Oh Hi There, Pops
“I wonder if I will fuck this up?” VB DOB: 1/29/38 - DOD: 5/15/88
Michael, Charles, Vincent Jr
He glanced in the rearview mirror; a mess of dark brown collided — the long curly locks of his three sons' hair setting the stage for what was behind them.
They got a flat within the first 100 miles — north on I-95 to Jacksonville before cutting west onto I-10, the southern route, the one that runs straight across the Florida panhandle, the Gulf states, Texas, and the desert before it finally spills you out toward California. His eldest son (prone to car sickness) had already commandeered the middle seat after puking all over his two younger brothers. "The trip to their new home is off to a great start," he joked to himself, after pulling over to physically separate his middle child and youngest — who were somehow still trading shots with Michael between them in the blue-and-white Chevy station wagon.
He was confident in his trade as a mechanical engineer, and he was contributing to a mission worth all of this. He was trekking west with the four people who mattered most. He'd been the first of his family to leave Long Island three years earlier, joining Northrop at Cape Canaveral, engineering the reflective materials that shielded the Apollo capsules on reentry — work that would carry him into the Space Shuttle program, into the tiles and foil that would ride on the Columbia and the Challenger. He connected it to blurry early memories of migrating with his own father from Sicily to Staten Island — the through-line between generations chasing the same dream, just with Sunday gravy and an orchestra of hands, faces, and decibels loud enough to get the hounds howling.
Four more days to Point Mugu, CA, where they'd stay before moving into a home they'd just closed on — bought sight unseen, walking distance to an elementary school, cul-de-sac across the street, or so he was told, with the help of a Realtor his company partnered with to relocate his colleagues and their families to Ventura County.
He'd get involved with the boys' sports teams. Maybe teach one day, after successfully engineering the foil that protected the astronauts on reentry. Temperatures on the capsule's skin climbed toward 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to boil steel twice over — and withstanding that friction and heat, there was no room for error. Any failure on his end would be the difference between life and death.
He'd do as much as he could. For as long as he could. That's the best a man can strive for, he thought — glancing forward and backward at the same time, then to the side at his wife, breathing in the moment with this motley crew. His family.
“I hope I don’t fuck this up.” CB DOB: 10/25/66
Sylvia, Vincent Sr., Michael, Charles, Vincent Jr.
He pulled up on the metal and suctioned it against his left hip. An all-too-familiar sensation as he glanced to the other three pallbearers.
Charles had just graduated from the University of Redlands, class of '88 — the universe extending his curriculum with loss. Three deaths in nine months, maternal and paternal sides, plus his eldest brother in a freak accident. Being the youngest suddenly meant nothing; he was ascending into the responsibility of navigating what his mother's and grandmother's lives would look like now. Law school fell off the plan. He didn't even think real estate was in his future — but working at a café, he struck up a conversation with a Broker/Owner who talked him into studying for his license. Little did he know, that broker had just sold his business, so the job he'd promised was non-existent.
What did it matter? He had his first son on the way. He'd make it work — landing at Century 21 Buenaventura Realty with a mentor. He learned to live with little expectation. Nothing was guaranteed, so he took chances and chased the opportunities in front of him.
Soon he was a father of two, still a husband, a full-time Realtor, and a basketball agent — placing almost-pro players who could live out their childhood dream. He and his business partner placed some of the first American players in burgeoning Asian leagues — a western current flowing east. And at the very same time, the opposite current was flowing back: a kid named Yao Ming was outgrowing the Shanghai Sharks and about to become the first overall pick of the Houston Rockets, China arriving in America the way America had arrived in China. East and west, trading places.
Iron rails ran floor-to-ceiling across the windows — the opposite of inviting. Step inside and a mismatch of splattered reds greeted the eye. Half-exposed bricks, dirt-brown desks turned ash-red, and a saloon-style three-foot swinging plank acting as a bouncer to the misaligned 1-1 desks. There was no toilet — yet. But the bank behind the office had one, so he opened a bank account in order to claim customer status, which enabled him to have bathroom privileges.
Owning a brokerage on California Street wasn't the plan, but he'd made peace with not having a plan — right around the time he and his wife had gotten both kids through college with limited student debt. He'd figured it out this far; he'd keep making it work. But he knew he needed a team of brokers and agents to build the referral flywheel he'd watched the local legends build — the Fred Evanses and Gordon Saues of Ventura County, whose faces had become synonymous with real estate in this community.
How much longer did he really want to work? The DRE numbers on the flyers and open-house signs were getting further and further from his own #01007 beginning. He'd survived the 2008 crash — as Realtor, homeowner, tenant, parent, child, neighbor — and the five hard years after, which had him fielding coffees and lunches from the big-box and investment-backed brokerages chasing him: what would make him sell?
He was grateful — for the referrals, the repeat clients (their children now buying too), the dozen Realtors and property managers in the building he'd acquired. But the future wasn't clear. And somewhere in a weekly phone call with his son, he mentioned one of the offers — and that the terms just didn't add up to make selling worthwhile.
“What if I fuck this up?”
NB DOB: 6/5/91
Nate, Sylvia, Charles
He shook his head side to side, trying to conceal his eyes rolling to the back of his head.
"The Math Ain't Mathin, Pops. Your standard of living is too high to consider not being the sole owner — and you'd still be working through 'retirement.'" I chuckled reviewing the terms. I could tell he still enjoyed representing his clients, still relished being able to name every VC-code by neighborhood in the MLS — a useful trick for showing how long you've been at this, and one of a thousand facts stored in my father's brain, along with the Family Guy, Seinfeld, and Curb Your Enthusiasm references he can deploy at any moment.
"Think about it," I told him. "The median single-family home in Ventura County is pushing a million — about $992,500 as of this spring. To carry it, you'd need to pull in something like $360,000 a year. The median household here makes around $110,000. That's not a market, Pops. That's a moat."
And the supply's the other half of it. Ventura County permits roughly 1.3 new homes a year per thousand residents. Nationally it's 4.3 — more than three times our rate. We're the least affordable place to buy a home in the country, sitting on a shortage north of 30,000 units, and we're not behind by accident. SOAR — Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources — is part of why. Which brings me to the thing my father taught me without meaning to:
Laying seeds for future generations is tricky. In the moment, all the effort goes to protecting what's already growing — and preventing anything else from taking root. The current harvest flourishes, reaches tall, takes up space. In the ground that once held room for the next harvest, the soil is conditioned to allow only certain growth in certain places — building up the weeds, roots deep, stems furry and spiked, greeting anyone who tries to clear the field to plant something new.
Open concept.
Two rows of desks —
Light, airy, bricks exposed, sky blue —
Father had been shamed long enough —
Sun Coast got its much-needed makeover —
Influenced by newer agents with high tastes and higher-pitched cackles —
I soaked up every conversation — broker, agent, client, inspector, videographer, marketer, lender, title rep, committee member — my anemic, porous understanding of real estate filling in as the summer set in. July 17th, I passed the California Real Estate Exam and joined the ranks — DRE #02239995. A number that starts with a 0 and a 2 — a world away from my father's, which begins back where the roster was short and the license numbers still low.
"It must be fantastic to work with your Father!"
"Are you going to take over the brokerage — is that why you're back?"
"What are you getting me for lunch?"
"I'll take a hot Americano on your way in."
"Do me a favor, take the trash out with you."
"You're right — there's time that's been lost. It could've been done another way, like you suggested."
I did my best to keep it off my face. I'd worked a dozen transactions by then; this one involved the ending of a marriage — therapist glasses on over our Realtor pins. Fifty-six days on market, two price improvements, and nothing warmed the chill in that broken home. But the grace my father showed in it — that's what brought back the praise from the brokers, the family friends, the association members who all made the same connection: that I fell from this tree. I was lucky.
Luck won't be what expands Sun Coast, though. Relationship-building only gets me so far past the reputation my father built — among neighbors, colleagues, competitors, and clients who've stayed for decades.
Whether it's the office, a committee meeting, or the hill on NAR Legislative Day, all these contrasting feelings hit a crescendo:
The NAR motto is "If real estate is your profession, then politics is your business." I'd put it differently: IF real estate is your profession, THEN community is the pulse of your business — the people who live here, and the ones who haven't found Ventura County yet, but will. Who want to walk, drive, or bus safely to school and work. Who want strong schools with teachers who can afford to live where they teach. Who want thoughtful regulation that respects homeownership while making room for the next buyer.
Because while we all roam in our own small packs — circling, venturing into each other's groups, trying to expand our footprint — we all, inevitably and luckily, get to call Ventura County home.
Venture to make Ventura a place where everyone has a shot to flourish? Join the conversation.
A Member of the Community,
Nate Bonsignore
