -- we cried together.

And he helped me when my D needed a procedure -- telling me which surgeon was the best, and assuring me all would be fine.  It was.

Well, after he paid a HUGE alimony settlement, he came to me for a loan -- for a pain clinic he wanted to buy.  I said no -- I had been badly burned when another friend borrowed money for a donut business -- that lead to strains in a friendship that never healed.  Vince was shocked -- how could I refuse him?  I suggested maybe his then ex-wife, now current, might be a better candidate -- she would be financially intertwined with him.  He said no.

Years later, he told me my refusal was the reason he had stopped taking my calls.  The business failed, but he did fine -- going back to work at a local hospital at a very healthy salary.

So the friendship died, and it's just as well.  A few months ago, I had a reunion with another of his former friends, who was friends since grade school.  Vince dropped him, too, and never even called him when his wife died.

I wish him well, of course, and have buried the friendship and moved on.  It's funny, though, how sometimes dry legal records can pop up and remind you of times gone by...