Words to blog by

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." After hearing this spoken by the controversial Rev. Wright I had to wonder if it is entirely true. A quick search attributes it to a similar passage in Proverbs and shows it was used by Abe Lincoln in a notable speech. Can I Argue with that? I think I walk that thin line every time I open my mouth or put "pen to paper" here or anywhere.

Your Second Realtor.

Once you buy a house and work with that one agent of course you should call them right up when you choose to sell your home. Do it regardless of who you have met in the last 7 years or whatever your perception of them was when you parted ways at the closing table.

There are 2 reasons people use the same Realtor more than once. One: They got great service from an educated, real world professional that kept the clients' interests ahead of all others. Two: They are afraid they will find out that they didn't get great service from an educated, real world professional that kept the clients' interests ahead of all others.

People don't like to be told they have made the wrong decision, they don't want to hear it from me or that little voice inside their heads. Why risk it, that Realtor was OK? I would like to think that the people that worked with me know that they got great service from an educated, real world professional that kept the clients' interests ahead of all others and this advice will not bite me in the behind. If you have doubts about the service you received, you don't owe it to anyone to call them straight away, you owe it to yourself to shop around like you would for any big decision.

Ribs and Real Estate

Leave it to me to find a way to liken cooking ribs to selling real estate, but I think I have found a way. The parallels were so many I had to share. This weekend I had the honor of hosting both a casual reception after my infant daughter's baptism and a back yard barbecue for my older daughters 5th birthday. I spent Saturday making arrangements, one of the things I did was boil the baby back ribs I intended to smoke on Sunday. After an hour or so simmering on the stove I pulled the ribs and left the pot to reduce into my special sauce. After a night in the fridge the ribs looked average. They were bland in color, almost gray, the bones showed through in spots and they almost looked unappetizing.
Later on Sunday I put the first rack on the grill, in less than two hours, those gray, cold, unappealing ribs transformed by the way of smoke, heat and slathered on liquid love into the best ribs I had ever eaten. Think of that smoke, heat and sauce as preparing your home for sale. I could have eaten those ribs straight out of the pot, and they probably would have tasted great, but I didn't. I put in little extra effort that made for that much better a product.
Taking care of little things before you sell your home, and justifying those repairs and updates you had always wanted to make will help your home sell faster and for a better price. Will you get every nickel out of it that you put in in those final days? Will you care when you sell your house faster than your neighbor and are able to move on with your life, unburdened by a a second home, a bridge loan, or simply a desire to be elsewhere?
Take your time and put in that extra effort, your ribs will be that much better.

The difference a few days can make

So we just bought a new furnace. If it had lasted only 7 days longer we may not have noticed its condition until next fall. But alas it was not in the cards. What do you ask can be done when a furnace decides to call it quits? In our case the call was at 6am literally. I got a call, the furnace was giving off a burning smell and the third shift tenant, returning home at that time, was justifiably concerned. I visited immediately to make sure all were safe and to assess the situation.

The blower motor on the furnace had seized and the unit was overheating, far beyond what I would call safe or what I would imagine as a suggested range. The access panel was too hot to handle. I was able to shut it down by cutting both gas as well as AC power to the unit.

2 estimates later we were looking at anywhere from 2200-3500 for a new furnace installed next day. 80% to 95% efficient. We also had to make a choice regarding the chimney and its continued use for the water heater exhaust. The new furnace and chimney liner (required to choke down the chimney as less heat will be escaping that way) came to $2500 or about.

All said a pleasant experience. It cost less than I would have expected and was a repair I knew we were going to face in the not too distant future. In retrospect I may have spent the $700 for a new power vent water heater (that does not use the chimney) in lieu of the $300 for the chimney liner. Or maybe not.