I had to blog this article from The Wall Street Journal you guys. Guys just buying properties with their brains turned off. Let’s start with the case of Cliff & Faith Zelenko shall we?
Faith Zelenko ’s husband, Cliff, called her at work one day to tell her there was something he wanted to show her. That night, he took her to a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “Cliff opens the door and says, ‘This is your new home,’ ” recalled Ms. Zelenko. “I was, like, are you kidding me? You’re joking, right?” Then she burst into tears.
RP.com: Cliff you’re lucky Faith didn’t just serve you papers. The old “I want to show you something line” hasn’t worked since college.
To surprise her for her 40th birthday, Mabel Simpson ’s husband, Hugh, bought a 1930s home in Richardson, Texas. “When I saw that it was a signed contract, it practically gave me a heart attack,” Ms. Simpson said. The two had looked at the dilapidated house a few months earlier, but Ms. Simpson thought it was out of their price range and needed too much renovation.
RP.com: What’s your deal, Hugh? Mabel already said no. You think this is gonna make for a good story down at the club? Yeah — place is a total dump and my wife hates it but I bought it anyway. Hugh this is earth. Come in Hugh.
While Betty Ryberg was away on a girls’ trip to the beach, her husband, Greg, went to a foreclosure auction to look for commercial-property investments in their hometown of Aiken, S.C. Instead, he walked out of the auction with a $995,000 carriage house he’d never set foot in. Afterward, he called his wife and nervously told her “I bought a house,” Ms. Ryberg recalled. “It was like an ‘I-ran-into-your-car’ kind of voice.”
RP.com: You know what Greg? Betty was probably having a really nice girl’s trip at the beach until you called. You’re lucky she came home. To you and that stupid carriage house.
Motasem Khashoggi, a lawyer who lives in Saudi Arabia, knew his wife, Samah, loved Los Angeles and had “always dreamed of having a place there.” For their 20th anniversary, he signed a contract on a 17th-floor condo at the Carlyle Residences in Westwood for nearly $4 million—unbeknown to his wife. In July, when the family was visiting L.A., he took his wife and kids to the apartment and showed them around, then handed his wife the keys. “It was a big risk,” Mr. Khashoggi said. “If she hadn’t liked it or thought we should spend the money otherwise, it would have been an embarrassing situation.”
RP.com: Uh – no shit Motasem – could have been real embarrassing. I can practically see Samah rolling her eyes. And in front of the kids too! Motasem, Motasem, Motasem.