We recently came across this poem about investing in property, and thought you might find it interesting. Once you have read it, and only then, take a look at the date of first publication. Makes you think!

I hesitate to make a list
Of all the countless deals I’ve missed.
Bonanzas that were in my grip
I watched through my fingers slip.
The windfalls that I should have caught
Were lost, because I over-thought.
I thought of this, I thought of that
I could have sworn I smelled a rat;
And whilst I thought things over twice
Another grabbed them at the price.

It always seems I hesitate
Then make my mind up much too late
A very cautious man am I
And that is why I never buy.

How Nassau and how Suffolk grew
New Jersey, Statten Island too
When others culled those sprawling farms
And welcomed deals with open arms
A corner here, ten acres there
Compounding values year by year
I chose to think,
And as I thought
They bought the deals I should have bought

The golden chances I had then, are lost
And will not come again
Today I cannot be enticed
For everything’s so overpriced
The deals of yesteryear are dead
The market’s soft
And so’s my head

At times a teardrop drowns my eye
For deals I had, but did not buy
And now life’s saddest words I pen
“If only I’d invested then!”

Farm and Land Realtor Magazine
October 1917 – nearly one hundred years ago!