Test Your Knowledge: Real Estate Trivia

Writings about residential real estate and all things home, by Cynthia Cummins of Kindred SF Homes.

Send us your score (between 0 and 7) to [email protected] Them with the most points wins a prize – to be revealed in a future Digest edition. (Extra points for creative and entertaining comments that accompany your submission. Extra points for sending this Digest post to anybody and everybody in your sphere; one point for every share – just give us the total number.)

1. “There’s no place like home.” True or false?

True. But its origin is debatable. Number 23 in the top 100 American movie quotations, this phrase was invoked by Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz. The character says something almost identical in the Frank Baum novel of 1900, but it was also the last line in the 1822 song Home! Sweet Home! Regardless of its source, it’s true – possibly because it’s vague enough to cover any unique home experience.

2. “The way you live in a place and the way you sell are two entirely different things.” Who said this?

Cynthia Cummins. I remind sellers of this, as they contemplate purging possessions, moving out before marketing, or paying for staging. In a sophisticated market like San Francisco, selling a house is about 3 parts theater to 1 part reality.

3. “Home is where one starts from.” Who put this in a poem?

T.S. Eliot. A great first line from Four Quartets “East Crocker,” a poem you might want to read sometime. Eliot started in St. Louis, Missouri and suffered from a congenital double inguinal hernia as a child. This meant he didn’t get to play with other children and spent a lot of time alone. Hence, he became interested in – you guessed it – literature!

4. “The fellow who owns his own home is always just coming out of a hardware store.” What wisecracker coined this gem?

Kin Hubbard. The humorist’s humorist, who also said, “The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them.” The hardware-store quote is self-explanatory.

5. “Buyers don’t buy in a buyer’s market.” What genius offered this tidbit of wisdom?

Cynthia Cummins, again. The “right moment” always seems to be in the past – a phenomenon that buyers inevitably experience if they wait for the market to reach the bottom. (It’s a buyer’s market right now, btw.)

6. “Home is the nicest word there is.” Who made this treacly declaration?

Laura Ingalls Wilder. Wilder endured plenty of “not nice” hardships growing up on the prairie, including near starvation, poverty, violence and life-threatening winter weather. It’s a wonder she survived her childhood and managed to learn to read and write. As for writing the classic “Little House” books, that’s a whole other miraculous thing!

7. “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” Who actually penned this clever line?

Not Mark Twain. This favorite San Francisco aphorism is usually misattributed to Twain. He did say, “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.” But nobody knows where that famous SF summer quote originated.

Photo Credit: Joshua Sortino