The Art of the Real Estate Hustle

I was getting a little hard up for cash, and knowing how lucrative the real estate business was, I entered into partnership with another fellow who was nicely dressed, wearing a silk hat and a gold-headed cane, so I knew he was immensely rich. We formed a company. He was the general manager and I was the company. I soon learned that he expected to take all the stamps and I was to get the experience. Firstly, I got it by telling all I knew of the situation of the land I tried to sell. If a lot was ten feet under water I said so; and if it was so steep a rocky mountain goat couldn't scale it without wings on his feet, I said so. He said, 'There is the Sunset addition to this place, that’s where we will operate. We have got to color it a little.' 'Color' means a glowing description of the property. Sum of this land is under water half the year—we must say it is high and dry. We could draw a map with a street car line running right past them and send these maps by mail to eastern men—they buy according to the maps. Then we will get some photographs of the town as it will look 10 or 20 years from now and folks will think it is the present town. Well, we did it, and we struck up a big business. But the doleful part of my story comes in. Some fellers came to look over the town. My partner was away and I had to do all the lying. The men asked me where was their lots, I showed them on the plot. They went out to view them and came back disgusted. They went home and published an exposure of what they called fraud. It gave us a black eye. It knocked our business higher than a kite.