SteveWords

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

I need feedback!

Should I make comments on political BS here? Please leave me comments as to what you think!

Thanks!

Get out of real estate now!

Several months ago my wife and I were on one of our walks and we happened on a duplex for sale. I grabbed one of the info sheets on the pole outside and began reading. Shock hit! This very average building was for sale for $350,000.00! It was built about 1 year before for something like $180,000.00. I decided to run the numbers on this property. The payments on a standard 30 year loan were about twice what it rented for! There was no way that you could double the rent and still find tenants willing to pay that much. There was no way to get a profit out of this property as an investment. I tried everything that I could think of to find a way to make out on this property. This is-to me-a sign that real estate has finally hit the wacko level in our area.

Now the news is saying that house sales are down. I wonder why?

Nerd Note! Lightnin’ and your computer…

This is the time of the year when thunderstorms hit our area. Lightning is your computer’s worst enemy. So you have a surge protector in the power line. Yee-haw! Think about how big a lightning bolt is. See how big your surge protector is. Nuff said, eh? A surge protector helps for little surges, like when your refrigerator starts. A lightning bolt is humongeous.

How do you protect yourself? Easy! Just unplug everything when lightning is near. You can tell the approximate distance away of a strike by counting the seconds between the flash and the thunder sound. Each second is one mile away. If the strike is a couple of miles away you are relatively safe. Any closer and it’s unplug time. This also includes the computer, the monitor and all accessories. You also need to disconnect the modem or ethernet connection as lightning also destroys bunches of modems every year.

Also think about the other things in your home that are electronic. Your TV, clock radio, stereo, VCR, etc all need to be unplugged too. They are in the same position as your computer when it comes to surges, and could even start a fire and burn your house down!

If you are going to be gone you also might want to be disconnecting everything just in case!