Cheap Thoughts: Tips for seeing a home

I think it should become customary for people viewing a home to leave some sort of tip to the homeowner. Its not fun to clear out at a moment’s notice for an hour or more. Often the prospective buyer (or buyer’s agent) doesn’t bother to leave any feedback so we’re often left with no clue anyone’s even been here.

You wouldn’t come invited to someone’s party without bringing a small gift or snack, so why should seeing someone’s home be any different? Leaving a tip or gift would show appreciation for being invited into someone’s home, even if you don’t choose to buy.

One show, one no-show

I got an excited call from Kelly Friday afternoon, proudly informing me of a showing we had Saturday afternoon at 1. We scrambled to get the house in shape and get ourselves out to Marbles, only to get a call before we left telling us the client had to cancel due to a “missed flight.” I suppose the wickedly high winds from yesterday’s cold front disrupted air traffic.
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Cancer claims Jeff Healey

Just found out that legendary blind Canadian guitarist Jeff Healey died Sunday. He was just 41 years old. The retinoblastoma cancer that robbed him of his eyesight as an infant finally took his life.

I think Healey’s performance in Road House was the highlight of the whole cheesy film, but opinions vary.

He leaves behind a wife, 13-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. Sad to hear he’s gone.

Here he is performing Angel Eyes (Rickroll-safe YouTube video). He had amazing talent.

Two-wheelin’

I’ve decided to get into better shape, so I woke up early and dusted off my road bike. Its the first time I’ve ridden it since Kelly thoughtfully got it tuned up as a Christmas present. She left the tires flat on it (so I wouldn’t get wise to her surprise), so I had to pump them up first.

Time was ticking away. I rode up the street and back. Felt pretty good.

Well, I’ll just ride over to the top of the greenway, I thought. Hey, that didn’t take much time at all. What the heck, why not do the whole greenway circuit!
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Daylight No-savings Time?

WRAL Weathercenter’s Nate Johnson posted about daylight savings time, which goes into effect this Sunday. Ah, daylight savings time: one of my favorite whipping boys. If there’s one thing that raises my government-as-nanny hackles, daylight savings time is it.

Benjamin Franklin is credited with conceiving daylight savings time (DST) as a way to save on candles. While candles may have been all the rage in Poor Richard’s day, it may be safe to say that we use energy quite differently nowadays. The energy required to shift one’s biological clock to match clock time is quite expensive, too, but not so easily measured.
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‘Blink’ as applied to homebuying

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink touts the wisdom of trusting one’s split-second decisions. As Hallie and I passed our new neighborhood this morning I can affirm this wisdom. Before I even saw our new house for the first time the deal was already done. I just knew when we turned onto our new street that this was where we would live.

With this in mind, I’ve decided that it is not necessarily a good sign when prospective homebuyers take their time viewing the house. While they may linger out of habit, in less than two minutes they should know if this is their new home. They may not know if this isn’t their new home (the two are not the same), but if its right they will know in an instant.

That’s all it takes: an instant. Anything longer and you’re just talking yourself into it.

Beaten up

Wow. I went to bed around 10:30 last night thinking the severe storms had fizzled out. Boy, was I mistaken! From about 11 until the wee hours of the morning our house got absolutely battered! I don’t recall ever experiencing winds that strong from any storm that didn’t have a name. It was anything but a gentle rain! Things were made worse as the winds came from the south, right where our bedroom is.

The MT.Net weather station tells me we had a top gust of 20.6 MPH at 9:30 last night. Judging how my wind gauge is shielded significantly by the deck the gust was likely far stronger. Wow.

I remarked to Kelly how quiet the birds were this morning.

“Well, yeah!” she answered. “They got blown into Delaware!”

Moving on up

As you know, I spent the weekend doing more moving. Parking a storage container on your driveway is a great way to move: you can pack things at your own pace. I tucked the last items into our container this morning so tomorrow it can be carted back to the warehouse. Yay! I never thought we’d find enough stuff to put into an 8’x8’x16′ container but we did.
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