Welcome to Chez Cliff!

Your opinion please.

Here’s the scenario.  A friend of mine, let’s call him Paul, just recently purchased a house.  The seller, who is also a Real Estate Agent, worked out a contract which included purchasing all of the appliances in the house.

Two inspections were carried on in the house.  Both times the washing machine was full of dark clothes and water.  When pressed, the seller said she was soaking clothes.  Since it would be too cumbersome to remove the clothes and the water, Paul let it slide believing the wash machine was in good condition.

Paul took possession of the house.  When he finally went to wash his clothes, he noticed the entire interior of the wash machine was rusted out. 

Contacting the Seller did nothing more than produce a "Too bad" in response.

Question:

What would you do?

Time to share with the class.

Unless you’re a disciple of Ted Kaczynski, shunning anything electrical and reading Penthouse, by now you’ve heard about Podcasts.  Our friends over at Apple use iTunes to keep these Podcasts "downloadable" for anyone to access at any time.

iTunes has this section marked "iTunes U" - which I guess is cool-speak for University.  A series of lectures from various universities has been captured and placed onto the web for anyone to listen to, for free.

And it’s not just any "back of an un-marked van" university.  UC Berkeley, Duke, MIT . . . Listen to lectures on advanced theoretical physics or even Existentialism, if that’s your thing.

Since neither subject is the intent of this blog, why bring it up?

The section titled American Public Media has a business and economics link.  Under this, you will find my preferred topic: Leadership.  The top CEO’s of various companies have lent their voices to brief, 5 minutes interviews.  Starbucks, Harley Davidson, Xerox . . .  Yes there’s even a lecture with Pulte Homes for the Real Estate junkies.

Quite interesting to hear them speak.  It’s different than reading in a magazine.  Catching them while speaking layers them as 3 dimensional characters, giving them some kind of normal human quality.  Easy to relate with.  Often times humorous.

Of the series, I captured some quotes that appealed to me.

"The old adage that the customer is always right is a fraud." - Gary Kelly, Southwest Airlines

"We came out with the egg-salad pizza the same day [...] the report came out from the government about eggs and cholesterol." - Larry Flax, Rick Rosenfeild - California Pizza Kitchen

My next target shall be on Entrepreneurship and Small Business.

Here’s a screen shot, showing the navigation path.  Click to enlarge.

Staring at a blank wall is something I have mastered.

It took about 5 minutes.  Then it got real old.

There’s nothing left to get done.  Except find a tenant, of course.  But the days of arriving at the houses and working until dark are over.  What little work remains is in the hands of the contractors.

This is nothing new for me.  In college, oftentimes it was hard to relax after completing a semester filled with projects and final exams.  Those first few weeks after the term had ended were filled with a nervous agitation, an expectation I should be doing something.

I have a laundry list of items to complete, including laundry itself. 

At the end of the day, I’m going to have to make a conscience shift down.  Adopt a more relaxed posture, not tense up every time the phone rings.

Nah.  What fun would that be?

The contractor sent over a counter-top guy.

I’ve done this before.  We all know the routine.

When putting together the quote, he asked me "Are you going to do the plywood?"  I responded, "No, I’d like you to do that."

He wrote down $100.

For some reason, this irritated me.  I know plywood is not "$100".  Maybe if I was redoing the roof or something then I could understand.  But the tiny kitchen in the back house?  Unless their measurements need to be validated by Cal Tech engineers or NASA scientists, I don’t understand.

I checked my other quote.  The front house charged me $150.

Next time I may do the plywood myself.  If minimum wage over at HD can cut it to the size I need, I can install it myself.

One hundred bucks for plywood.  Incredible.

As we’re approaching the one year mark, it’s time for new leases.

And with new leases comes rent increases.

My thought was to keep the rents the same.  Having a tenant move out
of my first duplex would put a serious crimp in my plans.  But not
having a rental increase puts a longer-term crimp. 

The tenants in the front house, paying the higher rent, have stated
their opposition to rental increases.  But since a third roommate has
been found in the house it makes an argument against rental increase
mute.  More roommates mean higher rent.

One aspect of rentals I will have to adjust to:  turn over.

Even if the house sits vacant for a month, maybe two, the new rent I could ask would be higher than the rental increase.  And that would be even better for the overall picture.