Luxury Home Blog - Russ Lyon Sotheby's International Realty: When disaster strikes close to home

By John N. Vatistas

How many of us take things for granted? I know I sometimes do. My house. My city. My neighbors. My friends. My business. Life in general.

We really do have it easy. Access to supermarkets filled with food. Pharmacies filled with medication. Utilities companies that makes our live flow with the necessary power to live comfortably.

Our entire life is surrounded by order built over the tentacles of time. What we, who take things for granted forget, is how fast all of that order can come crashing down. How all these things that we depend for life can so quickly disappear.

Then we wonder who we really are. What we’re made of. What’s really important.

The other day, a massive monsoon happened here in Phoenix.It happens from time to time, but I’ve never seen one this bad. The desert rose up and reminded us who really is boss.

100 mile an hour winds. 100,000 people without power.

Like so many of my neighbors, my home was down for close to 48 hours with no power. In the big scheme of things it may not seem like much but when the temperature outside is in triple digits you realize that man’s attempt to conquer nature can sometimes be quite the folly.

We were forced to leave our home and seek shelter elsewhere. Either a hotel with power or with family outside the damage zone.

It was depressing being without a home. I felt lost. Unsettled. I couldn’t think clearly since I wasn’t able to sleep without air conditioning and it was sweltering. I kept thinking the power would come back on soon. It didn’t.

The next day, the power was still out. Without electricity, there was no TV or radio. No cell service. No Internet. No voice of authority telling us what was happening. No order.

For me, being in the real estate business, it had a grounding effect. Today my industry is ripe with monsoons that occur daily as families just like mine are losing their for a whole host of reasons. For those who are enduring it, it’s not a 2-day affair without power. For them, it’s a life changing ordeal. One that can last a lifetime.

Home. A place that is all yours. Where you step inside, close the doors and shut out all the ills of the world. When that’s taken away from you, albeit a day or two or forever, you realize that real estate isn’t all about grinding a seller over the last penny, how much commissions my Realtor made or what my loan officer charged me in fees. None of that is really important. Not in the grand scheme.

What is important, what really only ever matters is how much for granted we take the simple pleasures for. Like family. Like comfort. Like home.

The media has made the word “home” a four-letter word. Going through this whole mess, my “home” was all I could think about and how much it really means to kick off my shoes, flick on a light switch, love my family and enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

This event changed my perspective that in reality should have been changed long ago. But sometimes, I guess, disaster needs to strike home to make you fully appreciate what’s at stake. And what loss is really like. And how nothing should ever be taken for granted.