Category Archives: Homeownership

Homeownership

A step-by-step guide for unpacking and building a library packed up by Idaho movers

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Here is the basic sequence:

  1. Build shelf.
  2. In honor of Ikea, sing Små grodorna. (This is a song Swedes sing in unison at Midsummer. Its basic message is that small frogs are enjoyable to watch. If you can understand why they feel so passionately about singing this song, you qualify for several Swedish government programs.)
  3. Fold up shelf box for recycling.
  4. Horse first book box into suitable position (always atop three other boxes; easier on sore back).
  5. Open box.
  6. Shelve books.
  7. Rip and ball tape.
  8. Flatten paper.
  9. Open box.
  10. Discover that family photos and keepsakes qualify as ‘books,’ to go by the semiliterate labeling scrawl.
  11. Curse moving company with inventive zeal.
  12. Rip and ball tape.
  13. Flatten paper.
  14. Open box.
  15. Shelve books.
  16. Find random items stuffed in between books, now well crushed.
  17. Throw away destroyed items.
  18. Curse movers, focusing on maladies and calamaties richly deserved.
  19. Rip and ball tape.
  20. Flatten paper.
  21. Open box.
  22. Discover that entire downstairs (five distinct rooms) was classified as ‘basement,’ that all non-practical items are lumped as ‘home decor,’ and that a baby blanket is evidently a ‘book.’
  23. Curse moving company.
  24. Criticize self for inadequacy and slight flagging of pure loathing reflected in cursing.
  25. Re-curse moving company correctly, paying special attention to mental and genetic shortcomings, thus bringing cursing up to code.
  26. Rip and ball tape.
  27. Flatten paper.
  28. Open box.
  29. Shelve books.
  30. Notice damaged book that wasn’t damaged before.
  31. Curse moving company, with emphasis on packers’ predilection for incest.
  32. Rip and ball tape.
  33. Flatten paper.
  34. Open box.
  35. Discover that ‘Gar Items’ is as specific as it gets if it was in the garage.
  36. Curse moving company, conforming to acceptable standards for profanity and insult levels.
  37. In back of mind, begin compiling highlights of curses for potential curse anthology.
  38. Marvel at sheer accumulated weight of books one Ikea bookshelf can handle.
  39. Hum Abba music, in recognition of sturdiness.
  40. Open box.
  41. [repeat cycle]
Homeownership, Married life, Social comment

My own Alexandria

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Most people who know me assume that my first outing in a new home, assuming I’m not low on gasoline, is to obtain a library card. Not so much. Oh, I eventually do, and I venerate libraries much as you might imagine, considering that the written word has been essential in my life since the aftermath of the Watts riots. (I was pushing age 2, and thus on the verge of learning to read. I do not remember learning to read; by my earliest awareness, reading was something I took for granted.)

My family helped this along. When I was about four, my Great-Great-Aunt Nell (whose little sister was my great-grandmother) gave us a full set of 1955 World Book encyclopedias. Before I went off to kindergarten, I had read them. I continued to do this through high school. The encyclopedia was my first library, if you will–a place where I could always go and find reading, an inexhaustible well of enjoyment.

Aunt Nell is nearly half a century gone now, her little niece who is my grandmother is ninety-five, and I often wonder if Aunt Nell had the faintest idea what her gift would do. Giving her credit for the wisdom of an educator who lived to be ancient, perhaps she knew precisely what she was doing. If Aunt Nell could or can see how it all played out, I believe she would be pleased.

In adulthood, surprising no one, I ended up with a lot of books. By age thirty-five, I needed about fifty linear feet of six-foot-high shelving in order to house most of them. My office was right outside the library, so when I went to work, I walked past the stacks. The library gave me reading material, emotional comfort, and a sense of home. I didn’t very often go to a local library simply because I liked mine better.

When it came time to move, and the library was dismantled, I had to leave for a few hours while the packers worked. And once it was gone, that was no longer home to me. If a residence has my wife and my books, it is fully home. If neither, it’s glorified camping. I made the mistake of sharing my honest feelings about that on Facebook, and was mocked for it by acquaintances, which taught me why you never ever share anything on Facebook when you are authentically vulnerable, especially if you know as many callous wiseasses as I do. On Facebook, always be ready in case someone says something mockingly scornful, because they’ll do it when you can least handle it, convinced of their towering wit and that there is never a time not to show it off. And they know beyond doubt that if you don’t think they’re funny right then, you should just get over it. It does not occur to them that you might instead just get over them.

Can you tell that I’m coming to care less and less about making people happy on Facepalm? Maybe the best way to deal with obnoxiousness that shows one no consideration is to stop showing it unreciprocated consideration, and just tell it what you really think.

Or maybe I am simply aging past the point of tiptoeing around people in life.

Three years and two states later, I again live with my wife, and can set up the library once again. My little Alexandria.

For a number of reasons, this time we abandoned the breezeblock-and-lumber method. In that situation, the shelves actually cost almost as much to move as the books, and that’s just stupid. Plus, my wife hated them. When your wife picks out a house with a space specifically in mind for your library, and embraces the concept, and you do not meet her halfway by designing the library in a way that will please her, you are an ungrateful and selfish sod. Setup could not begin until we got the floors done, so that delayed us six weeks, but now it’s under way.

This means seventeen Ikea bookshelves, interspersed with six knicknack shelves so that my wife can display doodads and small items. The room is what most people would use as a large den or game room, 15′ x 20′. It will have a big leather recliner plus a couple other comfortable chairs, the bare wall adorned with maps and my wife’s artwork, daisychained lamps to illuminate the aisles, and eventually French doors. (These are more my wife’s idea. If the doors are French, do they go on strike once a week, as ancient French custom specifies? Mes amis français, qu’est-ce qu’on pense ?)

Since most of the boxes of books are piled in the library, this means some creative thinking in terms of setup. One needs physical space for bookshelves, yet one cannot put up any more until one puts some books on shelves. I decided to just put whichever books wherever, on the logic that I can organize them at leisure later. My uncle, who is a civil engineer and spends a lot of his working life figuring out how to build structures that are sturdy yet aesthetic, is a bigger influence than he knows. The only shelves that should hold the larger hardcovers on are the bottom or the middle bracing shelves, which are the sturdiest, and in any case we do not want the shelves overly top-heavy.

Little felt pads go on the bottom of every shelf, to protect the hardwood (well, hardgrass) floor. When they’re all up, then will come cross-bracing across the top and bolting them together at the base; we live in a subduction zone. While I’m under no illusions about what a serious earthquake would do to the library, if a whole full shelf were able to fall directly over, that is much more dangerous than all the books simply being shaken off and cascading to the floor. No entombed electrical outlets; each one has a power strip with a long enough right-angle plug cord to set it on top of the shelves, since those will hide that outlet from view for what may be the remainder of my life. I’m hoping my uncle will one day come to visit me and examine what I’ve designed, and give it the Good Engineering Seal of Approval. I’m hoping my aunt, to whom Great-Great-Aunt Nell was a great-aunt, will take satisfaction in the way the library will honor Aunt Nell.

One improves rapidly at the fine art of assembling Ikea furniture. I like that they are more likely to give you too many small parts than too few.  We got an extra shelf per unit, which was a spendy addition to an already spendy process, but we are united in the belief that we should do this one right. So I horse some book boxes around, build a couple of shelves, unpack some book boxes that are in a spot where I need to put more shelves, repeat.

I don’t like taking or posting pictures here, and am not good at it, but when it’s done, I just might make an exception. That would be more interesting than posting pictures of a dinner, or a cat, or yet another salvo in the endless, unwinnable cultural Afghanistan that American society has become, atrocity and reprisal fought out on social media between people who could be friends if they could at least agree that someone who disagrees with your politics can still be a decent human being.

If we turn out to have too many books, we will just have to cull some down. By that time, I hope we’ll have a good idea where to donate them. Libraries will just sell them, mostly. I think instead we will advertise them as donations for low income families with children who adore reading.

I can imagine Aunt Nell doing that, too.

Homeownership

What your real estate seller may be thinking

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In the end, business is done between people, however many barriers we place between ourselves. Since people have feelings and opinions, how we act toward each other can/might affect the transaction. A hobbyhorse of mine is the constant mantra about customer focus, customer service, “the customer is always right,” all that stuff. There is a fine art to being a good customer, and it doesn’t happen just by showing up. To their detriment and discredit, most people seem to expend no effort in that direction.

As an editor, I will reject a potential client who I deem is a problem. Intensely neurotic? Needs a therapist, not an editor. Control freak? Needs to find an editor willing to indulge that. Cannot write at all? Needs to find an editor interested in teaching remedial writing to someone likely to ignore the lessons. Cannot handle honesty? Needs to find a better liar than me. If I lie, I am not doing my work.

But isn’t the customer always right? Not when my name will be credited, she isn’t. The client has every right to disregard any of my advice. I have the right to ask not to be print-credited. I have done Alan Smithees, and I didn’t like doing so, but it’s better than having readers shake their heads at the ‘incompetent editing’ that they imagine was my doing.

In recent months, for the second time in life, I have gone through the process of selling a home. In both cases, the experience filled me with contempt for the buyer. That did not work to the buyer’s advantage, because I had wanted to share a lot of knowledge and kindness. In both cases, I chose not to volunteer that guidance, which could have saved each buyer thousands of dollars and dozens of hours of irritation. I chose not to volunteer it because I was pissed off.

As a real estate buyer, of course, you do not know much about the seller. You could be the world’s best buyer, and have cast your pearls before swine. That wouldn’t be so bad, because here is the basic logic: if you do things right, at the very least you do your own cause no harm, and at the very most, you may gain greatly. If you do not, you eliminate potential benefits. So let’s talk about how to be a good real estate buyer, seeing the transaction through the seller’s eyes.

So you’re shopping, and a place looks appealing. How long has it been on the market? The first three days are the hot period, in which there will be lots of activity unless it is badly priced or marketed. If those have elapsed, and it’s still available in a market with any level of activity, the seller is concerned. The seller must be ready for the property to be shown at any time, which can mean great disruption to normal life. (A seller finding ways to discourage showings is too stupid for a realtor or buyer to deal with.) Thus: if it’s been on the market a while, there’s a reason. If it’s a fundamentally slow market, such as a small town or depressed area, it could be no one is buying. If it’s a busy market, and it’s not selling, it is either too expensive, or there’s something else causing a problem. In any case, if it’s hot, if you want it, you must act. If it’s not, you have more leverage, but may not find out why it wasn’t selling until you go into contract. If it’s hot, the seller has the leverage, but the seller also wants the deal done and over with. If it’s not, the buyer has the leverage, but the seller may be a donkey or a fool. Having been that sort of a fool once in life, I cannot blame the buyer.

Negotiations: once this begins, the seller is in a difficult position. More offers might come in…or not. The house is still showing…and it may all be for nothing. If you require a very tight time window as a buyer, the seller may not be able to respond in time. In any case, you make an offer. If you cannot provide proof that you qualify financially, you are peeing into the wind. No amount of having your agent natter about how you are a young couple and excited, but need a discount because of youth poverty, is helpful to you. A sensible seller will look at that and suspect that your financing may fall through. So: if you want a property, offer what you would be willing to pay. The back-and-forth is excruciating to the seller, and may lead to a better offer making yours irrelevant. If the seller wants more than you will pay, fine; reject it as something you can’t afford. This is your first interaction with the seller, and s/he is taking note of how you behave. If you want it, behave like a serious buyer. If your seller doesn’t behave like a serious seller, well, now you know at least partly why it hasn’t sold.

In contract: okay, agreement has been reached, subject to whatever conditions. The power shifts to the buyer, who orders an inspection and completes the application for financing. Is this buyer a flake who will argue with the lender about documentation, or slack off providing it? What kind of home inspector will the buyer hire, and on what will he focus? The buyer can destroy the deal at any time simply by presenting unreasonable remediation conditions. The seller has removed the property from the market, which means that if this doesn’t work out, that magical first few days of listing can never return, and s/he will have to begin all over again. As buyer, do you prefer your seller relaxed and cooperative, or frightened and defensive? If you want him or her frightened and defensive, you can arrange that, but bear in mind that the seller has the power to cause you unlimited future headaches if s/he wishes. Do you really think the seller’s loathing of you works to your benefit? If so, well, have fun. If not, then do this: arrange the inspection as swiftly as you can. Through the agents, consult the seller about convenient times for inspection, and try not to throw your seller out of bed at an ungodly hour without need.

And get your financing act together, immediately. You can’t know how well the agents communicate, but at the very least, you can require your agent to notify the seller’s agent of every milestone. You don’t think your seller cares that you have just been told you have submitted all documentation to your lender in satisfactory form? Oh, s/he cares. That tells your seller you are not a flake. That means your seller is more confident about the deal. That means your seller has more to lose by not pleasing you. That means your seller will, unless stupid, do his or her best to make the deal go well for you both. Push comes to shove, your seller owns a file and knows where the pipes are, and if you make him or her angry enough, he or she might weaken one. (No, I did nothing of the kind. But I have known people who would.)

All right. The inspection has happened and the seller is nervous as to what you’ll ask for. Newsflash: inspections are not simply a means to an automatic discount. Inspections are a means to learn if the property has serious problems, which I would define as issues costing over 1% of the selling price to remedy. If the seller is sensible, s/he has already had it inspected, and has remedied all important issues. If not, no mercy on him or her, because it’s the seller’s job to deliver the property in good condition. So if your inspection disappoints you by not offering enough problems to milk another grand out of the seller–whom you have at a vulnerable point, and will remember and may resent leverage applied without good cause–consider that the best possible result, and think about waiving the contingency. You want the property. A qualified professional has just advised you that it is in great shape, with only petty issues. Either you doubt your inspector’s competency, or you are greatly reassured. If the former, why did you hire a fool? And who is the fool who does so? If the latter, now is a great time to make points with your seller by waiving the contingency, assuming you haven’t changed your mind about the deal. Once you do this, your seller sighs in relief, and has more incentive to please you.

Financing: your seller would like to know, the minute you know, that your financing is approved. S/he fears that somehow the deal may flounder because of your credit, or because you hired an incompetent financing source (commercial banks are the worst, credit unions are typically best). Your buyer’s agent works for you, but the seller pays her. You have every right to expect your communications and status reports to be sent to the seller. If your agent (or the listing agent) is lazy, you can advise her you will contact the seller directly. The seller’s email address is probably on the paperwork; push came to shove, you could simply drop by. What’s your agent going to do? Turn down her commission? Require your agent to forward your communications to the seller, and expect assurance that this has been done. Not long ago, I was a buyer in a deal where the seller was wonderful but somehow had used a dickish listing agent. We just went straight to the seller with updates. The seller was delighted, and our consideration motivated her to do us a great deal of good. Having seen the deal through her eyes, she wanted to see it through ours.

Walkthrough: it is normal for the buyer to have a final walkthrough, the stated purpose of which is to assure him/herself that the property remains in the condition presented to him or her. However, that is when you might start to see the payoff.  Your seller doesn’t have to meet you; he or she simply has to cooperate for the walkthrough. You would very much rather your seller was eager to meet you, and to share with you the most important information about the property. That’s your time to ask any question, learn about good vendors, foibles, best solutions to endemic issues. And if you annoyed your seller, s/he has no obligation to do a single thing except permit the walkthrough in absentia.

You think that doesn’t matter? Consider this. I had prepared a long document with a core dump of everything useful I knew about this home, which I will vacate within thirty-six hours [this was drafted as I was preparing to leave the home]. I went so far as to print .pdfs of documentation on appliances I had dug up, at great effort, for which our own seller provided us none. I was excited to answer any question the buyer might pose, and eager to offer her a personally guided tour. I can tell you right now that, within the first month, her dog will cost her several hundred dollars she could have avoided with my help. And even though I surrendered some very precious time with my wife in order to be present for the walkthrough, this buyer did two terribly foolish things. First, she showed up with an entourage of no less than six people. Herself, her fiancé, and her daughter–those I understood. The rest were just friends or relatives wanting to lookylou. It unsettled and annoyed me. What was more, they determined that they didn’t want much information from me. They were sure, I guess, that they knew all they needed to know.

Very well. I’ll just chill over here. In plastic-smile silence, volunteering nothing.

After they left, having allowed me to waste my time and having made the experience disappointing for me, I went to my computer and deleted the document. They wanted no information? Wish granted. I also made the decision that, for the short remaining time I was here, I was exempt from any obligation to clean the place up. So long as I delivered per the contract, that was all I need do. I considered tossing the spare filters for the air cleaner, but I didn’t. I thought about tossing the paint cans most relevant to the current situation, though I didn’t. I lost all interest in not leaving clutter in the garage, or sweeping. I would not mow again. The six spare keys? Pitched them. Lawn stuff I wasn’t taking? Couldn’t leave clutter laying around, now, could we? Obviously, I would not and did not harm the property, as I was obligated to deliver it in the proper condition, and I did just that…but no contract requires me to go the extra mile and make decisions in the buyer’s favor.

I wanted it to work otherwise, but for most of the process, as seller, I was over a barrel. And when it came down to it, the buyer managed to communicate to me that I didn’t matter. Appointments occurred with zero choice on my part as to timing. I offered some items for free; the buyer accepted those and then had the nerve to ask for others as well. Seen through my eyes, I had prepared gifts, and they either were spurned, or spurred requests for additional gifts.

Very well.

Ah, perhaps you think it’s always that way? Think again. The house we bought? The sellers chose us, the lowest offer, because they liked us based on how we presented ourselves. I realize it’s un-American, but not everyone is a greedy bastard; some people make decisions for reasons other than the monetary religion of the land. The sellers, unprompted, spent $1000 having an appliance inspected, repaired, and brought to good function. The sellers, when we waived the inspection contingency (less than 0.5% of the property value needing addressing), offered us any and all furniture in the house. They were most reassured by our steady informing them of milestones. When we held the whip hand, we did not use it, and they knew it, and they wanted to leave us the best possible outcome.

And they did. They were my wife’s tour guides on the walkthrough, had already told the neighbors great things about us, and left us a number of happy and kind surprises. We all felt great about the transaction. As buyers, we treated our sellers with courteous respect and consideration, and they repaid us handsomely. We had many chances to destroy that atmosphere; we just knew it was not in our best interests, beyond being just bad business conduct. Showing consideration for your seller is like being courteous to the cop who stopped you. You might not help your case, but you can be sure you did not harm it.

Houses cost six figures, most places. I think it is wise to improve one’s odds in every possible way when paying such a sum for any item. And as a wise man long ago taught me, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line except when dealing with people. The roundabout, wavy line is the one where you see the world through someone else’s eyes, and seek to make that person’s experience better where you can.

Your seller could still be a jerk immune to good behavior, or unable to believe it could mean a considerate buyer. Those are the risks one runs. But I would rather be a very considerate buyer, and at least create the option for an excellent outcome, then be inconsiderate–and never know what I cost myself until the contractor’s invoice arrives, long after the property has recorded.

Homeownership, Human relations

How to throw lightning bolts of consumer recompense

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In our modern society, we too often tolerate the standard responses from our vendors. “That’s just our policy.” “We can’t change that, sir.” “We apologize profusely, but do not plan to compensate you.”

Don’t take that shit.

Here’s how to get some compensation for what was done wrong. It won’t always work; I wouldn’t bet on it working on the Comcastards, for example, or Arrogant Twits & Torturers. But if you don’t believe it can work, let me blow my own horn a little here, and then maybe you will change your mind. Bear in mind that not all letters are negative; good work can and should be highlighted:

I wrote to the CEO of Seafirst Bank (children, there once was a Northwest commercial bank by that name) to praise the conduct of an employee. (Someone had found my lost paycheck, taken it to the nearby branch, the employee had not contented herself with just mailing it to me, and phoned me to verify that it was mine and would I like to come get it. Exceptional.) I also praised her manager, whom I respected very much. The employee got a bonus check. Before long, the manager had a new placard announcing that she was now an AVP. Put it this way: from then on, any remotely reasonable request I made at that branch was considered ‘very reasonable.’

I wrote to Jeff Bezos to straighten out the quagmire of getting my contributing author credits right on books sold at Amazon. I heard from a very nice young man who sliced through the red tape and solved it.

I wrote to Michael Dell about the idiocy of continuing to send me ‘refurbished’ CRT monitors that came up very short in the furbishing department. I got a call from one of his personal assistants, and in less than a week, I had a new monitor. I am looking at it to compose this post.

I wrote to the Benton County PUD (Public Utilities District; stop giggling, you infants) about a stupid policy regarding billing cycles. Simply put, I saw no reason why my billing due date should be tied to my meter-reading date. I wanted to pay promptly in full each month, and I just wanted my bill to show up conveniently. That one was tough, but after four years of campaigning, and one final letter to the commissioners, they did it.

Great Floors left my (at the time, vacant) house a mess. They replaced the carpet, but left shreds of it laying all over the property. Boxcutter blades on the bathroom floor. Dragged the carpeting over freshly painted wall corners, abrading the new paint right off. Tied up the drapes in knots and then didn’t untie them. Turned my heat off and then failed to turn it back on, in a cold climate, in winter. Left the extra carpet out in the winter weather, though there was a perfectly good garage handy. I wrote to the CEO, who tasked the local manager with fixing things. Said local manager tried to blame it all on a painting contractor who had no reason to be in most of the places that had damage, thus attempting to muddy the blame waters. Bad move. I wrote to the CEO again. One person was fired, one was demoted, and I got $500.

Frontier’s technicians were stupid. Not only did the company think I should have to change my email address because they bought the local DSL business from Verizon, but they had no one intelligent enough to figure out why I couldn’t access my email unless I wanted to use Outhouse Express. After a great deal of hellraising, I got them to give me $150 to pay for my new business cards and the headache of changing my address.

Centurylink, in defiance of several pointed requests, not only issued me a published phone number, but put me in the phone book. The Federal do-not-call list works about as well as most Federal anything, so that was no help. Every beg-a-thon in Boise dialed my number. In the end, I got them to give me a compensatory discount every month for a year, plus not charge me for an unlisted number in the future.

A Yakima Federal S&L loan rep promised me something, then failed to keep his promise when I’d gotten my paperwork together. “Sorry, program closed.” Not so fast, son, I’ve been at this a long time. I eventually called my way up to the chief lending officer. After a polite discussion where we got past all the usual fluff and were being fully candid, he said, “That’ll leave a lot of money on the table over the years.” “True,” I said. “And I will have all twenty of those years to tell everyone who will listen that YakFed is a highly principled bank that keeps its commitments.” He thought for a moment. “Done,” he said.

Bear in mind that if you call, you must follow the same principles as you’d follow if you wrote a letter. There are many more examples, but now do you believe me?

Good. Here’s what you do.

The Tale of Woe. First go through the normal channels. Sit on hold. Write down names and dates. Act like the typical dufus who can easily be blown off. You will spend a lot of time on hold, talking to foreigners who can’t solve your problem or compensate you fairly, getting annoyed a little more by the minute. Just take notes. The Tale of Woe gives you a story to tell about how you tried the normal process and were treated shabbily. There is also the chance–rare, but non-zero–that the normal channels may actually resolve your problem. That would be nice, too.

The Manager. Once you determine that the normal channels are a fail, call back and ask to speak to the manager. Explain that you are very frustrated and don’t want to tell the whole story twice, and that you don’t want to take out your frustrations on the person who answered the phone, as you know that isn’t fair. Try The Manager, who probably can’t solve your problem, but make a good faith effort anyway. (Stupid or unempowered customer service people are usually a reflection of middle management incompetence and evil, so I wouldn’t expect too much.) Continue to compile the Tale of Woe.

The Lightning Bolt. If you are not exceptionally articulate, find a friend who is. If you have no friends who are exceptionally articulate, then you should befriend some of us. We are helpful to have in your world. Find out who the CEO is, and find out how to mail him or her a letter–call the corporate office. Reassure them that you just want to write a letter and that a PO box is fine, lest in our modern paranoid day the receptionist suspects that you are headed over with a van full of bad things. Then throw the Lightning Bolt, which is a letter designed to persuade. Follow these principles:

  • You must have fairly paid all money that you legitimately owe. People with bad payment histories have no leverage. You must always maintain an exemplary payment history, even if your notion of exemplary is different than theirs–you must be able to articulate it, show that it’s reasonable, and prove that you live by it.
  • Do your level best to keep it to one page. Bear in mind that if you succeed, a minion will be assigned to investigate, so no need to take a ton of time.
  • Spell names correctly, use gender-neutral language where suitable, and say Mr. or Ms. (or Dr., etc.). Take the time to get this exactly right. ‘Ms. Lynn Smith’ may actually be Mr. Lynn Smyth. Spelling correctly shows respect.
  • Write respectfully. You are pleading your case to a busy executive, an important person whose time is finite. You want the reader to see you as a wonderful customer who has been treated odiously by the firm, and who can be satisfied.
  • Be reasonable. If your position seems in any way unreasonable, you will get nowhere. Do not unfairly malign any person involved, or present an unreasonable wish. The customer isn’t always right, and only fools think s/he is. Reality: the customer is as right as the firm can possibly make him or her without giving away the store.
  • Be satisfiable. If you offer no hint as to what would make you happy, there is minimal reason for someone to attempt to please you. Offer a path to full restoration of your confidence and respect.
  • If at any point in the Tale of Woe, you got frustrated and were too harsh with someone, fess to it in some way, and apologize.
  • The Tale of Woe needs to be involved enough for you to keep one key painful event in reserve, so that if you are asked if that’s all there was, it isn’t.
  • No matter how difficult this is, avoid statements that sound like telling the CEO how to run the company. Those will be resented. The way around that is:
  • Above all, frame it in the firm’s business interest. You are writing to a very successful businessperson who wants the company to do well. You must present the case for why the change you want, or the recompense you want, works in the firm’s business interest. Retaining good customers? Positive PR? Rewarding people who pay promptly and in full? To appeal to a politician, you’d frame it in terms of the support you can mobilize and offer. To appeal to a business person, frame it in terms of doing the best business for the firm.
  • Offer something in return. First, make clear that this would satisfy you, because one good ‘something in return’ is making you go away happy. I swore to Benton County PUD to physically drop off my payment each month, just to make dead sure that when they changed the due date to make me happy, I would never be late, ever. You read what I promised the YakFed lending chief; I went him one better, and brought him my business again when we bought a house in their catchment area. I promised Centurylink to endure a year of phone nags without complaining to them about it again.
  • Normally I would say you should make sure to assure the CEO that if s/he calls you, you will be polite and reasonable, but think about it. If the tone of your letter fails to convey that without having to specify it, then your letter is already a fail. Write in such a way that the CEO might actually like speaking with you.
  • If you get bought off, stay bought. If you make a promise, keep it in every particular.
  • Thank the executive for his or her time and attention.
  • Provide your full contact information, because you’ll be hearing back.

Sometimes the CEO will call you in person–this happened to me with a credit union–but most of the time you should expect the CEO to hand this off to an assistant and say, “Fix this.” Expect the assistant to call and check your facts. If you overstated your case, you will look terrible. If you were a complete jackass, you will look terrible. If you lied, you will look terrible. If you don’t pay your bills, you will look terrible. If the assistant smells bullshit, the CEO does not expect him or her to waste the company’s time and money on a liar or a deadbeat, and will back the assistant when s/he phones you with nothing more substantive than a verbal apology.

You had better have been factual, if anything understating the pain. If you got even a little frustrated, your apology for the way you vented the frustration needs to have been in that letter. If you craft your words correctly, you will seem like the world’s best customer and most reasonable person, just seeking to do high-quality business with the firm, and that your business was treated as though it had no value, but that they can make it up to you.

Then let them.

=========

If you can’t bear to read a long letter, skip this addendum.

Here I include a sample Lightning Bolt, plus the follow-up letter (always of value, especially when the business is smaller and more local. It reminds me that I got the story slightly wrong above, but that’s okay, because the truth as presented is even more entertaining. First, here is my letter to the Commissioners of Benton PUD, all of whom I researched for useful references that would help me frame my position. It couldn’t fit in one page, but here I had a protracted tale to tell:

—

June 18, 2008

  • Mr. Jeff Hall
  • Ms. Lori Sanders
  • Mr. Robert Bertsch
  • Benton P.U.D.
  • POB 6270
  • Kennewick, WA 99336

Re: P.U.D. account #[number]

Dear Commissioners:

We’re having a P.U.D. migraine, and we hope you can help us.

We are P.U.D. customers with service at [address], Kennewick. When we bought this home nearly seven years ago, we discovered that our P.U.D. billing cycle could vary as much as nine days, depending on when the meter was read. This concerned us (not the meter reading itself, simply the billing), for we are rigorously creditworthy people who pay all their bills—in full—on the 4th, 5th or 6th of each month. (Exact timing depends on weekends and holidays. We don’t even take vacations during that time.) Where necessary, we work with vendors to ensure that their bills show up in time to pay them promptly. As a result, our credit is excellent.

Unfortunately, the irregular billing meant that sometimes we had the P.U.D. bill in time to pay, and sometimes not. When we first saw the situation, seven years back, we phoned the billing office to seek a solution. The representative brusquely told us that the billing system couldn’t be changed and that we’d just have to live with it. We didn’t expect the meter-reading route to change for one household; we just wanted to get our bill at the same time every month, in time to pay it immediately. Evidently, that was considered unreasonable.

We didn’t appreciate the brush-off, and decided that if that’s how the P.U.D. felt, we would simply pay whatever P.U.D. bill(s) we had in hand when we paid all our other vendors. In practice, that meant that some months we had one bill, some months none, and some months two plus a late fee. Whatever was there, we paid. Having tried hard to repair the situation, we resented those late fees, but since one can’t really switch electricity vendors, we had no choice but to clench our teeth and pay them.

We operated that way for about four years. Once a year we would phone the P.U.D. office, again seeking a resolution, and each year we got the same answer. We still felt our request was reasonable, so we didn’t back down.

In 2005, the annual phone call finally paid off. The billing department put us on what we now understand is called a Protected Billing Cycle, and we in turn agreed to an unusual step: henceforth we would hand deliver the P.U.D. payment to the drop box, rather than entrusting it to the mail. As we saw it, since the utility had met our request, we had the ethical duty to ensure that we were never late (even by accident). We felt we had a mutual understanding, and it delighted us to keep our bargain—which our account history will demonstrate that we have. We subscribed to your Green Power initiative; given the evidence of good stewardship, we knew you’d use the money wisely.

With our May 2008 billing, we received a survey. We were pleased to rate the P.U.D. favorably in all categories, and included a special note of praise for the billing resolution. We included it with our payment.

Imagine our surprise when our next invoice came, and the due date was June 30! We’d like to hope that someone didn’t read our survey and hand it to a supervisor who said, “What special billing arrangement? Cancel it!” It looked as if the P.U.D. had abrogated our understanding without even so much as the courtesy of a notice, and without the slightest provocation by us. Most likely it was a coincidence; if so, its timing was awful.

Surely there had to be some mistake, so one of us (Jonathan) stopped by the Kennewick office to speak to a supervisor. We discussed it at length; the supervisor pulled our payment history and verified our claims. Her answer was that the P.U.D. was doing away with these Protected Billing Cycles, and our turn had simply come. We made most of the points we have made in this letter; she remained unmoved. She offered various justifications and suggestions, but the short version was ‘sorry, tough luck.’ She invited us to write to the Commissioners.

Very well.

Our position was and is simple. We are honest people who just want to get our bill on time and pay it promptly in full. We submit that we are your dream customers. What percent of your customers try to weasel out of paying? Probably more than a few. Those people harm us all; they deserve no accommodations from the utility. We, however, are the people who can and wish to pay.

All of you are successful businesspeople outside the P.U.D., so we hardly need point out that every business wants reliable customers who use the product or service, make no spurious complaints, and pay promptly in full. We believe you’d agree with this statement: any business practice that makes it harder for willing customers to pay promptly in full fails a fundamental test of good business.

What, then, do we ask of you? Simple as can be: assure that our monthly bill is mailed in time to arrive by the end of each month, with a due date not earlier than the tenth of the next month. That’s all. For our part, we will assure prompt payment in full each month: we’ll make sure you never regret it. In short, we would like a return to the fair and helpful understanding that resolved the longstanding awkwardness (for a couple of years, at least). We have made every effort to resolve this amicably over the years, to the P.U.D.’s advantage as well as our own. We feel we have earned an affirmative reply.

The representative at Kennewick did offer one creative idea for us to propose, and we wish to credit her for it. Perhaps, she suggested, the Protected Billing Cycle concept might be reinstated as a benefit available only to clients with outstanding payment histories. That makes sense to us. We would surely qualify, and it would reward the most responsible, honest customers. We’re open to any solution that puts our bill in our mailbox by month-end, due by the tenth of the next month, so that we have it in hand to pay in full.

We don’t think it’s too much to ask. We hope you’ll concur.

Sincerely,

[us, address, phone number]

—

The short version is that they did as we asked. To make them feel excellent about having done so, we followed up:

—

July 22, 2008

[the same people]

Dear Commissioners:

Today we received a call from [employee’s full name] about the billing cycle issue pursuant to our previous letter, and she informed us that the Protected Billing Cycle will be reinstated for our account.

We could hardly be more delighted. We want to thank you for a) taking our concerns seriously, b) recognizing our strong payment history in a proactive way, c) solving the issue to our complete satisfaction, and d) assigning Paula to the communication task. She made an excellent impression for the utility: professional, pleasant and informative.

We were confident that if we described the full situation, we would receive a fair and considerate hearing. Obviously our confidence was well-placed—and just as obviously, the public trust is very well-placed in the hands of the current commission.

For our part, you can be assured that our payment history will remain exemplary. The P.U.D. deserves that of us, and you shall have it.

Sincerely,

[us]

—

We never again needed to ask the Benton PUD for anything, but I suspect that if we had, a phone call to that employee would have obtained us the most favorable consideration. Note also that those PUD Commissioner slots are elective positions. While I wasn’t so crass as to come out and promise them my vote, be assured that they got the message. It spoke to their personal as well as business interests.

Anyway, that’s how it looks with live ammunition.

Homeownership

How to encourage recycling

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I’ve only been in Oregon five days, and I see how they do it. Simply put, they give you no other viable choice but to recycle/donate.

This is new to me. In Idaho, the only thing they recycle is spent shell casing brass. They put more gunpowder and bullets or pellets into it, then shoot it again.

It begins with a very small trash trash bin, an enormous recycling bin, and a big yard waste bin. If you’ve got a lot to get rid of, the trash trash bin will not get rid of it all because you barely have room for minimalist household trash. Thus, one must begrudge anything tossed in the trash trash. We’ve already designated a separate, unlined can just for waste paper, so we can keep it out of the trash. If we do not do this, we will not have room for true trash.

Oregon also has a 5-cent deposit on bottles, cans and plastic. If anyone thinks that won’t add up, fine, but I want my damn money. I’m going to rig up a handheld carrier with lath dividers just to make it easier to take them in, even though I have tons of room in my recycle bin, because if I’m going to go through all this, it’s time to pay me. I pick up loose pennies in supermarket parking lots. I damn sure will pick up nickels, and every one of these cans now resembles a nickel to me, forty to a $2 roll.

Landfill dumping seems to exist…sort of, expensively, somewhere difficult to get to. However, if you list an item for free on Portland Craigslist, unless it’s absolutely worthless, expect to be bombarded with replies. I gave away a remarkably crappy miniature folding couch that we could have used to extract confessions from people just by making them sleep on it. Twelve replies, half an hour, gone two hours after posting. We’re pruning down our excess crap, and St. Vincent de Paul is about to become a real asset, because charities are the only way to get rid of bulk stuff. Before I left Boise, I removed the hard drives from two old dead computers, hit them with a hammer until I knew I’d broken the platter and the electronics, and chucked them in the bin. In Oregon, that is punishable by a fine, but there are a number of places to recycle old computers. I tossed a dying mini-fridge into my bin in Boise. Portland? Wouldn’t come close to fitting. I’d have to call and find out where you recycle dying refrigerators, and I’ll bet there’s an option.

All these boxes? All the packing paper? Craigslist. Someone’s always moving. Free boxes? Yes, please. Free packing paper? Oh, they’ll come get it. Just as well, because the boxes and paper would overwhelm even our cavernous recycle bin.

I’m not opposed to any of this, though neither am I an ecomaniac. Just, I’d always wondered how they dealt with the large numbers of people who can’t be bothered to deal with recycling. In Boise and Kennewick, there was no impetus. In Portland, they make it so it’s the only way to avoid being buried in unwanted crap.

A part of me admires the strategy’s ruthlessness.

Homeownership

camping as my own maid

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It’s a strange existence, this staging.

No shoes in the house. Slippers by the door. Have to run out to the garage? Slippers off, shoes on, then shoes off, slippers back on.

For contractors, a big sheet thrown down as dropcloth, since contractors always leave a trail of mess and never clean up properly. As a species, they simply do not care, and therefore, this must be managed, since persuading them to leave at gunpoint would be illegal and counterproductive.

Counterproductive has a new definition: “Anything that could possibly delay selling this house.” All activities that will accelerate the sale are productive. All activities that could slow things down are counterproductive, and all counterproductive activities are categorically forbidden. By anyone, at any time, for any reason short of a femoral artery bleed. (If it’s a wrist, take it out to the cul-de-sac; you won’t bleed out that fast, and blood is hell to clean up.)

Park with truck blocking driveway, so contractors cannot enter it. Why? Because I have oil stain lifter down, to soak up the oil that previous contractors’ trucks leaked on the concrete, and they would a) carelessly drive and walk directly through the drying stain lifter, b) leak new oil onto it, and c) not understand why that should bother anyone. No one, period; yes, that includes you, and also you and you; no, don’t care, you will just have to carry your crap a little farther, cry me a river, boo hooo hoooo.

A cloth on the kitchen counter, to be used when opening the refrigerator door to the sparkling clean refrigerator. Microwave, range, toaster, coffee maker, tea maker absolutely off limits. We wouldn’t want the buyers to think we enjoy coffee in the morning.

My poor parrot Alex relocated to the unfinished area downstairs, with a cloth over his freshly scrubbed cage, and a sign pleading as politely as possible that he be left alone, and yes, that means your children should not get just a little peek to find out what kind of bird he is, and no, I simply do not give a damn how curious they are, and yes, if an eager buyer defies this, I hope their kids grow up to terrorize them into a pilled-out zombie state with their antics. I will go down there daily for some reading time in the evening, just to spend time with him, in a concrete-walled space with the cloth off, just so he can have some company, sitting on a piano stool and reading by a bare fluorescent bulb. Because if all this is anyone’s fault, doing, or problem, it is not Alex’s, and he is my pal.

Firearms carefully unloaded, covered with cloth, and parked deep and high up in the unfinished space among air filters, paint cans, and other stuff that hopefully will not fascinate anyone enough to boost a child up for some unsupervised play time.

Personal care stuff like toothbrushes, mouthpiece, etc. stuffed in a drawer after use. Anything very personal stuffed all the way back, so that eager buyers’ children will not decide they are toys.

Brand new towels, about which I do not care, purchased for unused bathrooms purely for appearance. I may actually burn them later just for satisfaction, wasteful as that would be, so stupid do I consider the concept of bathroom display towels not intended for use.

Using only one of the three bathrooms, chosen because it has the only sensibly designed toilet and is easiest to clean (tub and counter and sink all white), which happens to be downstairs. Gotta pee? Do it before the trip downstairs makes you bladder-desperate.

Cleaning all three toilets daily, with wipedowns after any use.

Hang bath towel and floor towel in boiler room to dry after bathing, leaving only the stupid, color-coordinated display towels in their pristine states in the spots where a sane person would just hang the towel to air-dry.

Anything actually utilized to enjoy life, except for office equipment, positioned on a tray that can be put on a shelf or inside a drawer. Remote, nail clippers, etc., go away in seconds, lest a potential buyer be disgusted by any evidence that a fellow human being has any comfort or fun.

All wife’s beautiful and evocative artwork removed, to be replaced with properly vapid garbage that cannot possibly offend anyone, trigger a phobia, or hint at any aspect of who we are as people. Books chosen for display purposes only, making sure that none of them could possibly cause severe moral umbrage, or worst of all, any sense that we actually read.

Daily vacuuming of any carpet that gets any form of authentic usage.

Daily walkthrough of entire home, to see if any gremlins, elves, leprechauns, bees, spiders, or anything else have snuck in when I wasn’t looking and found some creative way to screw something up. Inspect visible pipes and potential water areas.

Daily walkaround of yard to pick up whatever trash blew in (the RV parking area collects a daily count averaging two Walmart bags, receipts, and/or cigarette cellophane scraps), inspect grass for another mow (every three days), and see if the gremlins and so forth caused anything to fall over, shift, or any other depredations, vandalism, etc have occurred. Or worse yet, any new contractors have snuck in and found some creative way to ruin two things while fixing one, not understanding why anyone might be less than joyous about this.

Have gas? Go outside. Shut door behind you, please.

And for gods’ sake, wait for me, so I can lock it behind me and never have to enter this sterilized, overpriced, soulless, accursed house again in all my days. If it weren’t for the cost, I’d just go rent a monthly motel room. Right now.

For this odd period, the imprecation ‘go to hell!’ is equivalent to ‘come visit me!’

Homeownership, Social comment

It sometimes hurts to negotiate

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“It never hurts to negotiate.”

A woman just said that to me about an antique dining chair, which needed new cane or other seating material, I was advertising for $10. And I think most people believe it. It goes on the list of “stupid things people have repeated so long and so often that they assume them to be true.”

To me, negotiation is for when the seller is not offering fair value. Suppose someone’s trying to sell some hummels (fine, long as they are sold to anyone but us; good god, but those things are useless). They are worth maybe $170. Someone lists them for $199. Fair enough: offer $150, end up paying $170-175, perfectly reasonable. Another example: car dealers are never offering fair value, because car dealers simply do not do that, ever. But when the seller is offering more than fair value, it can be counterproductive.

I knew that $20 would have been plenty fair for an antique chair frame that would be worth rather more with a little effort. I listed it for $10. Our conversation went:

“Will you take $5?”

“No. When I’m offering something that cheap, and someone tries to give me half of that cheap, I’d sooner throw it away than go along.” My face was smiling, but my brain was irritated.

She backpedaled a bit. “It’s okay, I have no problem paying $10. You know, it never hurts to negotiate.”

Still smiling: “Actually, sometimes it does.” She paid me, took the chair and left. It wasn’t about the $5 difference; it was about how ridiculous it is to dicker with someone at that level.

Most people don’t agree with me about that, which is yet another reason to have confidence in my viewpoint. Plus, it has worked for me many times in life.

Let’s take a couple more examples. I recently bought some collectibles from a fellow. His advertised price was more than fair; in fact, it was an excellent bargain. I could have negotiated, but it would have been stupid. I’d have conveyed to him that he always had to build in some bargaining room when dealing with me, and if we did future business, I’d have paid for it eventually. Or, since what he was asking was a great price, I could just pay it.

We went on to do more business, and for me, the second deal was the big test. If he tried to deliver less value for the price on the second go, then I’d have known it was time to negotiate–if the value was no longer fair. As it was, he was so delighted, the values kept getting better and better, and he kept throwing in other stuff that I would definitely want but he hadn’t promised. I ended up with ridiculous bargains and all our transactions were most cordial. If I’d put him on notice that he had to fight for every dollar when already offering fair value, I would have gotten only what was promised, and I’d have had to pay a lot more.

Here’s another. My wife and I are about to close on a home in Aloverton (unincorporated Washington County between Beaverton and Aloha, Oregon). The sellers wanted $282K. It so happened that my wife got to meet the sellers when she was looking at the home, and they hit it off very well. Our agent advised us that the value was excellent and likely to draw several offers within the day. She suggested a full price offer, more if we really wanted it.

Well, it was about at the ceiling of what we could afford and finance, but I gambled a bit on the seller’s class and relationship to my wife. Had they wanted maximum dollar, they’d have listed it $10K higher, and probably gotten it. It was evident, relative to the market, that they just wanted it sold. So I told our agent: “Let’s offer them a little over full price, just so that if they get more than one of those, we at least are in the club.” She agreed, and we offered $282,500.

The sellers countered with an acceptance subject to a few small conditions (all easy to accept), and conveyed to us that they would like to accept our offer, citing the relationship with Deb and the good feeling that obtained, but could we please respond quickly so that if the answer were “no,” that they could accept one of the other offers. I asked our agent if she thought the other offers were above full price. She said that if she had to guess, one had probably been about $284K and one perhaps as high as $287K. Of course, we jumped on it.

Then came the home inspection phase, an area where we had already had to bust a home purchase deal due to a dishonest homebrew maintenance seller. This house came back with about $1300 in legit repairs, an abnormally small amount on a house selling for $282,500: less than 0.5% of the value. Considering that our home inspector is an absolute stickler who views his work as educating the client about even the fussiest little issues, if he couldn’t find even 1% of the value, it was obvious the place was in fantastic shape. Even so, by reflex, our agent began preparing an addendum to ask the sellers for $1300. She actually didn’t consult us before she started to prepare this, though that’s not bad behavior on her part; as all such agreements say in bold capital letters, “time is of the essence in this agreement.” She was simply being alacritous, if a bit habitual. Considering what a lazy horse’s ass the listing agent had been by comparison, I wasn’t going to grouse on her over an error in the direction of timeliness. We did, however, need to have a meeting of the minds.

Our agent called me to let me know she had prepared the addendum for our signatures. “L,” I said, “we need to get on the same page. See it from the sellers’ viewpoint. We think it very likely they went out of their way to sell the house to us for anywhere from $2-5K less than someone else might have paid them, all for the sake of wanting us to have it. In their mind, in effect, they have already given us a $4-5K discount. They have been splendid throughout this whole deal, although I have no idea what would move them to use such an atrocious listing agent; maybe they are too unwilling to believe the worst of anyone. So here they are, having already given up $4-5K in their minds, and now–now that they are in contract, have declined the other offers, and would have to start all over again if they reject the addendum–the recipients of that value want another $1300? This will signal to them that we think it never hurts to negotiate. Well, it can.”

“I never thought of that,” she said.

I wasn’t done. (I was not angry, just making my points; it was a cordial-toned conversation.) “What’s worse, it has no teeth. Suppose we ask for that, and they say ‘forget it.’ Would we then bust the deal for $1300 in fairly straightforward repairs?”

“I can’t see you doing that.”

“You’re right. We wouldn’t, which means that we’d just be twisting their arms for a small gain. So if we do as you are suggesting, we will change the entire character of the transaction, and worse yet, we will be doing so at the point where we have less to lose than they do. It would be a tremendous inconvenience for them if the sale failed now, so they’d be almost forced to take it–but they’d be on notice that they’d misjudged our business style and approach to life. Or, given their conduct so far, they might simply refuse, preferring to endure the inconvenience rather than have their arms twisted over a trivial matter. I think we should believe our home inspector, waive the contingency without dickering, and move this whole thing forward.”

“Wow. This is very rare, but I see your point. If you’d like to waive it, that makes sense.”

We waived it. The sellers responded by offering us any furniture in the house. Any or all. While we didn’t expect any such thing, it confirmed that we’d read our people rightly.

On top of that, they’d previously offered us a desk and the bookshelves, made by the husband’s own hand before he became more frail. We had to come up with something, though, lest we seem to spurn their generosity, so we accepted the barstools. Not high value in resale, probably spendy to buy ourselves, and least likely to match wherever they were living.

We also learned, along the way, that the listing agent was not keeping his clients apprised of matters that would directly concern them such as the progress of our financing and appraisal process. If I were them, I’d have been nervous as hell about the possibility that either might blow up. So we took steps, quietly, to make sure the sellers knew immediately when each step had finished, including the point at which all was approved and we were all clear to close.

I find it a bit tragic that I, buying this house sight unseen, will never get to meet the sellers. They seem like the sort of people I’d want as neighbors.

And it would very much have hurt to negotiate.

Homeownership, Married life

Real estate protip: identify stupidity early, and back away

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Deb and I are in the process of looking for a hovel, hut, or well-appointed army tent in the Portland area. Those cost $250K and up.

San Franciscans can laugh all they want, because I’m laughing at the idea that anyone anywhere thinks any dwelling is worth $750K unless one is so rich one doesn’t care what houses cost, or is an investor. So there.

We made an offer on a house in a Portland suburb, and we saw what we should have realized was a combination of listing agent stupidity/apathy and seller loopiness. The way this works is that the seller either accepts the offer or counters with another. In this case, the seller came back with a weird counter offering two options: raise the price and get a credit at closing, or accept our price but refuse to perform repairs. Well, you don’t want the seller to do the repairs anyway. Better to just negotiate a price reduction and hire the repairs done right than have the seller pick the lowest bid that will satisfy the obligation. However, the counter was too weird, so we rejected it and just reiterated our original offer. They accepted, and quickly.

We should have seen that goofy counter as the first serious trouble sign, and not gotten too hyped up. That’s the message of this blog post.

Then the fun began. First, our highly capable agent began to worm details out of her inept counterpart. The gist: she wasn’t paying her clients much attention, her clients were cash-poor with the wife pregnant and them needing a new place, and the seller fancied himself a Master of Home Repair/Improvement Space and Time. We hired the necessary inspections and awaited the results.

Sadly, the seller had neglected the roof for years. Portland is a very wet climate where all conscientious homeowners must look very carefully at roofs, the weather side of houses, and drainage. The seller had done a remarkably poor job caulking the weather siding, had permitted a lot of moss to grow on the roof, and was unaware (or did not disclose) that he had water and rodent turds in his crawl space. There were other issues, with added potential for mistakes on his part that might be behind walls or bathtubs or sinks he had installed without benefit of professional guidance.

After estimating that it would cost us $12K to bring the property up to basic standards of good weather resistance, we sent the seller two offers: either fix a list of problems himself, or give us $6K off the price and we’d handle the repairs on our own. Lenders won’t lend on worn-out roofs, so we were sure he would just sign the one with the discount. If he wasn’t very careful (or if his agent was a moron), the evil word ‘roof’ would become part of his necessary disclosures should he choose to sell. We sent selected inspection pages to show the problems.

Incredibly, he put into writing that he rejected both our offers (thus making the one with ‘roof’ part of the record, because he acknowledged that one’s existence) and reiterated his price. His agent over-revealed, complaining that he had so little equity he couldn’t lower his proceeds. (However, he did have a very nice boat in his garage, and had wanted a long closing date, because he and his wife had a big vacation planned.)

I cyberstalked him a bit and found out that he worked in accounts payable. Accounts defaultable is more like it.

The more I thought about it, the worse I felt about the place. Who knew what troubles lurked? I had visions of having to pay tens of thousands to rip off an entire mold-filled house side. Plus, he was being a general pill. He had under-disclosed the condition (a polite way to say that he lied), and was now being an ass when caught in his under-disclosure. Deb and I talked it over and decided to trigger the inspection contingency. Back to the search.

Fortunately, the guy will get his just rewards. Now he must disclose the conditions. If he refuses, his agent will dump him. If she doesn’t, she could be in major trouble. In any case, he has to hope for a sucker to come along, a sucker of such magnitude that said sucker will box him/herself into accepting a home with enormous potential downside. He needs a first-time home buyer represented by a lamentable agent. And even then, when the roof is inspected, he’ll have to either fork out himself or convince a buyer to do that–before closing. In the end, if he’s that strapped, he’ll have to keep the house, because he evidently can’t afford to fix it and won’t compensate a buyer for doing so.

And that’s hoping that after the sale, no one happens to send his buyer a copy of the previous inspection report, proving that the seller knew of the problems and failed to disclose.

I really, really don’t like dishonesty in business transactions. Maneuvering is fine; negotiating is expected; compromise is necessary. Lying is punishable.

Editing/writing life, Homeownership, Human relations

Filtering referrals

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Today, I give myself a little permission to wander and reminisce.

Where possible, I think most of us prefer to select vendors and providers by referrals. There’s only one problem with that: motive.

Many years ago, I served in the trenches of the IBM/Microsoft War as the rough equivalent of a corporal. I did this in downtown Bellevue, Washington, about five miles from the Microsoft campus in Redmond. It was easy to tell a fully vested Microsoft guy, because he was likely to come in looking like hell, spend a few thousand dollars at whatever price you quoted, and do wonders for your numbers. I made $500 per month plus 15% of the gross profit on whatever I sold, which meant that if my margin (profit) stayed good and I had a good December, $30K per year was achievable enough. Like most sales-driven organizations, the sales staff ran the store, and functioned as the default executive committee. Whoever generated the most money for the company had the most say. As I look back, it was a sign of the owner’s wisdom that he took such good care of the non-commissioned support staff. Had he not done so, we would have been tyrants.

The owner was an American success story. As I understood the history, his family had fled the Chinese mainland for Taiwan with the Kuomintang when the Nationalists lost the Chinese Civil War to the Communists. They had killed his father. The family had emigrated to the United States, where young Chang Te-Lung–whom I would know as just ‘Telung’–became a Hoosier, and a Boeing electrical engineer. As he would remind me now and then, Mr. Chang had been an American citizen longer than I had. Sometime in the early days of the PC revolution, he and his wife Mei-O had started a retail PC business, which had grown through a combination of hard work and Mr. Chang’s technical understanding of electronics. By the time he hired me, I think he had about twenty-five employees, nine of whom were sales staff.

Mr. Chang had some eccentricities, including a certain amount of preachiness about his Buddhist beliefs, and was a man of his times in terms of mild general prejudices, but he was also a hell of a businessman and a fundamentally good man. When I decided it was time for me to move on, he offered to list my reason for leaving as ‘position eliminated,’ so that I could collect unemployment. Later, when I became a bookkeeper and began paying payroll taxes, I understood that this had been a very generous gesture on his part. Mr. Chang has passed on in recent years, and I miss him. I learned about a third as much from him as I would have had I been more mature and less selfish, but even that third made a difference.

In those days, for me, referrals had far less to do with “This provider provides excellent products and/or services” and more often meant “I see an opportunity to send some business this provider’s way.” You might say that I tended to be in referral debt, and was always trying to find ways to catch up. Now I’m in the same position, fielding the same referrals. I am gearing up to sell a house. Everyone I know has an agent s/he wants me to call. Almost none of those I have called have impressed me; most have just chanted the usual fifteen minutes of real estate bullshit, then seemed irritated when I asked anything of substance.

It was immature, certainly. I should have made referrals based only upon my perception of the person’s best interest seeking goods or services. And nowadays, in more mature years, I do. I learned yesterday that a typesetter has completely jacked around a client of mine. When you demand advance payment before releasing inferior work, full of mistakes, you do bad business. I don’t even know this typesetter’s full name yet, but I can tell you two things:

  • Nearly every new client asks me where to go for typesetting. I need capable typesetters to whom I may refer clients.
  • I will make sure I get her full name, so I make sure never to send anyone to her. She has also tarnished the name of her referrer.

That also is part of the dance: referrals reflect back.

So, the moral here is this: when someone tries to refer you to a friend, take a look at who that someone is. Is s/he in sales? If so, is s/he in a mode of needing to make sure one hand washes the other, in a way that could mean that s/he made the referral simply because they are in the same Leads Club (every Tuesday morning at Denny’s)? If so, then it’s questionable. Because with certain people in certain economic situations, it’s not disinterested. My home inspector tried to steer me to a listing agent. I heard nothing from that agent that would make me see why I should be impressed. I do know for sure that home inspectors get a lot of referrals from agents, and this inspector won’t get the chance to make any more money from me in life, so he must look to those from whom he can. That’s why the referral. It has nothing to do with actual endorsement of a blowhard part-timer who can’t even mail a damn business card when asked.

Have a great Christmas Eve, and remember: a lot of folks tonight will turn keys in cars when not in condition to drive. I hope that the ‘Lancer’s faithful will not be among them. Be safe, and ride only with those who also be safe.

Homeownership

All the world’s a staging

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Those who read even the mundane posts about my actual non-writing life may remember that the last time we listed a house, it went south. I think it finally closed about the time it hit McMurdo Sound.

If you remember that, you may remember all the lessons I codified that I’d learned about this, which I swore not to repeat. Now I’m learning about a thing never before mentioned to me: staging.

In real estate, staging = ‘pretending you don’t actually live like normal people with normal belongings.’ All right, very well. I can avoid trashing the joint for a little while, though I think my beautiful wife would give a feminine harrumph about that. That’s fine, dear. Since my wife is not with me in this house, at least there’ll be no one to blame but myself.

What staging evidently means, in to-do list terms, is:

  • Getting the mover to move most of your crap out of the place. If the staging person says it’ll help the place sell, or if you can’t get by without it for even a day, it stays. Otherwise, it goes into storage. This really isn’t such a bad thing, if one considers it, because it means that at final loadout time, most of it happens from a storage facility into their van, and much of the remainder is the stuff the stager ordered left in place.
  • A complete grounds and interior cleaning. While I can do some of that, the entire job to stagers’ satisfaction is beyond my abilities. Part of that is because I have my wife’s dog, who considers it a form of family participation to destroy landscaping. If I fill the hole in, Fabius thinks it’s a cool game, and digs it back up. When I pick up his gifts, his dog mind says Wow! This is my favorite thing! I better get to dumpin’! Charming.
  • If there’s anything I plan to sell before we move, and that I know is unsuitable for staging, better get cracking.
  • Arranging any minor repairs or touch-ups the stager requires.
  • Taking no offense when the stager goes though the house like a squad of fashion freaks, more or less informing me that I have the taste of an unschooled yak.
  • Getting rid of the pets. (No, of course they won’t be abandoned. Alex, my white-eyed conure pal, and Fabius will head to the new place where Deb will be. But they can’t be here for staging, lest it disgust the buyer. Getting Fabius gone will also enable me to make meaningful repairs to those dog depredations he would otherwise keep depredating.)

Sounds like a hell, doesn’t it? “Hi. This, that, and basically all this crap must go. What savages even bought this? Oh. My. God. When was this grouted, ancient Philistia? And I hope you can get by with one bathroom for a while, carefully cleaned after each use. Yes, I suppose you may shower, provided you fog the place with straight chlorine gas and fungicide afterward. Jeez. Couldn’t you arrange to do it with a garden hose in the yard? Goddamn, look what you eat! How do you not die immediately of some horrible disease?”

Nah. This is great. This is what I wanted: a listing agent with a plan of action, with minions who will tell me what to do or have done, so that I can get rid of this joint coveted property and sod head off to civilization Portland. And yes, we will interview the likely agent at her office, and yes, we will make clear to her what we will consider a successful transaction. And yes, we have even had the discussion, tactfully, about what happens if we need to rescind the listing. I don’t want to make the whole plan. I want the person to make the plan who is paid to make the plan, and to give me clear and sensible direction.

I am told, by people I trust, that selling a house is staging and pricing. The seller has power to affect both. Ask too much per square foot relative to comparables, and it will not appear as a good value, and you’re hoping someone will fall in love with it and overpay. Refuse to present it as an appealing property, and once-excited buyers will find excuses not to want it. We must price it with realism in mind, and stage it with a mighty staging. When it goes on the market, it may be easiest for me to just get the hell out of here for a week.

We tried it the wrong way before, and must accept the fault for engaging (without competition) a terrible listing agent who didn’t offer much of a plan or guidance. Let’s see how the right way works. It’s a nice house, great natural privacy, easy to maintain, convenient to schools (too convenient, at least from my standpoint), low crime area, pretty kitchen, only two owners and one of those for but a year and a half, and more. It doesn’t suck. I want this place in contract with a serious buyer in two days, and I don’t think it works to go half the distance with a plan. Either do it as guided, or forfeit part of the benefit from the immense sum paid out to get it done. In the service of that, I have a tough hide.

I must plan to take a perverse pleasure in being told about the wretchedness of my taste. I can’t really argue. I am a bizarre creature: my work productivity is immune to decor. If my office were a solitary confinement cell at Walla Walla, provided it contained the things I need and I could get out when the job/day was done, I could still function. At times I must remind myself to look away from the monitor: to look outside at the sky, at my wife’s beautiful and loving art on the walls, at the wall of historical, literary and linguistic references behind me, at the globe mobile on which I bonk my head every time I lean over the machine, at the flashing light that informs me I’m already almost out of yellow toner, at Alex, at something besides a computer. If I have zero decorative taste, it is because most of my working life is spent ignoring decorations. Are you using too many adverbs? I care. Is my wall bare cinderblock with rusty metal protrusions from the original forms? I only care if I may scrape my arm open on the metal, as I did in my basement not long ago. The only question in my decorative mind is the balance between wall space for my wife’s art, and bookshelves. The rest, I simply do not care.

We will bring it. We will do as told, get done what we must get done, spend a few hundred on what I cannot do myself. There’s an art to being a good client, and most people do not grasp this in my country. In the United States, most people repeat the adage that the customer is always right. It’s false. The customer isn’t always right, and if s/he thinks s/he is, s/he is a great fool. The customer is right as often as the vendor can arrange for him or her to be without giving away the store.

With that in mind, we must be a good client to our listing agent, and to her staging folks. Because there’s a dynamic that happens, and I know it from my own work. Once a client trusts me, that client believes me when I tell him or her that s/he may at any time contact me for guidance. We work together. I am a knowledge worker, just as a real estate agent is. All I have to sell is the fruit of my grasp of an art. I have had clients I could not help because they were unprepared to receive my help. I have clients who take me at my word and consult me when they are stuck. When my client trusts me, I kick into my very best mode, and I go to lengths most editors would not go. The client who trusts me gets my very best, and at the very best rate.

We will soon see, won’t we, if I have learned?