phil43

When in doubt, Always Check Here first (or your local area) BEFORE making an appt to meet with a homeowner (I always check this first as it covers my local areas) BEV! Thanks for the resource, BEV! How are you doing? Interesting article in NY Times about Mountain House...worse foreclosure rate in the nation, yikes! Phil

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JASON!! Take it easy on the moonshine! Phil

Must be wearing one of her risque outfits again!! Phil

MC, Where's the optimism? Phil

For Sale: Homes, Cars -- No Money Down! (Again) Posted Jun 24, 2008 10:52am EDT by Aaron Task in Investing, Recession Related: GM, F, TM, LEN, KBH, TTM Seeking to stem a steep decline in sales, GM is reviving the "zero-percent" financing strategy that helped boost sales earlier this decade. With Ford also in desperate straits and even Toyota scaling back its U.S. sales forecast, it probably won't be long until "no money down" becomes the industry standard again. In separate but related news, The Wall Street Journal reports "no money down" financing is also making a comeback in the housing market. Thanks to nonprofits that are funded by homebuilders and private homeowners, buyers can get their down payments funded and then qualify for FHA-insured loans -- meaning U.S. taxpayers are ultimately on the hook for these loans. Just like the automakers, homebuilders like Lennar and KB Home are saddled with huge inventories of unsold homes, so the strategy makes sense for them. But whether zero-percent loans will revive sales of either homes or autos is debatable. Unlike in 2001-02 consumers are retrenching, and many have (hopefully) learned the lesson that there's ultimately a price to pay for all this "free money."

That makes for a horrifying visual, MC. However, maybe they can leave the poor 'gators alone and use the surplus of these folks to make high-end handbags and wallets

$5K seems kind of steep to me for a $39k house. Am I missing something here? Phil

Now, that's turning lemons into lemonade. I think I'll start using this approach. You're absolutely right about it being easier to find tenants than T|B's. With no end in sight for depreciation, it almost doesn't make sense to lock in price if the expectation is it will be worth less in a year.

I have no problem finding willing "homeowners". The biggest problem is finding folks who aren't upside down with their mortgages Foreclosures are rampant over here!! Phil

Darin, The flip side is that can't lay any claims to your profits by your keeping this a separate activity outside your affiliation with the brokerage. I would think this is in your best interest. Phil

Glad you enjoyed guys! Happy Friday !

Installing Your Man... Dear Tech Support, Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do? Signed, Desperate *** DEAR DESPERATE, First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System. Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and don't forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta. Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.) Also do not attempt to reinstall Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0. In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7. Good Luck, Tech Support

Whether Democrate or Republican, I think you'll get a kick out of this! A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is Politics?" Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I am the head of the family, so call me The President. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government. We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People. The nanny, we will consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we will call him the Future. Now think about that and see if it makes sense.." So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him . He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now. " The father says, "Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about." The little boy replies, "The President is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit" Phil

Ditto, Pete. I don't see what benefit she would offer you except for cutting into your hard earned profits!! Phil

I'll take it !

THE PHONE CALL **Rrriiiiinnnnggg, rrriiiinnnngg,** "Hello?" "Hi, honey. This is Daddy. Is Mommy near the phone?" "No, Daddy. She's upstairs in the bedroom with Uncle Paul." After a brief pause, Daddy says, "But, honey, you haven't got an Uncle Paul." "Oh yes I do, and he's upstairs in the room with Mommy, right now." Brief Pause. "Uh, okay then, this is what I want you to do . . . . Put the phone down on the table; run upstairs and knock on the bedroom door; and shout to Mommy that Daddy's car just pulled into the driveway." "Okay, Daddy; just a minute." A few minutes later, the little girl comes back to the phone. "I did it Daddy." "And what happened, honey?" "Well, Mommy got all scared; jumped out of bed with no clothes on; and ran around screaming. Then she tripped over the rug; hit her head on the dresser; and now she isn't moving at all!" "Oh my God!!! What about your Uncle Paul?" "He jumped out of the bed with no clothes on, too. He was all scared and he jumped out of the back window into the swimming pool. But I guess he didn't know that you took out the water last week to clean it. He hit the bottom of the pool and I think he's dead." *** Long Pause *** *** Longer Pause *** *** Even Longer Pause *** Then Daddy says, "Swimming pool? . . . Is this 486-5731?"

Darin, One of the hardest things I've had to learn is to quickly walk away from deals that just won't work. Sounds like you're on the right track Now, when I recognize that the numbers or motivation won't allow a deal to happen...I am not hesitant to say, "NEXT'! (in the words of our resident curmudgeon, Doug Petronious ) Phil p.s. Where are you, Doug?

I'm sure all will be good when the "stimulus" checks arrive Phil

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Steve! Go indulge yourself today!! Phil

Funny you should ask, Steve. I almost pulled a BEV! with this one (quick turnaround), but the T/B I had lined up flaked at the last minute. Not to worry though, I had a showing over the weekend, and expect to have cash-in-hand within the next couple of days. Phil

I'm passing along this little gem a friend e-mailed to me a short while ago. Google offers free directory assistance for your cell phone. No need to pay that $1.50 anymore to the service provider! All you do is dial 800-466-4411, and follow the voice prompts. Phil

One gallon of California Premium gasoline, or an all expenses paid trip for two to Napa Valley, which ever is cheaper. ...Close call! Or you can just tell me you want the change made and I will work my magic behind the scenes ...If you can make the change for me, that would be great, Mr. Wizard Thanks! Phil

Thank you for the warm Birhtday wishes everyone! After I recover from a little too much Resveratrol consumption (red wine) yesterday , its back to RE investing! Phil p.s. Admin what's the charge to change my ID to Prosper44?

Thanks, MC! After treating myself to our fine premium gas me and the wifey are going to drive up to the Napa Valley where I will treat myself to a gallon of California's finest wine Phil

Good going! I'm sure you'll have no problem moving this one with a little work Phil