what's the opposite of "Obtainium"?

[pyotr filipivich]

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I want to hassle with it. Like I said, not much resale value in pallet wood. But I will keep it in mind.

If it works ... B-)

I'd been saving scrap brass & copper "cause I know I can find a use for it sometime." Well, some time came, and I sold it for gas money. "Okay, that works."

I heard a story of the guy who had one Jeep on a trailer behind his New Jeep. New Jeep engine seized, so he swapped jeeps and headed home. Gets in an accident, his jeep is totaled. Buys it back from the insurance company and parts it out. Files a claim for the engine (under warranty), gets a bigger engine installed. End of the month, he's got a bigger engine in New Jeep, he's parted out the old jeep and is ahead a thousand bucks.

[DerbyDad03]

Thus the reason for the "both buyer and seller agree that the repair request has been fulfilled" clause and the final walk through just before closing. My son wants this house, but he doesn't need it. If this water issue doesn't get resolved to his satisfaction, he'll walk.

Lawn? In Las Vegas? ;-) In this case it would just be a matter of putting the rocks back in place.

BTW...He refers all of his clients to this inspector. On the inspection report, the inspector had 2 line items:

Inspection: Quantity 1 at $275 each Discount: Quantity 55 at $5 each

[Leon]

Interest rates are favorable but are being offset in the home prices going up, way up, on a twice a week basis from new home builders. My wife and I went into contract with a builder in September of last year. 2 weeks later the builder canceled the contract because he could not get materials at a price point to afford him the profit margin he wanted. The builder literally canceled all contract builds and is only selling spec homes. Those spec homes are going up 20% in price from the beginning of the build to completion, 3/4 months.

We probably could have fought this in a back logged court system but we were not willing to risk less than what we were expecting, construction quality wise.

And yet the houses in our are cannot be built fast enough. I see a housing crash, similar to the one in 2008, on the horizon. Once the government stops sending every one stimulus checks that building boom may slow.

About the same here but we built in late 2010 and moved in Dec. 24,

2010. Our house appreciated in value about 50% thru September of last year, almost 10 years. In the last 5~6 months its value has gone up to about 60% more than what we paid.

In Texas, the offer has to be accepted. Normally several offers are considered before a contract is signed.

The Las Vegas economy is all but non existent, at the moment.

[Tim Daneliuk]

Effluvium Removium

[krw]

Over 30 years, three or four (or six) percent adds up to some real money. I see all sorts of new builds going well before completion. Many are sold before breaking ground. I'm sure it's not only materials going up faster than the homes can be built but there has to be a shortage of subs and subs are having trouble finding the trades.

Or a delay until the next century.

Oh, so do I but I think it's going to be far harder. This time maybe not so much for the buyer as the lender. At <2% interest now, lenders are going to be in a squeeze if/when interest rates go to 5% or (maybe far) above.

Ours is up almost 150% from what we paid (we actually bought in early

2012).

Probably a good time to buy on spec.

[krw]

You sound like a hoarder. ;-) I have way too much stuff. I've been going through boxes and throwing away anything that doesn't have special meaning and hasn't been used (and still in the box from the last move).

Can you have too many chisels?

[krw]

Sounds like a lot of work for $1K.

[G Ross]

Think about taxes. Our old house was valued at $130 thousand in 2019, and $189 thousand in 2020 with taxes going up comparably. I filed a protest and got it down to $140,000. This is just county taxes.

[Leon]

Yeah taxes are a big consideration.

[krw]

As long as all evaluations rise together, there shouldn't be a problem. Vermont had one (and the only one I can think of now) thing they did right. They had a so called "Grand List" that enumerated every bit of real estate and its evaluation. Then costs of government. Your taxes were then (cost of government) * (your assessment) / Grand list. As housing prices rose, the rates fell accordingly. In theory. Unfortunately the cost of government, primarily schools, is so high that the taxes are outasight (at least

4x my current taxes).

[krw]

My taxes are about the same as they were then, or maybe a little less. We're both over 65 now. ;-)

[DerbyDad03]

Mixed blessings.

Less taxes paid, fewer services available. I know that services aren't always provided/used on a equitable basis, but it would tough to complain about those roads that aren't getting fixed at the same time people are protesting their assessment.

[pyotr filipivich]

[e-mail] on Tue, 20 Apr 2021 21:30:45 -0400 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

Some people call me a pack rat. Please, I am a "Rodent of Unusual Acquisition and Retention."

I have a box labeled "It is 2:15 AM, who knows?"

I am also going through boxes and making marvelous discoveries. Some are of the "so that's where it / the other parts are" and some are "I forgot I ever had that."

That's a question only when I find a "good deal" on another one/set. I've been learning of the various types of chisels, so having multiple chisels N wide is one thing if they are different types, completely something else if they are all the same 'type'.

[pyotr filipivich]

[e-mail] on Tue, 20 Apr 2021 21:32:33 -0400 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

Maybe it is. But you know how it goes, a thousand here, a thousand there, pretty soon you're talking real money.

[krw]

OTOH, schools aren't teaching anything useful yet cost 2/3rds of the taxes paid.

[krw]

A day here and a day there, pretty soon you've taken your whole life. There's always more money to be had. Never more life.

[DerbyDad03]

Right, so let's protest our assessments so we can lower our school taxes too, further degrading the quality of our educational system. Then we can complain about how terrible our educational system is and bitch about how little we are getting for our tax dollars.

It's OK, my daughter and her partner will just dig deeper into their pockets to buy basic supplies for their students. Then they can load the supplies into their cars and drive to school on the crappy roads that didn't get repaired because we all protested our assessments to lower our county taxes.

[krw]

Exactly. There is nothing *to* fund but we're being charged

*enormously* for that nothing. Protest either/both sides.

It has nothing to do with supplies or anything else tangible. There is no interest in teaching kids anything. The purpose of "education" is to enrich unions (not teachers) and indoctrinate (not teach) children. Answer me this - why is civics no longer taught, when "Heather has Two Mommies" is? Or, how our mathematics scores are among the lowest in the western world, and getting worse. Speaking of "western world", why is that such an evil thing in education today.

When I was living in Vermont, the state education site (since buried) had statistics for the state education system. The student to "classroom teacher" ratio was 15:1. Not unreasonable. But there was also one "non-classroom TEACHER" for every two classroom teacher. That makes the teacher/student ratio more like 7.5:1. Then, for every two "teachers" there was also a teacher's aid. Now it's more like 3-5:1. That's just teachers. It doesn't include administration. Now, tell me again how that's "not enough money" to teach our little darlings.

Yeah, our education taxes are too low.

[G Ross]

It is no longer allowed to punish misbehaving students other than to "stay after school". So now the school buses run the routes through the county not twice but 3 times so as to take the "punished" kids home. Think of the extra pay to the drivers and the cost of running those diesel powered buses an extra route. Plus extra pay to the teacher who has to monitor them after school, extra time on the heating or AC. That is progress?

[krw]

Oh, then there are the teacher's retirement plans. A good friend of my wife gets 100% of her salary after 25 years. How many retirement plans still exist?

Full disclosure: I'm collecting a retirement but about 30% of my salary after 30+ years. Hover, I started working there 45+ years ago and no longer exists and hasn't for 30 years. They've also eliminated the health insurance part of the retirement. In general, teachers still have full benefits.

Again, tell me how our taxes are too low and how important it is for the kiddies to be educated. They sure don't seem to be the ones benefiting from our taxes.