Nancy Gibbons sat on one side of the conference table. Nathan, her lawyer, sat to her right and her most senior agent sat on her left. Carol Rasmussen joined the agency a few months after it got started. The other parties sat on the other side. Nancy had recently come into a windfall and was looking to invest the money. The interest rates were incredibly low and she didn't like the risk of the stock market. However, she was well aware that real estate in the region was lucrative.
Having just turned 43, her husband of 22 years was killed in an accident while on the job. So not only did his life insurance pay off, but her husband's employer coughed up a healthy settlement. She owned a real estate office in town that employed a half dozen realtors, so she would have been able to live comfortable even without the settlement. Now she was trying to work out a deal with a seller that was looking to unload a couple of properties.
Nancy put on a pair of reading glasses and looked at the documents outlining the properties she was looking to buy. Included were pair of buildings that contained a half dozen of townhouses in each building in an upscale part of town and a small office building which she thought she would move her business to. She knew that with the rental market in the state that it was in, she would be able to rent the townhouses with no problem and would clear a few hundred a month on each of them.
Nancy leaned over to her lawyer and showed him the papers, they agreed that all was in order the prices were more than satisfactory. She turned back to the seller, "Gerry, I think this all looks good and I'm ready to move forward."
A smile formed on Gerry's face, "I was hoping so. When you said you needed a little more time, I started to get worried."
It was Nancy's turn to smile, "It wasn't a question of if, it was really more a question of talking to my staff to take on rental work. It's not what we normally do and had to get set up for."
Nancy rose out of her chair and leaned across the table to shake Gerry's hand, "We'll let the lawyers do their thing and get this deal done."
They made their way out of the conference room when Gerry tugged on Nancy's elbow. Nancy turned around to look at Gerry, "Uh, Nancy, there's one more property I'm wondering if you'd be interested in."
"Oh?"
"Do you have a few more minutes?" Gerry asked quietly.
Nancy turned and looked out the conference room door, "Nathan, please let me know when you have all the papers drawn up. And Carol, I'll meet you in my office in just a few moments." Nancy closed the door and sat down next to Gerry.
"So, what's up?" Nancy asked, her interest a little piqued as this was not something that she anticipated.
Gerry set a file folder on the table and clasped his hands together on top of it, "Well, I have one other property that I would like to sell. As I've already told you, my wife and I are looking to travel around for a while and this is a property that she and I have lived on for a number of years."
"You want to sell your house, I can have one of my agents work with you, commission free, just expenses."
Gerry turned and looked at Nancy, "That's incredibly generous of you. But it's not just a house."
"Okay."
"It's on some acreage."
"Okay. How much acreage?" Nancy asked, furrowing her brows.
"A little over a thousand," Gerry replied. He reached into the file folder and pulled out some photographs and slid them over to Nancy.
The photos showed the house to be a quaint two story Victorian style house that was nicely landscaped. The inside photos indicated that it had been recently remodeled with a lot of natural wood.
"This is beautiful, Gerry," Nancy said in genuine admiration.
"Thank you," he replied as he slid over another set of photos showing the grounds.
"Gerry, the land is gorgeous," Nancy exclaimed, not looking up from the pictures. She could tell that it was a rolling landscape, meadow like, bordered by a mountain range on one side and trees everywhere. "You live here?"
Gerry nodded his head, "Yep, my wife and I. Of course our kids did too until they up and moved out for college and now have lives of their own."
"Gerry, yes, I'd be very interested in this. But why didn't you bring this up when we were talking about the other properties."
"Well, there's one other thing," Gerry said as he reached in the file folder for one last set of pictures. "I figured maybe it should just be the two of us that has at least the initial discussion. I want the land to be kept intact and not subdivided."
"I can understand why. I would never dream of breaking this up," Nancy said still looking over the aerial photos of the property.
Nancy looked at him quizzically as she took the pictures. Her brows raised as she looked at the first two. "Gerry, there's a lot of people in these pictures. And..." she didn't finish as she went through more of them. She didn't utter and single word until she had looked at all of them.
"Gerry, these pictures, all of the people, well, they're naked."
Nancy turned again and looked through the pictures again. Gerry avoided saying anything until she had a chance to take it all in. Some of the pictures were of people laying out in the sun, some hiking along a trail, some in a canoe on one of the lakes that could be found on the property. There were some that showed couples in an embrace.
"Nancy, you see, my wife and I bought this twenty years ago pretty much as you see it now. That was after we had visited there a few times and fell in love with the place and the lifestyle."
She looked at Gerry after his last comment, "Lifestyle?"
"My wife and I have been nudists ever since we were first married."
Nancy slid the photos back, "Gerry, I don't know."
"Nancy, you don't have to live there if you don't want to. Although it does need a full-time manager there. But I know how you feel about open spaces and not dividing up property just to throw more houses that look more like boxes than anything else. I want to make sure that this is never sold and subdivided."
"But what about all, all these people?"
"Well, the land was opened up for nudists long before I bought it and there are some people who have been members for longer than me. I'm hoping that if you do buy this, that you'll keep it the way it is."
"But, Gerry, I'm not a nudist nor can I ever see myself being naked in front of, well, strangers."
"I know how you feel. My wife and I were like that too at first. But just the same, you don't have to, find someone to manage it for you."
"I don't know." Nancy looked again at the pictures. She adored the property and Gerry knew where her weak spot was; there was no way she'd want to see this land divided up and she knew full well that just about any other property investor would. She watched as Gerry picked up the pictures and put them back in the file folder. "Can I think about it?"
"Of course, Nancy. Here, hold on to these. There's also a legal description of the property, assessments, and other information that I'm sure you'll find useful."
Gerry got up and straightened his suit coat, "Just think about it, okay?"
Nancy also got up and tucked the file folder under her arm. She looked at Gerry and smiled, "I will Gerry. I promise I will."
Nancy opened the door, shook hands and she watched as Gerry made his way to the front and out the door. She took the folder and opened it, quickly glancing at the pictures again, pausing at the ones showing the nude people. With a sigh, she closed the folder and made her way to her office. Just as she asked, Carol was waiting for her in her office.