New York Renovator

Interesting news from Bloomberg this morning: the second-largest U.S. securities firm is tightening the home-equity belt.

Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest U.S. securities firm, told thousands of clients this week that they won’t be allowed to withdraw money on their home-equity credit lines, said a person familiar with the situation.

Most of the clients had properties that have lost value, according to the person, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public. The New York-based investment bank will review home-equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, monthly from now on, the person said yesterday.

I’ve never liked the idea of a home-equity line of credit. It’s risky for investors and it is incredibly risky for home-owners. It’s far too easy to spend into the indebted obscurity of a black hole. I would never, never, never get a line of credit for this house– it would gobble up every dollar and then demand blood. It is essential to have a budget and stick to it.

But this move by Morgan Stanley sends shivers up my spine. They are being secretive about their losses, but speculative estimates are upwards into the billions, most of which is unrecoverable.

The president and his cronies can toss flower petals all day, and say that the economy is “good” or “recovering.” But when you see the biggest and riskiest of banks and firms closing their doors and shutting down lending systems, it evokes bells and whistles that things are going down for a while. I’m as optimistic as any one, but it would be plain dumb to pretend that nothing is wrong and to keep spending, spending, spending like drunken sailors. Why oh why is our government the first to create the problem and the last to fix it?

Holy cow!! Alex Jones linked to my blog post Home Taken Over Unpaid Parking Tix from his blog InfoWars! I am SUCH a fan of that site! I am so stoked!!!

Now we’ll see if all those web hosting improvements that I slaved over will work. Here’s hoping the blog stays put and doesn’t crash from the flood of traffic I’ve been getting. Hey everyone– I use Bluehost as my web host and if this blog bombs or shows “CPU Quota Exceeded” errors, it’s because of THEM not ME!

I am a freelance worker. I am a writer. I write articles, blog posts, advertisements, essays, articles, and I’m hoping to get into the greeting card business, lol. I absolutely LOVE being my own boss. (We’ll see how much I love paying self-employment tax when April 15th rolls around, but that’s another blog post).

Thanks to the Internet, freelance work has exploded. I believe that freelancers are some of the happiest working people on earth. The hardest thing, in my opinion, is finding work. Businesses don’t always blast their needs with trumpets, ya know what I mean? You have to have ways of finding what you’re looking for.

I have seen a website called TheFreelanceNation.com and it looks stupendous! I thought I’d share. They have a large, comprehensive listing of freelance jobs, whether they be temporary jobs, or things to boost you along in your freelance career. They have a great forum, newly begun. They also have loads of other resources and articles for all kinds of work and other necessities geared toward bringing the freelancer and the employer together. At the website, we can connect with freelancers or make bids on jobs, post a profile, or a project, or a job your business needs filled! (Or, you can just contact me using the Contact Me Form, hehehe). There are loads of articles to help with taxation (*sigh*), administration, accounting, and more. It’s a great resource for the freelancer and for the businessman looking for temporary help. I have always wanted to have my own “business” in my own home– and thanks to the Internet and sites like TheFreelanceNation.com, I can! It’s going in my bookmarks for future jobs, I suggest you check it out, too!

Surprised? It’s happening again. A Milwaukee man is facing foreclosure on his $245,000 home because he wouldn’t pay a $50 parking ticket in 2004.

In what city officials believe is the first case of its kind, the city foreclosed on Tubic’s house on W. Verona Court after repeated attempts to collect the fine - which over the years had escalated to $2,600 - had failed.

“Our goal isn’t to acquire parcels,” said Jim Klajbor, special deputy city treasurer. “Our goal is to just collect taxes. . . . It is only as a last resort that we would pursue . . . foreclosure.”

I’m sorry Mr. Special Deputy City Treasurer. That might not be your INTENTION, but it certainly was your GOAL, because you DID IT.

OK, so the homeowner, a Mr. Tubic, has not paid his parking ticket. How did he get that parking ticket, anyway?

Tubic first got the fine for parking his Ford E150 with no license plates in the driveway of the home, which belonged to his parents at the time . The radiator had broken and Tubic couldn’t get his plates renewed unless the van passed an emissions test. He didn’t have the money to make the repair and had more pressing worries, he said.

His father was suffering from dementia. His mother was battling cancer, and he was their live-in caretaker. He needed to shop, cook, clean, maintain the house and tend to his parents’ needs.

The van repair could wait, he thought.

Then a man from the city showed up and told him otherwise. It was February 2004. Tubic would have to move the van or get license plates for it within 30 days, per city zoning codes, the man said. Somebody had complained.

His van was without license plates and was parked in his driveway?! That’s it?! Where else is he going to park his own van until he fixes it? The city park? So now it’s illegal to park your own vehicle on your own property unless your vehicle meets government “emissions” guidelines and is registered by the government?? Argh!

Tubic is a 62-year old disabled man, on Social Security and “has been diagnosed with psychological disorders that limit his ‘ability to understand, remember and carry out detailed instructions,’ according to documents from the administration.” He has degenerative diseases of the knees and spine, and other ailments. The guy is in poor shape and is an emotional disaster. The poor guy! I really have compassion in him.

HOWEVER– even if the guy was a 250-pound, muscular and wealthy socialite with a Hitler-like moustache, NO ONE’S HOME SHOULD EVER BE CONFISCATED LIKE THIS! It makes me so angry! I don’t want to rehash all the other posts I’ve written about this subject– you can read more about it on my post, How To Create a Serfdom, which is exactly what the government and their fascist corporations are doing to us. These tyrants are just DROOLING, waiting for the moment when they can seize our properties, aren’t they?? Couldn’t they have taken the guy’s CAR, since it was a parking ticket? Couldn’t they have revoked his license, or something? P.S. Tubic did continue to pay his property taxes.

Just remember what Thomas Jefferson said would happen to us if we continue to allow these bullies to keep this up:

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” Thomas Jefferson

High oil prices are affecting roofing materials. Unfortunately, when a house needs a roof, a house needs a roof. Be prepared to pay through the nose. A news story from Syracuse quoted a roofing contractor as saying that roof prices have gone up fifteen times in the past two years. What was once an expensive $43 a square foot for basic asphalt shingles is now about $60! Ouch! I’m glad we got our new roof installed when we moved here, but that was eleven years ago. Depending on the environment (heat, ice, the absence or presence of trees), the average lifespan of a new asphalt roof is 20 years.

By the way, you should never install two roofs– you know, a new roof on top of an old one. When we moved here, one roofing contractor said we could do that to save money; he said there was only one roof layer on and adding another on top might be a good idea. It would also be cheaper, because there is nothing to tear off and dispose of (which is very expensive to do). But we decided to swallow the price of a more expensive tear-off.(And we hired a different roofer who wouldn’t try to sell us something we didn’t want to do). BOY was THAT a great decision! Because there was not one, not two, but already THREE layers of roofing on the roof of the house. And the wood beneath it was moldy and cracked. We have to pay extra to replace the bad boards. But I don’t care. If we had just slapped on another layer, I doubt the rafters would have held the weight. And the old roofing was leaky and rotted. I shake my head at the folks who owned the house before us, because they were the Methodist Church, and this house was their parsonage. They took such crappy care of this place that I am amazed they’d even lift their heads to greet their pastor. How can anyone let a young family live in such deplorable conditions? This house was a disaster!

Well, anyway… slapping a new roof on top of an old one is inadvisable and you’re asking for trouble. If you are nubile enough, you can always strap on some cabling and rip the old stuff off yourself, saving money. Gee, the old days of musing over expensive frivolities like espresso machines is over, I think. We’re being squeezed over the basic necessities, now!

This news story is a little old (from March) but the story behind the news is not old. It asks the modern question, “Who owns your property?”

From the Watertown Daily News

MORRISTOWN — The town is making a statewide appeal for help in prosecuting Amish men for building homes without permits. Ten members of the conservative religious group have been charged in the clash between building codes and religious tenets that shun modernization.

The ordeal began in July 2006, when Andy Miller, Dumont Road, was charged with building a house without a permit. His case was repeatedly delayed because he did not have an attorney, and an agreement to issue a permit was reached in January 2007. The town eventually declined, however, because Mr. Miller would not allow code enforcement officer L. Kay Davis to inspect his home, as agreed upon.

The small town is paying through the nose– due to translation problems (the Amish speak Pennsylvania Dutch), lack of legal help, and more. Oh boo hoo. I really have little sympathy for the state in this case. Why? Because the state is merely using their overbearing laws to punish the Amish. The Amish guy does not want electric or plumbing in his home– but the state is going to force him to do so, anyway? And at the cost of the homeowner? And then continue to charge him exorbitant taxes so that he may continue to “keep” his land?

This is ridiculous. Essentially, it is not the property owner who owns his land. For all intents and purposes, when you get a piece of paper saying the land is yours, but then you are forced to 1) pay high taxes every year or be evicted, 2) get permission and PAY for that permission to do just about anything on your property (here in NY, you can’t even cut down trees or build a fence without government permission), and 3) allow inspectors to come through your property when they want to— who would you say REALLY owns the land?

Property ownership is a farce in the country! And the sad thing is, we have sold out our own rights under us, by allowing it to happen! Grrr!

Wow, I am still getting used to the world of “domain investing” and “domain development.” I’ve had my own blog for a little over a year now and have come to realize, through much reading around, that internet real estate, with its very own “geographic domains” and keyword domains is it’s own little world. I was once asked to pay $5,000 for a domain that had expired and was similar to my own! Holy cow! Because domains and all that stuff are not tangible (like “real estate” and real property is, with real stuff like dirt, trees, and houses), it’s still a little confusing to me, honestly. But I do know enough that $5,000 is a lot of money for some real estate on the Internet! I am discovering just how important getting (and keeping) the right domains and keywords for those domains are. It’s a little baffling, but I am trying to understand it, and be on the lookout for the best prices. Just as there are realtors and mortgage lenders, there are domain development companies. Like InvestinURLs.com. They offer low-priced domains so investors can make a profit on the resale of the domain, just like real estate speculating, which, by the way, is very much alive and well in New York State! You can check out their website for more information, although I found the site rather sparse. What is extremely interesting is their listing of domain names by geographic location or topic (example: for Florida there’s “keylargobeachhomes.com”). Like I said, the site is sparse of information; be sure to check everything out thoroughly– the running water, the foundation, the roof– just like you would a real home.

Remember those really cool (and super-expensive) granite countertops that were ALL the fad a year ago? (Actually, they are still very popular, but concrete countertops is what is filling the wealthy homes now). A NY news story says these granite countertops have been known to emit radon and, most likely, radioactive material.

Karl Konarzik is testing this East Amherst kitchen for Radon. While the homeowner’s worry is possible Radon in the granite countertops, Karl puts his testing device in a cabinet.

While some other radon tests have been conducted on the surface of the granite counter tops, Karl told us, putting the testing machine at face level is a more accurate way of testing the radon’s effect on your health

Radon is an odorless, colorless gas that emits radiation that is found in granite, marble, and other rock formations.

Oopsie! Who came up with granite countertops, anyway?? Always seemed extravagant and inefficient to me. But then again, I’m a dish-dropper. Hehe.

I cannot believe that it is already August!! Where did the summer go? I still have to take the kids out to the beach, as I promised, before we get back into the school routine. We homeschool (more like an umbrella school, where the kids learn lessons at home and attend school once a week to take tests), but we stick to a “typical” school schedule, with summer vacation and breaks for holidays. I have four kids with stuff everywhere! It takes me a good four to five days to collect all the books, supplies, backpacks, and other stuff… and then I have to label it all! I label everything mostly for my sake, because I can never remember who has what backpack or pencil box or calculator. My grandmother labeled things for me when I attended elementary school. She used the old DYMO labeling device– it was a mechanical, manual labeler with a dial for letters. When you pressed the handle, letters were embossed onto a colored plastic strip. Remember them? Such technology was amazing to a young gradeschool kid! And those labels were very handy because I tended to lose track of things… :S

I find myself continuing the tradition. But I don’t use those old plastic strips anymore (they always fell off after a while, anyway). Nowadays DYMO uses modern technology, ink and has some beautiful color labels to choose from. Kids love special things with their names on them– I know I did!I love the new little handheld thing– it’s like a mini-printer and you can put labels anywhere. I think it’s perfect for back to school. These labels are also great for clothes hangers, toolboxes, bins, spice jars– anything! And it’s not like using permanent marker, either– if you are like me then you constantly reuse containers (or change your mind about what’s going in them). I have always had lots of black scribbles over the lids. With DYMO labels, you can just print out a new label and place it over the old one. Nice!

Just a little reminder: if you have an abundance of food or income, please donate to your church or local food bank community. My local news story had an article today that said more people are needing food, but food donations and food supplies are very low. Higher gasoline, electric rates, and utilities are putting the squeeze on working families. And workers are not seeing their wages rise at all to cover the higher costs. So if you have been blessed with abundance, please donate food or stuff.

You can check with your local church, as they usually are the hubs of such organizations. The United Methodist Church has a long history of giving to the needy, and you can donate money online now. There’s also a listing of churches in your phone book yellow pages. Here are some handy links you can use to find the nearest food bank:

The Salvation Army
The Community Food Bank
The Rescue Mission
America’s Second Harvest
The Hunger Site

Giving doesn’t always mean giving money. Food and household supplies are very important. We’ve received those things when we were pretty low, and they were a God-send. Also, some places allow you to give furniture, clothing, and vehicles. You can also give your time, by visiting a lonely elderly person or visiting someone in prison who wants the Bible read to him. Kids can write letters or donate toys.

Please remember that some folks are really suffering. And we always have good intentions to help don’t we? Well, don’t procrastinate today– give something today! And God bless you.