Land Buyer's Nightmare

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 which I should have bought
Were lost because I over thought:
I thought of this, I thought of that,
I could have sworn I smelled a rat.
And while I thought things over twice
Another grabbed them at the price.

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

How Nassau and how Suffolk grew!
North Jersey! Staten 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.

Last night I had a fearful dream
I know I wakened with a scream:
Some men approached my bed-
For trinkets on the barrelhead
(In dollar bills worth twenty-four
And nothing less and nothing more)
They'd sell Manhattan Isle to me,
The most I'd go was twenty-three
Those men scowled: "Not on a bet!"
And sold to Peter Minuit.

At times a tear drop 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

Although it's still relevant today, this poem about land was published in the Farm and Land Realtor Magazine more than 85 years ago. Almost all good real estate stories revolve around "I should have bought", "I would have bought" or "I could have bought".