Tag Archives: real estate

On Home Ownership

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I become a real homeowner for the second time in my life.


I got this letter in the mail yesterday after making a final lump sum payment on what I’d always thought of as my “mortgage.” (Technically it was a land loan; I never had a mortgage on this home.)

On July 14, 2022, I officially became a mortgage-free home owner for the second time in my life. That’s the date of the letter from my bank confirming that the lump sum payment I’d sent in June had paid off the balance of my land loan.

I bought the land nearly nine years ago, the day after my divorce was finalized. It was a long story and crazy process that you can read about in a blog post I wrote about it. It wasn’t a cheap lot, but the view from those 10 acres made it worth every penny. I’m generally a debt-adverse person, so I put 50% down on it and borrowed the rest. The owner financed until I could get my paperwork in order and get a loan about a year later with Northwest Farm Credit, a company that specializes in farm loans. My lot, zoned Rural Residential, met the criteria for lending. The terms were a fixed rate for the first 7 years, adjustable annually after that, with a balloon payment at the end of 10 years.

Amortization was based on 30 years, keeping the monthly payments low; for the first 7 years, my monthly payments were just $501. I kicked in an extra $500 toward the principal every month for at least 3/4 of the months over those 7 years. The goal was to pay down the principal quickly so I wouldn’t get hit with the kind of huge balloon payment the bank estimated. When the first interest rate adjustment came, my monthly payment dropped to less than $300/month. I honestly don’t know the exact amount because I kept paying the $1001/month that I’d been paying. Now I was kicking in more than $700/month to principal only.

With my June birthday coming up, I noticed that I owed less than $12K for the property. Rather than let my regular payments pay it off in just under one more year, I decided to make the payoff a birthday present for myself. So I wrote a big check, got a $14.90 refund for my overpayment, and received the letter saying the loan was paid off.

I’m a mortgage-free home owner.

The Money Stuff

Now if all this is gibberish to you and you’ve got one of those 30-year mortgages on your place, you might want to chat with an accountant or financial advisor about the possible benefit of paying extra toward the principal on that mortgage.

I remember my first mortgage with my future wasband. It was a 30-year term because that’s all we could afford when we bought our first home. We paid what was due — on average about $1200/month — every month for 11 years. When we sold after 11 years, we’d only contributed about $16K toward the principal — that’s after paying over $158K. Where had all that extra money gone? Mortgage interest, of course. Rates were a lot higher then, but still! We had a house but very little equity in it.

I think that experience is what woke me up to the realities of mortgages and home ownership. If you have a large loan and pay it over a long period of time, you’re likely to pay a lot of money in interest without increasing your equity in the home by very much. In that case, what’s the benefit of buying over renting? When you own a home, you’re responsible maintaining and repairing it. When you rent, you’re not. And when you’re paying 90% of your monthly mortgage payment toward interest instead of principal, it’s like paying rent without the benefit of a landlord to take care of the home.

Home ownership remains a goal of many people. It’s a great goal, but it’s not achievable unless you are able to maximize your downpayment, minimize your loan term, and pay down the principal as quickly as possible. Otherwise, you’re basically paying rent to a bank with the added expense of home maintenance, repairs, and property taxes.

When my future wasband and I sold that first home and moved to a new home in Arizona, we quickly refinanced to a 15-year loan term. Sure, the payments were bigger, but each payment applied more money to the loan principal. And with the lesson learned from our first home, I (the debt-adverse person in charge of household finances) would send additional principal payments for the loan to the bank a few times a year, when there was some spare cash in the household account. By doing so, we managed to pay off the loan in just over 11 years.

And that was the first time in my life that I was a mortgage-free home owner, at the age of 50 — although I was just half owner on that particular property.

My House

My house, of course, has been paid off since it was built. Because of the construction style of my home — post and beam construction — a building loan was not possible to get. So I had to pay cash as it was built.

On May 20, 2014, I began blogging about the construction of my new home in Malaga, WA. You can read all of these posts — and see the videos that go with many them — by clicking the new home construction tag.

Yeah, that was a challenge. Fortunately, my decent income and low cost of living rose to that challenge. I was living in my 36-foot fifth wheel, the “Mobile Mansion,” on my property at the time so there was no rent to pay and that likely saved a ton of money that could go toward construction.

I had the house built in stages starting on May 20, 2014: first the building shell and then the living space upstairs. I did a lot of the interior work myself: electricity, flooring (wood laminate and tile), and deck rails/floor. I subcontracted out to a framer and plumber and insulation/drywall/painting guys. I designed a custom kitchen with granite countertops at Home Depot and let their guys install it all. I bought my appliances at a Black Friday sale and, again, let them install. The place came together bit by bit over the course of two years. I wrote a lot of checks. But in the end, it was done and it was paid for.


The Great Room in my home. I really do love it here.

The Lecture

I know that what I’ve achieved is beyond the means of many people. I don’t want to say I’m “lucky” that I could do this because I truly believe that we make (most of) our luck. (And besides, I’ve had a bit of bad luck, too.) I’m not rich, but I do know how to work for a living and manage my money.

Living within my means is step 1 — and that’s the step most folks can’t seem to manage. They buy things they don’t need or can’t afford, relying on credit cards and loans to make it happen. Soon, every penny from every paycheck is spoken for and still some of them keep buying. They live in a world of never-ending debt by making minimum payments on every debt they owe. And then they complain that they’re broke.

That’s not me. I learned my lesson about debt TWICE when I was in my twenties. The second time did the charm. Years later, I realized that the first step to financial security — especially in retirement years — is having a paid-for roof over your head. That’s what motivated me to get the house I owned with my wasband paid for. And that has definitely been on my mind over the past 10 years as I get ever closer to retirement age.

I’m 61 now and starting to think seriously about life in retirement. Getting that paid-for roof over my head was a good start on the things I need to do to achieve my retirement dreams.

My Neighbor’s Windmill

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Things change.

There were a few things that drew us to our house in Wickenburg back in 1997 — beyond the obvious benefits of living in a recently built home. Situated in a hilly and rocky area on the edge of town, our 2-1/2 acres of horse property ensured plenty of privacy. Indeed, to this day we often sleep with the curtains wide open to the night sky. We had few neighbors and the ones nearby were generally very quiet. The dirt road we shared with two neighboring homes was in such bad shape that we didn’t have to worry about strangers bothering us. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have only found us twice in 11 years.

But one of the best things about our house was the view out the back. I’m not talking about the glimpse of nearby Vulture Peak. I’m talking about my neighbor’s home and its windmill.

My Neighbor's HouseThe house was one of the very first built in our area. It’s a one-story structure with just two bedrooms and two baths, perched on a rocky, lichen-covered outcropping. At the base of the rocks was a densely vegetated flood zone, filled with local trees and bushes slightly higher than the level of Cemetery Wash, which also flows through our property. Up at house level were irrigated trees so mature that they blended in perfectly with the home. The house seemed to be part of the landscape. And in the morning, when the first light of day hit it from the east, it glowed red, as shown in this July 2007 photo.

But what I loved most was the windmill. This wasn’t a decorative lawn ornament — it was the real thing. It looked ancient and antique, but it caught the wind faithfully and pumped water from a well. Enough water for my neighbors to have a fish pond. A pond big enough to attract herons — yes herons! — in the desert.

Sometimes on a quiet evening, when the wind blew from the west, I could hear the mechanical clanking sound of the gears and pumps. The rhythm varied with the wind speed. And we could look outside during daylight hours and see just how windy it was.

When we first moved in, I came very close to choosing the back guest room for my office just so I could look out at that windmill while I worked. But late afternoon sun shining in that window convinced me that the front bedroom was a better choice if I wanted to leave my blinds open.

Time went on. And on. My neighbors decided to move. They put the house up on the market and about sixteen months ago, just before the real estate bubble burst, sold it for their asking price. I heard about the new owners through the local grapevine. Wealthy people who had another home. This would be their “guest house,” one person told us. They have horses and kids. They’re going to use it for a vacation home.

Before long, the workers arrived. They enlarged the horse enclosures on the property’s lower level and put in a welded pipe fence to create an arena. I worried when they put up tall poles for lighting and hoped they didn’t plan on keeping them on every night. More workers came with chainsaws and heavy equipment. Over a period of several days, the removed all the natural vegetation below the house, leaving the land barren. They’re putting in an irrigated pasture, one neighbor said. They used earth moving equipment to pile sand in berms that they evidently expected to protect the newly cleared land. They fenced in all of their flood plain property, putting an access gate in the deepest part of the wash.

Then they disappeared.

For a while, there was a red truck in the driveway. A caretaker, someone told me. Lights were on at night. The house looked a bit lived in. But then the red pickup stopped coming. A single light was on all the time, like a blind eye in a forgotten home. Then even that went out.

Flood!Monsoon season came and the first heavy rain brought a massive flash flood. The sand berms were no match for the power of flowing water. The water coming down the wash was no longer held back by the dense vegetation that had grown below the house. The wash changed its course, flooding the undeveloped “pasture” and cutting across the bottom of our access road. The rushing water completely flooded the sandy area in our part of the flood plain and, for the first time ever, our entire fence was washed away.

Washed Out FenceWhen the water subsided, parts of our neighbor’s new fence were tangled across the access road to our neighbor’s house. Cinderblocks from their corral area littered our lower horse corral. Their “pasture” was filled with sand. Lucky they hadn’t set up the irrigation yet; it would have been destroyed.

No one came to fix their fence. My neighbor dragged its remains aside so he could drive through. After a while, tired of chasing trespassers in quads out of the wash, he spent a whole day repairing the damage.

Still no one came.

Throughout this time, the windmill kept turning. But the fish pond was empty and the riparian wildlife was gone. The irrigation must have been turned off because trees close to the house began to die. It made no sense; the water was free. Why not take care of the trees that depended on it?

This winter, I noticed that the windmill was making more noise than usual. It squealed to life in a heavy breeze, then clanked and screeched as it turned. I wondered why, after all these years, it was having these problems. Finally, after a few weeks of listening to it, I tracked down the former owners and asked them. Did the windmill require maintenance?

Oh, yes, I was told. “We had the pump people come in once a year for preventative maintenance.”

I asked if they could get in touch with the new owners and tell them about the problem. They said they had no way of getting in touch with them. We said goodbye and I hung up with a feeling of foreboding.

More time went by. The squealing and clanking got worse. It wasn’t a happy sound; it was the sound of neglect, the sound of the windmill’s pain. Neighbors who lived closer to the house must have taken action. Perhaps they called the owners. But the solution was not the one I wanted to see.

Headless WindmillWhile I was out one day, workers took the head off the windmill and left it on the ground, at the base of one of the dead trees.

That was two months ago.

Today, the windmill’s tower stands topless, like so many deserted windmills throughout the desert. The trees closest to the house are dead. There are no flowers, no cars in the driveway. A single square of light looks out toward our house every night — the burned out lightbulb replaced by someone who checked in one day. The house seems dead and forgotten.

To me, the death of the windmill is a symbol of what’s happening to Wickenburg. With our 50% seasonal population, there are many homes that stand empty and neglected when summer comes. As developers take horse property and turn it into CC&R-controlled subdivisions, the people who moved to Wickenburg years ago for a taste of the old west are moving out. The new people don’t care about horses and natural desert vegetation and wildlife.

And apparently they just don’t understand the powerful emotions generated by watching an old windmill turn in the breeze.

Forms for Funding Airports

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Thoughts on FAA Form 1800-31.

On Saturday, I received FAA form 1800-31 in the mail. Titled “Airport Activity Survey (by Selected Air Carriers),” it’s headed up with the following description as part of its Paperwork Reduction Act notice:

Submission of this form is voluntary. The purpose of this collection is to capture passenger enplanement data to be used to allocate Federal funds to eligble airports. The public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour and 30 minutes per response.

The form requests me to enter the names, states, airports, and airport identifiers for all airports where I picked up passengers for on demand commercial operations. For each airport listed, I need to provide a count of the passengers I picked up.

To gather this information, I’ll need to go through my aircraft logs for 2007 and look at each flight conducted. If it was a revenue flight, I need to note where I picked up the passengers and how many passengers I picked up. I then need to tally these for each airport and summarize it on the form. Ninety minutes sounds about right for this chore.

Although this task is voluntary — frankly, I don’t think I bothered last year — I’m looking forward to doing it this year. It might be the bean counter in me — once an accountant, always an accountant. But there are two good reasons why it interests me more this year:

  • A line-by-line review of my log books helps me to remember individual flights. I’m in the process of drawing together material for a book about my flight experiences and I’m sure I’ll be reminded of a few flights that are interesting enough to write about.
  • I’m curious to learn which airports I did the most business at last year. I’m pretty damn sure it wasn’t Wickenburg. Hell, I picked up more passengers in Buckeye in one day than I did during a whole year at Wickenburg.

Not Wickenburg? you may ask. How can that be? Aren’t you based there?

Yes, I’m based at Wickenburg. But sadly, very little of my business originates here. The vast majority of my revenue comes from flights out of Deer Valley, Scottsdale, and Sky Harbor, with the big revenue charters originating in places like Page and Yuma. Try as I might to market my services here in Wickenburg, the population simply isn’t interested. I’m probably too costly for most of the fixed income folks who live here, while the folks who don’t worry about money would prefer a pickup from a turbine helicopter based in Scottsdale. (How’s that for ironic?)

I’ve actually gotten to the point where I don’t bother marketing much in Wickenburg anymore. Sure, my original tri-fold brochure is still out there. Why not? I have about 10,000 copies of it left. It emphasized my Wickenburg tours and, when I realized that my market was in the Phoenix area, I had it redesigned to emphasize tours from there. The leftover copies of the original are in my hangar, slowly making their way out into brochure racks around town.

And this year, I pulled the plug on my local Yellow Pages ad.

I’m even in the process of turning off my local phone number, preferring my cell phone for all communications with current and future clients.

Hermosa RanchIt’s odd, in a way. I’m the only aircraft charter operator based in Wickenburg. The town has a very nice little airport that recently got a bunch of funding from the Federal Government that added 1000 feet to its runway. But when finally given the opportunity to set up an office on airport property, I turned it down. I, like many other business owners (or potential business owners) here, have learned that dealing with the Town can be a nightmare of bullshit politics conducted by men who get their kicks controlling this insignificant corner of the world. They have no regard for the future of the airport — a fact they’ve made clear by allowing housing on three of the airport’s four sides, including less than 4000 feet from the approach end of Runway 23. Why would anyone in their right mind put up a building or hangar or anything else at an airport that’s likely to be closed in 10 or 15 years due to residential encroachment and the accompanying complaints? Or, for that matter, sign a land lease agreement that can be cancelled at any time on the whim of the Mayor or a Council member?

So my business languishing, as far as Wickenburg is concerned, but doing quite well everywhere else. And that’s unfortunate for Wickenburg. Not only is the Town losing out on sales tax revenue generated by my scenic tours, but FAA Form 1800-31 will not indicate Wickenburg as one of my major operating airports.

And if the only charter operator based in Wickenburg has more passenger operations at other airports, then how many passenger operations will be recorded for Wickenburg’s final tally? And how will that affect future airport funding?

I’m learning not to care.

Noise

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When will they learn? If they live near an airport, they’re going to hear aircraft noise.

Yesterday, while wandering Las Vegas Boulevard with my husband, taking in the outrageous sights of the mega-casinos with my husband, I got a phone call from the guy I sold my FBO business to. He’s still there and apparently only calls me when he has something to annoy me about.

Yesterday was noise. “A guy called and said you flew over his house three times yesterday.”

I explained patiently that that was not possible. I’d left Wickenburg at 7 AM that day and hadn’t been back.

The conversation didn’t take long to turn ugly. Apparently the complainer didn’t think it was important to provide his name and phone number or even the location of his house. Perhaps he thinks I shouldn’t overfly any house anywhere in the world. I told the FBO guy that it obviously wasn’t me and that I wasn’t about to take the rap for every helicopter pilot in Arizona who happened to fly near some unidentified guy’s house in Wickenburg. I told him that it wasn’t his problem — he ran the fuel concession and had no other management responsibilities at the airport — and that he should have the complainer call me directly.

But that wasn’t enough for the FBO guy. He started recycling earlier parts of the same conversation. He said he might have to take it to the Town — clearly some kind of threat in his mind. I told him to go ahead. I told him that I was following FAA regulations regarding minimum flight altitudes. I added that as a business owner, it wasn’t in my best interest to annoy the public. This guy obviously had some kind of axe to grind and he was attempting to grind it with me.

But that still wasn’t enough for this FBO guy. I had no idea what he wanted me to say because he never suggested anything. He just kept recycling points from earlier in the conversation. We’d still be talking if I hadn’t cut it short by saying goodbye and hanging up.

He called back moments later. I pushed the Ignore button on my phone. He left a text message saying it was last week, not this week. Yes, let’s get the facts after we make the complaint. And make sure the facts fit the story.

I texted back, telling him to have the complainer contact me directly. That’s the last I heard from him.

One Complainer I Do Know

There’s only one guy in town who has ever complained to me about noise — and I’ve been flying helicopters out of Wickenburg since 2000. It’s a guy who lives in the Country Club area, which is conveniently located just southeast of the approach for Runway 23 (see satellite image below). He showed up at the airport one day right after I landed, steaming and ready to make a fight. He complained that I’d flown over his house too low and that I should not fly over Country Club when I came into the airport.

I said, “Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.”

That took the steam out of him. He had nothing else to say, so he left.

I began following Sols Wash into the airport when I arrive from the east or southeast and winds are favoring Runway 23. That path has me descending from about 700 feet AGL over town to about 300 to 400 feet at Vulture Mine Road over an empty wash area that no one lives in. So I don’t fly directly over any homes from the point where I pick up Sols Wash in downtown Wickenburg. An easy enough solution.

But a few weeks ago, I talked to Dave, another local helicopter pilot. He said he’s spent over an hour on the phone with what was likely the same guy. The guy told him that helicopters should avoid the Country Club area by flying 3 miles north or south of it on their way in. Dave pointed out that that simply wasn’t practical. Country club was about 3/4 mile from the airport. Why would anyone fly 3 miles out of their way to land at the airport?

When Dave told me about this, I pointed out that a 3-mile diversion would have us flying over other houses that weren’t within the normal aircraft traffic area. As people who buy homes close to an airport know, they’re required to sign an easement with the town that shows they understand their proximity to an airport that’s likely to generate noise. Why should we make a practice of overflying the homes of people who were smart enough to buy outside the airport influence area?

Stupid Planning, Stupid Development, Stupid Home Buyers

It all boils down to sheer stupidity.

The town takes a generous land donation years ago to build a very nice little municipal airport. At the time, the nearby Phoenix metro area is small and the town is tiny. The airport gets use primarily from a few hobbyists. But as the town grows, the planners don’t realize that more people means more airplanes. And if you want nice resorts, you’re going to get corporate jets. Blind — or perhaps I should say deaf — to the noise issues of an airport, they allow development to get ever closer to the airport. Soon, there are homes on three sides of the runway.

Then the town and planners, in their infinite wisdom, take a very large grant from the Federal Government to stretch one end of the runway 1500 feet toward the Country Club that has sprung up on its approach end. So now planes are taking off and landing 1/4 mile closer to these homes. And heck, just for the fun of it, they approve Hermosa Ranch, which will put another 34 homes right at the end of that runway, less than 3500 feet from the runway’s centerline.

The following image from GoogleMaps shows the reality of the situation. I purposely left the scale indicator in the image to show how close everything is.

Wickenburg Airport

Meanwhile, greedy developers hop onto the real estate boom and build as many homes as they can get on that land. The town obliges by changing the zoning from one house per acre to two or three or four houses per acre, just so they can cram them in.

Then the Realtors come in and sell these homes to unsuspecting — or maybe unbelieving — home buyers. I spoke to one realtor when “Traffic Pattern Acres” (our name for Black Mountain Ranch) went up for sale on the west side of the airport, right under the airport’s traffic pattern. “There’s never any planes at that airport,” he told me angrily.

Hmm. Tell that to the flight schools from the Phoenix area who use it for landing practice every day: Pan Am Flight Academy, Westwind, Embry Riddle, Silver State Helicopters, Universal Helicopters, Lufthansa, and Sabena. And what about the L39s that come up from Deer Valley for practice landings and 120-knot flybys? I bet they really rattle the china.

So people are told, “Sure, there’s an airport over there. And you need to sign this piece of paper. But the airport’s used by just a few local pilots and isn’t very busy at all. Sign on the dotted line.”

And people sign it.

And when the jets come in and out, and the flight schools practice takeoffs and landings, and Embry Riddle does an all-day spot landing competition, and the helicopters practice autorotations they start to complain.

The Mystery Complainer

I don’t know who’s been complaining about me lately. I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy. He’s the only guy that ever does. (I really do fly neighborly whenever possible.) And, if it is, I know I’m not flying over his house. (But yes, I am flying within 3 miles of it and I will continue to do so until they move the airport. Hell, I fly within 3 miles of my own house!)

But I won’t know who it is unless he comes forward and tells me where he lives. What is he afraid of? Does he think I’ll land in his backyard? How does he expect me to identify his home as a “noise sensitive” area if he doesn’t tell me where it is?

And what does he honestly expect? If he lives near an airport, he’s going to hear aircraft noise.

Period.

How to Handle Reciprocal Link Requests

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Why you shouldn’t always say yes.

This morning, I got a feedback message from the owner of another Web site:

My name is [omitted] and I have recently visited your site and wondered
whether you might be interested in exchanging a reciprocal link with our site.

If interested, please respond with a reciprocal link to my website.
======= ======== ======== ======================
Here is our website information:
————————————
Home page URL: http://[omitted[
Website Title: [omitted] Directory
Description: A Wholesalers and Dropshippers directory for traders, ebayers and new businesses.
E-mail Address: [omitted]
Category: (wholesale, wholesalers, dropship, dropshippers, suppliers, trade, Business, Business Services)
Keywords: wholesale, wholesalers, dropship, dropshippers, suppliers, trade, wholesaler, wholesales, directory, list, goods, products, uk, usa, Wholesale Products, wholesale directory, jewelry, clothing, product, gift, t shirt, bead furniture, dvd, watches, apparel leather, food, shopping, USA, America, American, Canada

My, that’s quite an informative request for a reciprocal link. I wonder whether he expected me to set up a Web page for him on my site.

I deleted the request without even replying. Why? Let me tell you.

Reciprocal Link, Defined

To make sure we’re all on the same page (no pun intended), let me start by explaining what a reciprocal link is.

A reciprocal link is an arrangement where one Web site owner includes a link to another Web site owner’s site, with the understanding that that other Web site owner will include a link to his site. A links to B and B links back to A.

In general, it seems like a good deal. After all, you’re getting exposure for your site on another site, right? And all it’s costing is the time and effort and page real estate to add the other link — in other words, hardly anything at all.

But Is It a Good Match?

Consider the request I got this morning. The site owner operates a site that’s a directory of wholesalers and dropshippers. Okay. So what does that have to do with my site?

The answer is nothing. There’s no relationship between what I write about here and the information that’s available on his site.

As a result, only a small percentage of my site’s visitors would be remotely interested in the information on his site. And a small percentage of his site’s visitors would be remotely interested in the information on my site.

What’s the Real Cost?

So you might be wondering, what’s the harm of including a link to an unrelated site on your site? After all, it doesn’t really cost anything.

Well, here’s the way I see it. If you included a link to every single site that asked you for a link, you’d soon have a huge link list with little or no value to your site visitors. You’re using up page real estate to clutter up your site with pretty much useless information.

And on the other side of the reciprocating agreement are sites that are doing pretty much the same thing: building long lists of links to unrelated sites, just so they can get your link to theirs. Is anyone really going to find your link — provided they even bother to look — in that long list?

Is it worth degrading your site to get those links? I don’t think so.

And Are These Requests Real?

That brings up the question of whether the requests you receive are real. In other words, did the site owner who contacted you really visit your site and think it would make a good candidate for a reciprocal link?

In this day and age, spam is all too common. It’s possible that your e-mail address got into the hands of someone who is sending the same exact message to thousands of other Web site owners or bloggers.

The message I received is certainly generic enough to go out to anyone. But in my case, I didn’t get it directly by e-mail. Instead, I got it through the use of my Feedback form, which requires either a really smart spambot or a person to create and send the message. So there’s a good chance that this site owner actually did visit my site.

If so, however, what gave him the idea that I’d link to a dropshipper directory?

When to Say Yes

Of course, some reciprocal link requests will be beneficial for both you and the other site owner. But how can you tell? Here are some things to consider:

  • Is it a good match? As I mentioned before, there should be some relationship between the two sites. Would a link to the other site benefit your site’s visitors? If so, it’s worth considering.
  • What is the other site like? Is it a quality site, one you want to send you site’s visitors to? I’ve ignored many link requests to sites that just weren’t up to my standards due to content quality, design, or excessive advertising.
  • How many links are on the other site? Are they links to related sites? Remember, if the other site has hundreds of links to other sites, it’s not likely that anyone looking at the list will find yours.

Of course, once you decide to enter into a reciprocal link agreement with another site, you’ll need to keep tabs on the other site. Has your link to the other site been created as promised? Is it still there, week after week, month after month? This will increase your site management workload a bit. But if the reciprocal link is one worth having, it’s worth the extra effort to keep track of.

Conclusion

If you get a request from another Web site or blog owner for a reciprocal link, don’t just say yes. Do your homework to make sure you really want that link on your site.

A free link isn’t always free.