Full disclosure: this week’s missive is more for the consumer than for the realtor.   I can promise, though, that for all the realtors who read this, you’ll most likely find yourself saying or thinking something along the lines of “preach on, brother”, “testify”, “amen”, or “you got that right”.   W ith that in mind, I implore you ALL to read on.   Recently, I received my monthly wireless phone bill, and it was $20 higher than it should have been.   I had made some changes on my plan a little before that, but my monthly bill’s amount was supposed to stay virtually the same – in fact, my first bill after the changes was a little bit less than my usual amount.   Bonus!   Befuddled, I called the company and asked the operator to help me understand why my bill was $20 higher and then find a way to get it back down to the price I had been promised when I had made the changes to my plan.   Long story short: the operator with whom I had originally made the changes had promised me on

It’s highly likely I’ve already written about this, but I’ll try to make it entertaining at least.   There’s a guy who works in ou r office who suffers from kidney stones – and from what he’s described, “suffers” might even be a little too tame a word for it.   As an aside, though, when you ask him how painful the experience is, he gets an odd smile and says, “It’s the most intense pain I’ve ever experienced, but it’s hard to describe.   I’ve heard a lot of people compare it to the pain a woman experiences while giving birth.   To that, I must say, those people are big, fat liars!   I’ve been in the presence of a woman giving birth, twice, and her pain has to be 100 times worse.   They’re passing the equivalent of a Buick.   I’m passing a pumpkin seed.”   He’s always been a colorful fellow. He’s had this wonderful condition for over a decade now, and the stones make their appearance about every 18 months or so.   Up until recently, he had chosen to accept his fate and have th

Amongst the ads and emails we receive each day ranging from “how to lose 75 lbs. in 12 days by eating just Three Musketeers candy bars and milkshakes” and “the lessons learned from a dyslexic 1980s pop musician turned auto mechanic”, there’s an occasional gem that stands out and helps you look at life from a different perspective.   In that vein, I was recently directed to an article on Forbes.com titled “15 Surprising Things Productive People Do Differently” that I found interesting.   Surprisingly, it didn’t have little tidbits like “only sleep standing up” or “drink the sweat of Hollywood actors who have won an Academy Award three times a day”.   The one that stood out most to me was something that is attributed to Warren Buffet: “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”   This doesn’t mean that such people walk around all day with a negative attitude just looking for a chance to be a

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post very similar to this - in fact, some aspects are identical - but I'm putting a slightly different twist on it to alter the perspective by a tad.   Whenever I meet a real estate investor who likes to take the fix-n-flip approach, I always ask why they go that route rather than subscribe to a buy-n-hold approach.  There are different answers to that question, but they all seem to have a common thread running through all of them: "I need the money to go out and buy another house to flip."  Sure, most people have a limited supply of cash on hand, so that makes sense.  With that said, there are three options EVERY real estate investor should know about - but, usually, they only know about the first one.  Let me set this up: Real-life example: the property in question costs $77,000 to acquire and $18,000 to rehab (total cash put out equals $95,000).  The property then can sell for $135,000.  Ready? Traditional Fix-n-Flip • $135,

On a fairly regular basis, you can fire up the computer and go to your favorite news site or flip on the television to seek out your favorite news channel, and you’ll come across a story about how the economy continues to improve – and, overall, that’s fairly true.   However, that doesn’t mean that everything is dandy.   As individuals, we have our challenges, and sometimes we need help.   On those same news sites or channels, you frequently see ads for credit-repair companies or from a credit card company offering to give you your credit score for free without it affecting your score.   Before I go any further, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am NOT speaking ill of any of these companies – I’m simply going to try and give you something to think about.   Are we good?   I’ll press on.   Credit-repair companies make their money by selling a service to folks who are looking to raise their credit score.   I’ll pause here for anyone to say, “Duh!”   Here’s my poin

There’s the classic scene from a cartoon in which one of the main characters turns down an alley in a sketchy part of town only to find that it’s a dead end.   Just before the main character turns around to leave, he sees projected on the wall at the end of the alley the shadow of something coming up from behind him, and he immediately assumes it’s a seven-foot homicidal giant who has anger issues and a penchant for cartoon characters’ blood. At that moment, the character has the choice to remain standing with his back to what’s behind him and resign himself to what he believe is about to befall him, or he can turn around and face his fear.   Now, if you watched the right kind of cartoons as a kid, when the character turns around, he sees that it’s a small child or person whose shadow only LOOKS menacing – perception and reality are two separate things.   Recently, an agent referred a friend to us who needed some serious help to get a mortgage.   The friend was disabled, but hi