100 things to do before i go

What is on your ”life list”? Do you keep written or mental notes about things you want to be sure you accomplish before you die?
According to the New York Times (link below), this phenomenon is catching fire across the country, particularly as Baby Boomers age.
So I thought I’d start my life list, which is based on [...]

a tale of two blogs

Several readers of the New York Time’s Dream Home Diaries have recommended a blog by Jason Hammond in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Building from the Ground Up. It provides very detailed reasoning, sound advice, and excellent resources for any novices building new homes or renovating an existing property. I’m also impressed with his demonstrated commitment to [...]

the city beautiful

This 1941 postcard has this text on the flip side describing Orlando: Almost in the exact geographical center of the State, Orlando is a fast-growing resort and distributing community. It is here that most of Florida’s citrus fruit banking is conducted. In 15 years the city has tripled in population until it is now a city of 35,000 [...]

orlando: good grief, who’s in charge of PR?

Forbes named Orlando the 8th worst housing market in the country in its August 2007 listing for “overbloated inventory”: http://www.forbes.com/2007/08/16/homes-prices-housing-forbeslife-cx_mw_0816worstrealestate_slide_9.html?thisSpeed=15000
That was after coming in No. 2 (after Miami) in Forbes line-up of the 10 riskiest home markets in July 2007: http://www.forbes.com/2007/07/17/risk-housing-homes-forbeslife-cx_mw_0717realestate_slide_3.html?thisSpeed=20000

this is a trip — out of body

From the New York Times
 
This is a fascinating look at studies that may indicate out of body experiences are not what we thought, and researchers are replicating the experience in totally healthy people (a sort of how-to for party tricks). I suspect the theme parks will be on this like, well, Mickey on Minnie, lol. Imagine the [...]

the new gc: progress and permitting

I have a new general contractor. GC1 was let go and is returning the full deposit. Signed with GC2 yesterday (after receiving the line-item budget), and he will go to permitting next week. The architect is making some minor revisions to the plan. The first stage is mostly external: enclosing the carport, creating a utility room [...]

i’ll have the shark

The fish in “fish and chips” is actually shark. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that the Atlantic spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) generally serves as the breaded protein in your fish-and-chips dinner. Curious? Read all about seafood on NOAA’s new FishWatch. You can check out the calorie and protein contents of your favorites, or research which species are threatened [...]

is there anything good about men?

What is it makes men and women so different? Is it that Y chromosome? The different perspectives that led the divergence of hunters and gatherers? Testosterone? Cultural influences?
John Tierney of the New York Times blog, TierneyLab: Putting Ideas in Science to the Test, instead starts with this question in his post:”Is there anything good about men?”:
“What percentage [...]

sometimes He calms the storm, and other times He calms His child

I have been a very poor student, worker, home renovator, house seller today. I think the enormity of homework, speeches that have to be written for next week, planning that needs to be done, and cleaning/fixing that remains sent me fleeing from it all.
It didn’t help that my six-year-old niece called me to tell me [...]

are you full yet?

Here’s a lovely little essay on how we approach the universe with a sense of our own completeness rather than want.
http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/display/printerfriendly.cgi?articleid=9798

calm in the real estate storm?

This article in the WSJ offers some calm in the storm …
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118713082065997781.html
 

click here for real estate

For your real estate trolling pleasure …
Trulia (www.trulia.com)
Realtor.com (www.realtor.com)
NYTimes.com Real Estate (www.nytimes.com/realestate)
Craig’s List (http://craigslist.com/)
MSN Real Estate (http://realestate.msn.com/)
RE/MAX (http://www.remax.com/)
Yahoo! Real Estate (http://realestate.yahoo.com/)
Wall Street Journal / Real Estate journal (http://rej.careercast.com/properties/search/searchForm.php)
Brownstoner (http://www.brownstoner.com)
Zillow (www.zillow.com)
Inman (http://www.inman.com/)
Curbed (http://www.curbed.com)
Prudential Douglas Elliman (http://www.prudentialelliman.com/)
 Corcoran (http://www.corcoran.com)

somewhere over the rainbow

Wow, this six-year-old is amazingly gifted! Connie Talbott even swept away Simon Cowell in “Britain’s Got Talent.”
Take a listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En0A8KGMgq8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnUOJonRcCw

a note about music

Thanks to www.dobegil.wordpress.com, I discovered the really cool Sonific widget (now that I know what a widget is).
The weird part is that I chose as my musical background “What a Wonderful World,” redone by some new artists in different formats.
What’s puzzling is that I can’t seem to get that request to translate on my blog, [...]

update on the general contractor

I’m reasonably certain I’m the only one who finds my home renovation experience even remotely interesting. I guess this is sort of like therapy by electronic journaling … with the potential for someone else to review and care, lol. And yet with lots of hits it’s quiet out there. Join in the conversation!
Big news: Just [...]

why am i doing this???

Hello: When I get stressed about this whole reconstruction drama, the bills, the search for a new GC, and the dust I’ll likely be living in for awhile, I’m reminded of why I chose to buy and renovate in the first place. Have I mentioned it’s mid-term week? I’d better go get busy.

chili’s chicken enchilada soup

Although people rarely think of me when the topic of cooking comes up, I do have a few (ok, very few) wonderful recipes. I chalk the “few” part up to the fact that a) not so much time to cook, b) I don’t follow directions especially well, and c) it’s much more fun to improvise [...]

“gilligan’s island”: the unaired pilot

This is kind of fun … different song, some different characters …..
http://video.aol.com/video/tv-gilligans-island-marooned-unaired-pilot/1828723

new gc

OK: I give up.
After sleeping on it and engaging the counsel of folks who are experts in lots of stuff, I decided to engage a new GC … even if I’m not getting the very best one in town. I suspect part of the problem was that I am a small fish in a big [...]

“don’t worry … be happy”

The sound of that chipper song is running through my head (which is significant improvement over the stock market ticker, lol). It was prompted by this article about the keys to happiness.
I’m going to intentionally do every one this week … my antidote to home renovation/selling drama. I’m sure it wasn’t a coincidence that it popped [...]

are you in the top 10 percent?

Well, if you’re like 90 percent of folks, you BELIEVE you are … See Solution Focus Coach’s post:
http://solutionfocuscoach.wordpress.com/2007/08/10/are-you-in-the-top-10-per-cent/

now what?

More trials in home renovation … Although I have one of the very best (by any measure, volume, repeat business, reputation, experience, Parade of Homes and other award winners) general contractors in town, this isn’t going particularly well.
My first contact disappeared suddenly from the company. My second told me yesterday that he has been snapped up [...]

is it all about me?

I’m reminded of an observation that a good friend of mine made about 10 years ago …
It had something to do with the “all about me” attitude of people and how that had changed over time.
Witness the evolution of magazines over time: Look, Time, People, Us … His prediction was that we’d soon have one [...]

cottage renovation

Photos:
Before (This is how the house looked when I bought it).
After (This is roughly how the front porch will look after renovation; the garage will also be enclosed).
Why???? The view from the backyard stole my heart.
OK, it’s really a ranch and not a cottage but I’m hoping it will be “mission” cottage by the time I’m [...]

hmmm … more on the housing crisis

This is an excellent (if not somewhat depressing) summary from the Housing Bubble Blog: http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=2991

housing market in crisis

Hi: I can’t pick up a paper or read an online news source without being hit over the head with the state of the housing market. In fact, Forbes named Orlando one of the 10 most over-valued markets and one of the 10 riskiest places to purchase a house. Local developers and national mortgage companies [...]

dream cottage renovation: the beginning

Somehow I find myself with two houses that need work — one will go up for sale soon and the other will begin renovation. (If you’re looking for a 3/2 cottage in Orlando that has been redone [but am repainting/staging for sale], here is some additional info … pix to come: http://geral64.wordpress.com/2007/07/27/32-charming-cottage-for-sale-central-florida/)
Meanwhile, back at the [...]

addicted to diet coke?

This is not good news for diet coke fans: http://video.aol.com/video/are-you-addicted-to-diet-soda/1952941

size does matter

If you’ve not yet delved into the second edition of Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat,” you should. It’s eye-opening. The DVD version is also excellent with a good narrator. America is behind the curve in math and science and will not be able to compete in the global economy.
For an intriguing preview of some [...]

most lucrative home improvements

Check out the Forbes best/worst return on your home improvement dollar …
http://www.forbes.com/realestate/2007/06/29/homes-adds-improvement-cx_mw_0702realestate_slide.html

if you stop by, please leave a note

Hi: I’m (obviously) new to all this and it’s sort of lonesome in cyberspace when your writing isn’t drawing any comments. I do realize it’s the writer, not the reader, at the crux of this.
 However, if you’d be kind enough to leave a note and your blog address, I’ll visit you too and leave a [...]

home renovation progress: slooooooow

Well, those of you kind enough to have tuned in will know that I purchased a lovely little lake cottage with perfect bones and a very homely interior and exterior.
The view from the backyard, however, is to die for.
Progress has been slowed by summer vacations (everyone involved), a return from Afghanistan (architect’s husband), a firing [...]

my home is worth what?

With a growing number of Internet sites trolling public databases for financial facts, it has become increasingly easy in the last two years for information addicts like me to perform party tricks by announcing to our friends all kinds of delicious snippets that once were considered intimate, known mainly to brokers or people with enough time to drive to the courthouse to flip through musty files.

But it’s no longer just cocktail chatter. With a nationwide real estate crisis in full bloom thanks to subprime mortgage woes, falling prices and rising loan rates, homeowners are increasingly turning to Internet sites to try to glean bits of information that may shed light on when to refinance, or whether to sell.

And why not? I really, really need every tiny bit of information I can get about managing my biggest investment.

Don’t I?

“Oh, no! Oh, my goodness, I have to tell you to stop right now,” said Baba Shiv, an associate professor of marketing at Stanford University. “You are being completely irrational. This information can end up having a negative effect on your life.”

This was not the response I had hoped to hear from someone who specializes in studying how everyday investors make decisions about how to manage their money.

“But everybody is doing it,” I whined.

And in my defense, I would like to point out that’s true. In June, for instance, more than 39 million people visited the 20 most popular real estate Web sites, a 22.4 percent increase in visitors over the same period in the previous year, according to Nielsen/NetRatings Inc. Not only that, but a lot of those people are becoming addicted. At Zillow.com, for instance, 44 percent of the site’s users visited five or more times in June, and 25 percent of them 10 or more times, according to a spokeswoman for the site.

Beyond catering to the voyeuristic appeal of knowing what your neighbor paid per square foot, the sites say they offer a valuable service by making information more accessible to average folks.

Professor Shiv agreed that this information could be useful in specific circumstances, if for instance a homeowner or buyer was on the verge of actually making a deal. But for the armchair addict, who has no immediate plans to buy or sell, he said, “The Internet makes it easy to get too much information, from too many conflicting sources, and all it’s going to do is to give you ecstasy on some days and pain on others.”

So although my repetitive visits to real estate sites made me feel more in control — as if maybe I was smart after all to ignore my accountant five years ago and mortgage myself to the hilt back when rates were low — in reality they may have the opposite effect.

“It’s very similar to what people do when they follow the stock market,” Professor Shiv said. “They look at what’s up and what’s down and then, based on how they feel from learning that information, they decide to buy or sell at just the wrong time.”

He pointed out that I wasn’t even sure I had made $32,799 since I could just as easily have lost $94,248. Which Web site could I trust? In fact, none of the seven I was consulting daily could agree on a ballpark value for my house. The difference between the highest and lowest estimate was $699,974.

That’s because each site uses a different method to compute values.

At Zillow.com, for instance, “it’s a pretty complex algorithm,” said Amy Bohutinsky, a spokeswoman. “We look at about 100 different pieces of data, including how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, the square footage of a house, prior sales and all sorts of local things” like, in California, how Proposition 13, which caps property taxes, affects the value of a house.

How do online results compare to a real, live appraiser’s assessment? I asked Bruce Raful, a licensed appraiser in San Rafael, Calif., who appraised my house in nearby Mill Valley the last time I refinanced the mortgage, for his opinion.

After looking at the most recent comparable sales, Mr. Raful said my house was worth $100,000 more than the highest online estimate.

“Those online sites rely on local sale prices, and in neighborhoods where all the housing is uniform, can be accurate,” Mr. Raful said. “But in a community like Mill Valley, where you can have a house worth four times as much as the one next door without affecting either house’s value, online sites aren’t as likely to pick the right comps.”

I was starting to feel as if I had been consulting a bunch of online astrologers.

But once in a while my horoscope is right. And even when it isn’t, it’s still fun to read. Among my favorite real estate Web sites, I like each for a different, special reason. Cyberhomes.com, for example, lists the most recent comparable sales in my neighborhood. Homegain.com put me in touch with Realtors the last time I moved. And Yahoo Real Estate’s value finder tool spits out side-by-side estimates from three different sites — Zillow.com, Eppraisal.com and Reply.com — simultaneously.

So where’s the harm? There’s none, if you are someone who takes it all with a grain of salt. But my first impulse, after learning that in addition to making a possible $32,799 I also had earned $100,000 just by phoning Mr. Raful, was to spend some of that money. Preferably on shoes.

This urge, I learned, is another common problem among people who are addicted to monitoring their house values.

“It’s called a ‘wealth effect,’ ” said Clemens Sialm, a finance professor at the University of Texas in Austin who studies homeowners’ financial decisions. “It works the other way, too. If you think your house price goes down, you cancel all your dinners out.”

Unfortunately for shoe addicts who are not planning to sell anytime soon, the so-called wealth could easily evaporate before it’s time to cash in.

“I suspect checking on your home value once a year would be plenty,” Professor Sialm said.

“I’ll try,” I said.

And I will, after purchasing espadrilles.