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July 9, 2016 at 8:25 PM in reply to: Updated: Landlord charging hourly rate for emails and phone calls (rant, I guess) #799497
edna_mode
ParticipantBeware sunk cost accounting!
While I’m sure that rectifying this provides priceless satisfaction, at the rate you stated ($280/hr), you have likely already spent $400 worth of your leisure time just posting about this on Piggington.If it helped save you the cost of therapy, great.
However, beware not just throwing good money after bad, but good *time* after bad. You can’t get your precious hours back. Is there something you do that would help you get focused on the future, to help let this go?ParticipantData point: Mid 2013, I was in a multiple offer situation using Redfin as a buyer’s agent and won the deal. This was in a flipper situation, and still negotiated a seller’s credit based on what we found in the house inspection.
I actually hope Redfin manages to keep going. Working with them was the only good point to the whole situation — escrow agency was chosen by the seller (who was affiliated with the seller), and the pile of paperwork given to you makes less sense than: the legislature’s fiscal analysis of most CA propositions, most SEC reports for complex shell companies, and most corporate tax returns. I advised them to actually go all the way and create their own escrow company too, because everything else was so miserable. We had a great experience even in the bids we lost, because the agent explained what happened clearly.
ParticipantHighly recommend Hovey Environmental. http://www.hoveyenvironmental.com
Tested for background, took key samples near the problem area and through the place.ParticipantI’m curious — why does the DJIA still hold so much sway as a valid metric anymore? It’s 30 stocks; how is such a small sample representative of a country/sector/economic/company/policy/regulatory environment in such a way that you can make decent predictions about anything?
July 30, 2014 at 8:58 AM in reply to: Buyer Agent recommendation for San Marcos, Poway, Mira Mesa #777129ParticipantJim discusses back in March how he deals with bidding wars:
July 30, 2014 at 8:54 AM in reply to: Buyer Agent recommendation for San Marcos, Poway, Mira Mesa #777128ParticipantGo read Jim the Realtor’s blog: bubbleinfo.com
He wrote blog posts/videos explaining what he does as a buyer’s agent: http://www.bubbleinfo.com/category/why-you-should-hire-jim-as-your-buyers-agent/
ParticipantTwo thoughts:
1) Are you doing potassium or sodium? The potassium is predicted to be more expensive but is better for the environment.
2) Have you discussed with a plumber what effect this may have on your other metal surfaces of your plumbing? While this does prevent scaling and the annoying hard water stains on your countertops, I was advised by a good plumber who had experience with both installing and servicing systems with water softeners. He said the added soluble ions tend to increase the rate of corrosion of metal parts of things like water heaters, plumbing joints, appliances… This makes sense to me as a chemist — you lose the “protective” layer of scaling that happens with some hardness in the water, and the increased ionic strength may increase the corrosiveness of the water for any cheap metal parts of your systems which may then spring leaks.
In the end I opted not to do water softening and just clean more often…
ParticipantTwo thoughts:
1) Are you doing potassium or sodium? The potassium is predicted to be more expensive but is better for the environment.
2) Have you discussed with a plumber what effect this may have on your other metal surfaces of your plumbing? While this does prevent scaling and the annoying hard water stains on your countertops, I was advised by a good plumber who had experience with both installing and servicing systems with water softeners. He said the added soluble ions tend to increase the rate of corrosion of metal parts of things like water heaters, plumbing joints, appliances… This makes sense to me as a chemist — you lose the “protective” layer of scaling that happens with some hardness in the water, and the increased ionic strength may increase the corrosiveness of the water for any cheap metal parts of your systems which may then spring leaks.
In the end I opted not to do water softening and just clean more often…
ParticipantRecommend that one sets up the bank to autopay online (direct payment) vs. allow creditors to debit your bank account (direct withdrawal). Reason is that then creditors may erroneously pull more money than you explicitly authorize, and then it is up to you to try to get the money back. Your bank is less likely to have perverse incentives.
ParticipantComic on Gen X and real estate. Not sure I agree!
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AT9fFMD5bms/TuhTshwhG8I/AAAAAAAACh0/aV_Xppuqo48/s400/genxx.jpgParticipantThis may be an old thread, but I can’t resist reposting Jim the Realtor’s link terrible photos with the best captions:
http://terriblerealestateagentphotos.com/
there must be SOME first time buyers on this site who need a laugh…
ParticipantAbout replacing water heaters:
Is it more typical to hire a plumbing company to buy the water heater for you and they deal with the warranty forever afterwards, or for people to buy a water heater from Home Depot/Lowes and just pay for installation?
The reason I ask is because the water heater itself seems to be $400-800, and I am finding plumbers who will install for a fixed fee, as opposed to paying $2000 for a purchase/install/warranty deal. The former is nearly half the price of the second.
What exactly am I buying, from whom, for what level of service? What I don’t understand is if the water heaters are warrantied by the manufacturer, what exactly I am getting if I pay for the “full deal” from a contractor company that “does it all”.
ParticipantGreat thread.
Any personal recos for:
1) replacing furnaces
2) replacing water heaters and the surrounding drywall?How about tankless water heaters? Anyone have a reco for doing this?
ParticipantI stayed in this nice hotel where they had put two rows of lights behind an oversized mirror, so that the lights were oriented perpendicularly outward from the plane of the mirror, but without glaring in your eyes. The effect was a nice diffuse form of lighting, which with a variable switch would mean you could have low brightness when you need to take your nighttime constitutional.
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