Real Estate Investing

I am not a decorator.  My centerpiece pictures are hung to high.  The family photos lining the hall are arranged flatly - with no imagination altering the the bleak straight line that takes you from point A to point B.  I thought as I hung them I was doing better than how it turned out, but looking at the finished product was disappointing.  It’s been six years now, so maybe I should tackle them once again.

I’ve always heard the placing items in a group of three offers a certain symmetry that’s appealing.  So what do I have?  Groups of eight (my japanese tea set) and groups of five (the earthen crockware I inherited from my husband’s side).  The one group of three I had was glass bottles filled with rocks - one of the bottles broke.  I guess that’s what happens when you combine stone and glass.

All is not lost, however.  Lynnae of being frugal cruised Flickr Creative Commons for decorating ideas and presents some here.   I can handle this bowl of fruit idea.

I also like Heather’s Thanksgiving table decoration that can actually be used throughout Autumn family dinners.  Heather spent the weekend preparing a fabulous Thanksgiving meal so she could write about it on Home-Ec 101 this month.  Fabulous.

Speaking of candles, it looks like the clear glass container is the way to go.  Over at Pink Roses and Teacups, they used the same idea but the filler around the candles was acorns.

Finally, I like Sarah’s idea about just using your edible groceries (acorn squash, pumpkins) on your mantle as decoration.  She even uses the miniature pumpkin as a bath toy for her baby.

What kind of ideas do you have for decorating inexpensively?

Several years ago, a colleague who is now retired co-listed a home in Nashville that was haunted.  It was not “supposedly” haunted … it had ghosts, plain and simple.  The home seller was a Civil War buff who had gone to a reenactment with a group of friends.  The reenactment was near an old plantation house and cemetery that were haunted.  There were tales both of laughter from children and images of adults that would appear in windows.  The cemetery was full of ghosts wearing mostly confederate uniforms.

After the reenactment, the group of friends sat on the back of a pick up truck drinking… watching for the ghosts to come out as the skies grew dark.  They waited a couple of hours and decided to call it a night before their wives came looking for them.  But as the brave seller was about to get in his cab, he shouted a challenge to the spirits, “If anyone wants to come home with me, hop in the back of the truck!”   The friends just cackled with laughter and punched him in the arm jovially.  It was a fun night and the memory of it wouldn’t fade quickly.

As it turns out, it didn’t fade at all because within two nights of his return home, mysterious things began happening at his house.  Toys that belonged to his grandchildren would be found on the floor of the playroom in the morning - toys that had been on a shelf the night before.  The seller ran a business out of his house and often times when he was on the phone with a client, he’d hear a child giggling.   Once he heard a toddler crying and he ended his call to see what was going on.  He never did find anyone.

The young spirits weren’t too bad, but an older soul would sit in the rocking chair for two hours every night.  At precisely 8:20 p.m., the rocking motion would begin. At 10:20 p.m. - after the local weather went off - the seller would say, “It’s time to go to bed.” and the chair would stop.

The house went on the market for six months and it was advertised as being haunted.  But no one was interested in buying a house with ghosts.  Why?  According to Curbed Hamptons,

It seems the paranormal don’t sell houses all that well, particularly in a luxury market, so on the surface, the Hamptons is utterly devoid of spirits. A 1991 court ruling in Upstate New York scared many storytellers, when a $650,000 house sale fell through after the seller didn’t reveal the hauntedness of her house. A $32,500 deposit had to be returned after it was proven that the seller had relayed ghost stories to the local newspaper and Reader’s Digest, but not to the freaked out buyer. 

So next time you think about inviting a ghost home with you, be careful.  You might not be able to find a buyer until after the ghostbusters come in to rid your house of unwanted, invisible, cold guests.

Photo by my former colleague of the house that really WAS haunted.

Once the sun rises on the day after Christmas, many households awaken with the debate in their mind: take the tree down now or wait a few more days?  Of course it’s an individual decision - I know people who dismantle their tree immediately and others (me) who wait several days.  I don’t know why I wait except I just adore the season and want to milk it for every twinkling light that I can.

However, if you’re selling your house my advice is to take down the tree immediately and get the house back in parade condition. We are nearly into 2009 (I’m quite anxious to say goodbye to the market of ‘08) and I believe the niner will be the year that the real estate market will turn back around. It may make a slow climb back, but climb it will.  And I believe the climb is beginning with people making good buys on foreclosed homes.

If you intend to invest in a foreclosure, do so with your eyes wide open.  CNN Money provides four tips on buying a foreclosed property including making sure a home inspection is done in advance.  Most foreclosures are “as is” which may not be an issue, but it could well turn into a nightmare down the road.

My advice is to also be very careful about where you buy.  Like you would when you buy your own home, you want to check with the local police department to see how often and what types of crime calls they answer in that neighborhood.  It wouldn’t hurt to investigate if and how many calls were made to the actual house you’re considering buying.  Make sure there are no squatters cooking meth or no animals left to die whose insides have soaked into the subfloor.

Meanwhile shelter always has been and always will be a basic necessity and in that, people will grow tired of paying rent eventually.  Giving your money to someone else and dealing with neighbors whose music is so loud your fish tank bubbles is a convincing rationale to drive people to find their own dirt, their roof, their own walls.

And why not in 2009?  Interest rates are crazy delish, home prices are quite reasonable, and there are now numerous safeguards in place to protect buyers from predatory lenders.  We’ve survived the holidays, we’ve survived 2008.  Time to move along.