Tag Archives: real estate

On Cell Phones

Posted on by
Comment

I think a lot of valid arguments can be made that cell phones are out of control. It’s gotten to the point that everyone seems to have one.

Or maybe I should say at least one. I had a real estate agent last year who carried two of them and a pager.

Is anyone really that important?

No matter where you go, you see someone with his cell phone pasted to the side of his head blabbing away, often oblivious to what’s going on around him. Or even funnier: apparently blabbing away to himself because he’s wearing some kind of fancy Bluetooth earpiece that looks suspiciously like communications head gear from the orginal Star Trek.

Do these people really need to be talking while they’re shopping for groceries, standing on line in the post office, crossing the street or — dare I say it — piloting their car through a crowded parking lot?

Does everyone need a cell phone? Even kids have them now. Heck, when I was a kid, it was a real treat to have an extension of the house phone in my bedroom. I didn’t have my own phone number, a number that would reach me any time of the day or night wherever I was.

Am I jealous of today’s kids and their cellphones? Hell, no! What’s so good about being reachable anywhere you are when you’re a teenager out goofing off with your friends?

I do, of course, have a cell phone. It’s for business — and I’m not just saying that. I set up my office phone number so I can forward it to my cell phone when I’m not at the office. People call that published number and reach me. I’ve booked more than a few helicopter flights on that phone.

And I do use the phone when I need information or need to tell someone something. Going to be late for an appointment? I call. Can’t find the street I’m supposed to turn on? I call. Need to know if we have any plans for next Tuesday night? I call. According to my phone bill, more than 80% of the calls I make last less than a minute.

The important word here is need. I use my cell phone when I need to. I don’t use it for idle chatter. There’s two reasons for that. First, I like to be comfortable when I’m chatting with a friend or family member. So I usually do it from home. Second, lengthy chats wear down the phone’s battery. A dead cell phone won’t meet my communication needs.

And no, I won’t buy the second battery pack. Or the colorful face plate or case. Or latest ring tone.

What’s with the ring tone thing anyway? I think that’s the most obnoxious part of cell phone usage.

We’ve all experienced this: You’re sitting in a restaurant with a friend/spouse/family, having a nice dinner, when the cell phone the idiot at the table behind you owns starts playing the cha-cha or the opening bars of a Def Leppard track or some digitized sound effect that sounds like a primal scream. He thinks its funny. Do you?

I don’t. I think it’s a selfish attempt to get attention at the expense of the people around him.

I read somewhere recently that people have no qualms about plunking down $10 for a ring tone but they hesitate when it comes to buying a new CD. (If anyone out there can find that piece online, please use the Comments link to share the URL; I can’t find it.)

My phone, a 1-1/2 year old Motorola flip phone, has a vibrate mode. Since I wear it on my belt, I feel it when it rings. If I don’t pick it up after a few moments, it plays a sound that’s kind of like a doorbell. A simple little chime. I’m not saying its not obnoxious — any sound a device makes in a public place is obnoxious — but it’s far less offensive than some. And frankly, every time I hear it in a public place and someone looks at me, I’m embarrassed. I don’t want to be seen as one of them. (And we all know who they are.)

Mike’s got one of those Razr phones. He says people are envious of him. The phone is extremely thin, has a built-in camera and e-mail features, and does more than my original computer did. (I’m sure it has more processing power, too.) But come on guys — it’s a phone. A phone.

I’d still have my original Motorola flip phone if it would work as well as the newer one. I liked it better. It was simpler and started up quicker. It was plain black and it didn’t have a color screen. It didn’t have to make a sound when you turned it on or shut it off. And it didn’t have a built-in camera, Internet capabilities, Bluetooth, and dozens of ring tones to choose from. It was a simple, small, easy to use phone. Like the original Princess phones. Although it no longer is connected to any network, it’ll still work for 911 calls. So I keep it and its car power adapter in my car, just in case I need to make that emergency call and my other phone is dead.

That’s what cell phones were originally for, isn’t it? Emergencies?

Anyway, what started this whole rampage about cell phones was an article I read on Slate.com about fiction where the cell phone becomes the villain. It’s called “Can You Fear Me Now? – The cell phone goes from annoying to evil” and it’s by Bryan Curtis.

Some of the stories aren’t that farfetched, either.

The Coyotes are Howling

Posted on by
Comment

And other items of interest.

It’s just after 6 AM on a Tuesday morning. This time of year, we wake up when it gets light. Alex is like an alarm clock and he starts singing and whistling when the room gets light enough to see. I know I could just throw a blanket over his cage and keep him quiet until we’re ready to wake up, but these days, we still wake up before him at least two or three days a week.

Off in the near distance — perhaps over by Rancho de los Caballeros — a bunch of coyotes are singing their coyote songs. I once tried to research why coyotes howl. A few articles on the Web addressed the subject, but none were conclusive. The coyote song is one of the things I like about living in the desert.

Took a break to go down and feed the horses. It’s getting hot these days — in the 90s every day — and the fly situation down there is getting bad. This year, I’m trying a new fly control system. Called Fly Predators, they’re tiny little “non-nuisance” flies that eat “nuisance” fly larvae. The idea is that you spread these little flies around where the annoying flies lay their eggs — primarily on horse manure — and they eat the eggs. Supposedly, if you have enough of the little buggers, they’ll eat just about all the fly eggs, thus killing the fly population before it grows.

I’m not sure if its working. In fact, I suspect that it isn’t. Maybe I started too late. Or maybe it’s all a lot of bull. I asked a few people about their experiences with this solution and they all had good things to say. It’s costly — about $120 per season — but that’s the same amount we’d spend if we had to spray down the horses every day. Anyway, I spread my monthly batch of fly predators this morning. If I don’t see results within a few weeks, I’m going to assume it just doesn’t work. The horses like it a lot better at Howard Mesa. The flies haven’t taken hold there yet and, with luck, they won’t. No need for fly masks and the boys have 40 acres to roam around and graze. Last weekend we took them to Groom Creek Horse Camp in the Prescott National Forest. What a wonderful place. Nice, drive-thru campsites designed for people with horses. Two of the sites even had corrals (rather than rope ties) and we were lucky enough to get one of them. We did a 9-mile loop ride to the top of Spruce Mountain on Saturday and a 7-mile loop ride on the Wolf Creek Trail on Sunday. We were part of a group of perhaps 30 people/horses, although we didn’t all ride together each day.

Prescott is a nice place. At an elevation of about 5000 feet, it gets pretty cold in the winter and stays cool in the summer. Lots of recreation, parks, and shopping. Sun and shade. The other day, Vicki, the woman who’d organized the Groom Creek trip asked me where we lived.

“Wickenburg,” I told her.

“Wickenburg?” she repeated, obviously surprised. “But you’re too young to live in Wickenburg.”

“Exactly.”

I could go into detail here about how much this little conversation bugged me, especially since my Georgetown trip two weeks ago convinced me that I was living in the wrong place. But I’ll save that for another blog entry.

About a year ago, Mike and I spent some time with a Realtor, looking at homes in the Prescott area. It’s tough for us because our house is nearly paid for and neither of us wanted to walk into a big new mortgage. I couldn’t believe the dumps this woman was showing us — all above our price range. (Do Realtors ever listen?) What a waste of time. Then Mike got a job in Phoenix and we decided that the drive from Prescott would just be too darn long for him.

Sadly, there’s no chance of him ever getting a decent paying job in Wickenburg. Fortunately, I can work anywhere and still make the same living. But I do wish I lived somewhere where my helicopter tour and charter business would do better. It’s tough doing business in a town where so few people want to spend money. I guess that’s why so many of the businesses that start in Wickenburg fail within the first year. And why there are so many empty storefronts in town.

Other items of interest include the irony of a humane mouse trap. If you’ve been reading these blogs, you know that I use a humane mouse trap to catch mice and set them free far away from where I caught them. Last summer, I even took two mice for helicopter rides — you can find the blog entry about that somewhere on this site. Well, last week I noticed that a mouse was building a nest in the trunk of my Honda S2000. I love that car — it’s the last sports car I’ll ever buy — and I’m doing my best to make sure it lasts 20 or 30 years. Having a mouse use insulation beyond the trunk compartment to build himself a cozy home in the trunk was not desirable. So before we went away to Groom Creek, I set up the trap with a bit of peanut butter and closed it in the trunk. When I got home on Sunday, a tiny mouse was trapped inside, waiting to be set free.

I decided to drive him up the road and let him out at some bushes away from all the neighbor’s homes (and my garage). I parked alongside of the road, opened my door, opened the trap, and shook the little bugger out. He landed on the ground, but instead of running into the bushes, he ran under my Jeep. I figured: how stupid can the mouse be? He must have run across the road. He couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to hide behind one of my tires. Right? Wrong. I pulled back very slowly, giving him every opportunity to run away. But he must have been really dumb, because when I’d backed up about 10 feet, I saw his crushed body on the road.

Damn.

But you can’t say I didn’t try. Next time, I’ll get out of the car and drop the mouse in a clump of bushes.

Mike’s cousin Rick said I probably did the mouse a favor anyway. He’s right. It’s also snake season — there was a good sized rattler on my driveway on Sunday afternoon — and snakes eat mice. At least this mouse’s death was quick and painless.

We don’t kill the snakes unless they become a nuisance around the house. Don’t want the dog getting bitten. The snakes keep the mice away. One year, we had a bad mouse problem in the shed. Droppings really did a number on one of Mike’s old saddles and I had a saddle blanket ruined. The next year, a rattlesnake moved in under the shed. I’d see him in the corner of the chicken yard in the morning, coiled up, resting. The chickens didn’t bother him and he didn’t bother them. But there were no mice that year, either.

It’s almost 7 AM. Time to get dressed and take Alex to work. He’s chattering away as I type this. “Howdy partner!” That’s his latest vocabulary phrase and he really likes to say it. “Come on Jack, go outside.” I think he orders the dog around more than we do. The dog, of course, ignores him.

A Birthday Flight

Posted on by
Comment

I take a 90-year-old woman, her 88-year-old brother, and her son on a helicopter tour.

I’ve been getting a lot of calls lately from people in Scottsdale, interested in helicopter tours. There’s a charter company down there named Westcor Aviation (associated with the Westcor malls and other real estate ventures) and my very first flight instructor, Paul, works for them as a pilot. They occasionally get calls from people who want to charter a helicopter and get “sticker shock” when they hear the rate: $1,500 per hour. So when asked to recommend other operators in the area, Westcor has begun recommending me, along with the others.

Doing flights out of Scottsdale isn’t exactly good for me. I ask $495 per hour for flights originating in the valley, with a one-hour minimum. But I don’t charge people for the amount of time it takes me to get from Wickenburg to the valley and back again. So I don’t really make much money on these flights. But they’re good experience and they do help pay for the helicopter. And they give me an excuse to fly.

I did one of these flights on Sunday. I’d gotten a call during the week and made arrangements with someone named Brad to fly his grandmother on a tour of the area for her 90th birthday. He’d fill the other two seats, too, and he’d make sure the total weight was below 650 for the three passengers. I just had to meet him at Scottsdale Airport at 10:00 AM.

This worked out well for Mike and I. Mike had gotten Greyhawk Members Club tickets to see the FBR US Open in Scottsdale, which wasn’t far from the airport. The tickets got us entrance to the event as well as entrance to hospitality tents scattered around the course. We could eat and watch the golfing from comfortable, shaded seats — all for free. We figured we’d head over to the course when my flight was finished.

We arrived at Scottsdale Airport about 40 minutes early and got a great parking spot right out in front of the terminal. We went into the restaurant for some weak coffee and a bite to eat and I spent some time reviewing the Phoenix Terminal Area Chart to see where I could take them. At 9:50, I headed out to the lobby to wait for my passengers. There were three young people there and one of them approached me. It was Brad.

I looked at him and his two companions. “I thought you said it was for your grandmother.”

“She’s on her way,” he said.

I tried to review the route I’d planned with him, hoping it would meet his approval. He didn’t seem to care. “She wants to see the Superstition Mountains,” he said.

I wanted to take her up the Salt River, which would take us near the Superstitions but not over them. I didn’t want to fly over or around the Superstitions. It’s rocky, dangerous terrain and I didn’t think it would make for an interesting or comfortable one-hour flight, given the wind conditions and the descending clouds out that way.

“She doesn’t know she’s doing this,” he added.

A while later, his grandmother arrived. With about twenty other people. She was a petite 90-year-old woman. They escorted her up to the window where she could see Zero-Mike-Lima parked on the ramp. “That’s your birthday present,” someone told her.

She was thrilled. They quickly sorted out who would be flying with her: her brother, who I can accurately describe as a little old man, and her son, who was considerably larger. I don’t think their total weight even reached 500 pounds. I escorted them outside to the security door and told them that only one person could accompany us through the gate to take photos. Out at the helicopter, I gave them the safety briefing. I put the birthday girl in the front, her brother behind her, and her son behind me. As I warmed up Zero-Mike-Lima, my passenger’s entourage watched from behind the glass partition.

We departed to the southwest to remain west of Runway 21. Although the controller told me he’d call my turn to the east, he was so busy with other traffic that I was clear of his airspace before he had a chance to. I passed north of Camelback, then headed east toward the Salt River. I skirted the north edge of Falcon Field’s airspace, then continued up the Salt River Canyon.

The desert was absolutely beautiful. I’d never seen it so green. And all the lakes we flew over — Saguaro, Canyon, Apache — were completely filled with water. The sunlight through the low clouds made a patchwork of shade over the entire scene, illuminating some hillsides and rock formations and shadowing others. The Superstitions were clearly visible, just below the clouds, to the south of us, so my passengers got to see what they wanted to, and so much more.

About 0.6 hours out, I made the turn to come back, using my GPS to give me a more direct route. The goal was to make the flight exactly 1.0 hours. Soon we were heading toward Fountain Hills. I looked at the clock on my instrument panel. It was nearly 11 AM. Is it possible that I’d overfly Fountain Hills just as they turned on the fountain? It was. We were still about three miles out when the water started to rise. It was an added bonus for my passengers to see it from the air.

We approached Scottsdale Airport from the west. Fortunately, the controller wasn’t nearly as busy as he’d been when we left and we had no trouble approaching the airport, crossing the runway, and landing right where we’d begun.

My passengers were very pleased with the flight. I was too.

And when the woman’s daughter handed me a check, a little voice in the back of my head reminded me, “And they pay you to do great stuff like this, too.”

Landlord Stories, Part II

Posted on by
Comment

An update on my landlord situation.

We finished work on the rental house that my tenant had trashed.

The painting was done last week. The carpet was replaced on Friday.

Mike, John, Lorna, and I spent Saturday cleaning the vertical blinds — which had probably never been cleaned before — and fixing the broken things throughout: kitchen sink faucet, garbage disposal, exhaust fans, etc. We also cleaned out the storage closets under the carport. The tenant from hell had just stuffed both closets with things she no longer cared about — toys, games, photographs, clothes, trophies — you name it. The highlights: a 8×10 photograph of her mother (recently deceased) and someone’s service medal. Anything that looked as if it had value went to the local thrift shop. Everything else went into the trash. We filled the curbside trash bin for the fifth time that day.

The house looks absolutely great now. I’ve already gotten some calls from prospective tenants, but so far every single one of them has a dog. No pets. No exceptions. I’m not going through this again.

I also started the wheels turning on refinancing the place. My goal is to get a separate mortgage for the apartment building and the house. Right now, they’re on the same mortgage. Once they’re separated, I can sell each one individually. I’d like to sell the house and keep the apartment building. I’m pretty sure I want to put my office in Unit #4, which is upstairs and has nice views. But I got a call from someone who’s interested in renting it for three months and if she does take it, I’ll put off my office move until she’s gone.

Of course, since the whole property — house and apartments — are currently listed for sale, I might just sell everything off and be done with it. I just hope that if they do all sell together, it happens soon, before I pay over $4K in bank closing costs for the new mortgages.

Real Estate Wheelings and Dealings

Posted on by
Comment

I listen to an offer from a real estate investor and learn a lot about buying and selling real estate.

Back when I first started making real money as a writer, I invested in real estate. The first year, I bought a two bedroom condo in town as a rental. The second year, I bought a property that included a 2 bedroom/2 bath house and a small apartment building with four furnished studio apartment units. The third year, I realized that there was far more fun things to do with my money so I bought a helicopter.

I still own all that real estate, although I don’t really want to. I hate being a landlord. I hate dealing with tenants and cleaning up after them. I hate showing the apartments. I hate evicting tenants who can’t seem to pay on time. I just hate the whole thing.

I moved my office into the condo about three years ago. It’s more space than I need, but at least I don’t have to deal with tenants there anymore.

A few years ago, I half-heartedly put the five-plex on the market. I gave the Realtor I listed with strict instructions: only show the place to qualified buyers. Give the tenants at least 24 hours notice and get their permission before showing their units. Unfortunately, a local Realtor who was too lazy to show the property properly gave the address to a potential buyer. The buyer didn’t do just a drive by. He drove in. And he started knocking on doors. When one of my tenants told me about this, I wigged out and took the property off the market.

This year, I needed to upgrade my helicopter from a 2-place Robinson R22 to a 4-place Robinson R44. To do this, I needed to either take out a huge aircraft loan or pull equity out of some real estate. So I put the five-plex back on the market.

It’s been shown a few times and I’ve gotten some low offers. One of the potential buyers was extremely obnoxious about it. He didn’t want the house. He just wanted the four-plex. So he offered an insultingly low amount. I didn’t even bother to counter.

I arranged helicopter financing another way, so I’m not desperate to make the sale. But I do want to sell. And I’d like to sell sometime before next summer.

The other day, my Realtor (a different one from last time) called to ask if I’d be interested in carrying 20% on the property. I thought about it a while and said yes. And yesterday, I met with someone who made me an official offer, one that shows exactly how much wheeling and dealing someone can do in the world of real estate.

This buyer wanted me to finance the 25% the lender would normally require him to come up with as a down payment. He wanted to pay me only 5% on the amount I’d carry (when his lender was getting 6.5%) and amortize that over 30 years, with a balloon payment in 3 years. He wanted me to pay all closing costs. He was, in essence, trying to buy a property listed for $324,000 for only $290,000 without any out-of-pocket costs. I’d basically be financing part of his investment, with a high-risk loan that had little collateral.

The deal got weirder as the meeting progressed. He said he worked very closely with his lender and appraiser and could get the property appraised for just about anything he needed it to. So to make the numbers work, he could pay up to $350,000 for the property. I’d still have to carry 25% — which was now over $80,000 — and I’d also have to give him a “seller rebate” of $20,000 so he could make some improvements on the property. So not only am I financing the investment for him, but I’m making the improvements, too. And hanging a lot of money out there for possible loss.

I came to the meeting prepared with a spreadsheet. I punched the numbers in and saw that it was possible for it to work. On paper (or pixels). But was I willing to risk $80,000+ on someone who wasn’t willing to put up any of his own money? No way!

This morning, I came up with a counteroffer that I know he’ll turn down. I e-mailed it to my Realtor. Hopefully, this buyer will just go away. My head is still spinning from his scheme.

But I did learn one thing: I can separate the two properties and refinance them with two loans. I can pull my equity out and be in a good position to sell either property on its own. That’s something I hadn’t thought about going into this and it’s a damn good idea.