I believe that it has something to do with the recent economy. People are a bit troubled to splurge any money to get things fixed up while they can’t perceive where their next dollar is coming from. Even people that are on a fixed income like SSI or SSD or Social Security plus company retirement fund. Those people’s income should not differ month to month too much but yet they are nervous. Ordinary working people are as well scared stiff. So these tasks also sit and languish and the MOLD takes over.

We just completed a pretty big job in a basement that there was a waterproofing concern and it went unfixed for the last few years. All the bottom molding was black, the wallboard was black up 2 feet off the floor and the carpet had a thousand mushrooms rising on it. I believe that this severe of damage is dangerous to the people living upstairs. I recognize it was bad for our workers and we dressed them correspondingly.

The finished basement had to be disposed of. Along with the carpet and molding and doors and drywall and the whole thing else. Then we completed the waterproofing. That consisted of a perimeter drain and a sump pump. That was a lot of work. It cost a lot also and created an bad living condition for the home owner. If it was fixed just after it begun we could have saved the finished basement part except for the carpet. That should have saved a quite a bit of dough.

Attention:

Sellers have been actively accepting offers on properties prior to the Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan auction. We have Pre-Sold approximately 20% of the properties in the Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan area.

Please refer to our website to verify if your property of interest is “Still Available.”

Thank you,

HUDSON & MARSHALL

America’s Auction Authority
———————————————————

I know you don’t want to read someone elses spam on a blog but here it is anyway, furthermore that is the news we have been waiting for. As you can see the above auctions have pre-sales for cash customers and people are buying repossessed houses up left and right. At first there was a lot of investors ready to buy some of these and fix them up and rent them out to pay for the costs and then later when the market balances out, and the prices go back up, sell them for a huge profit. And this is very true. The basic people that were buying houses were the individuals with more money than brains. The gamblers and real estate investors. But now the people that need a house are entering the market. That is where the customers are going to have to come from to get this huge backlog of houses off the market.

I know some people in that boat. The economy seems to be stabilizing somewhat and regular people are buying houses. People that had an apartment and because one of a couple got laid off, they moved in with mom and dad or Uncle Jim and they have had enough of that, and want their own place and with financing they realize they can buy their first house for less than the rent on an apartment. It is true that these people have protected their credit ratings and they have good credit and have like I said have been putting away for a down payment. Well guess what? The ten or 20 percent down payment has been cut in half or more with some sweat equity.

I also understand, because my tie-ins with the real estate industry, I know some people that are the investors I first mentioned. I went with them to look at plenty of houses and check the conditions of the houses. That was late last fall I started doing that. At that time we could take our time and look at lots of houses. We could throw in bids from 25% to 50% less than the banks were asking. Now lately the to get a house we have had to over bid by about 5% to 10% to get the property. Also we have seen a lot of the banks remove the house from the list during our negotiations.

Well so what does that all mean? There is getting to be a scarcity of these under priced, reposessed houses. The prices have been progressively rising over the last 9 months. I realize that there are still people in financial trouble and hanging on by  a thread and may yet lose their house. But the real truth is that the supply of these houses is starting to dry up. People in general are not clued into this. They won’t figure it out till it is too late to buy one for investment.

The upshot is that all the people that have legitimate reasons to sell their house, like job opportunities and divorce along with grandpa dying and retirement might be able to unload their homes pretty soon at a reasonable price.

The actuality is that people are becoming convinced that the financial system has stopped getting worse. That is all it is going to take, for people to start spending again. The government laid out almost a trillion Dollars to boost things but that was a smoke screen because very little was really sent out. Only where they needed it the most. Something like 10% was sent out. I think the government did all the right things. Rescued some companies that needed to be salvaged. Convinced people that they (the government)are doing something. Got lots of publicity about helping people and companies by the complainers. Built a huge smoke screen. It was or is a very complex plan and it is working.

People don’t realize how ghastly things could have gotten in the world financial system. There had been a huge recession in the economy every 65 to 70 years since the Roman ages. It materializes after everyone is dead that went through the last one and there is no one left to educate the lessons. So I guess the next one will not occur till 2075 or so. How’s That?

Thomas Edison remains America’s greatest innovator. While other inventors spend their lives working on a single breakthrough — or simply stumble upon an invention — Edison was a master of innovative thinking. He held more than 1,000 patents during his life, more than any other person in the nation’s history.

There may be only one Edison, but we all can develop our innovation skills. By learning these bright lessons from him, we can boost our creativity and solve professional and personal problems…

Use what you learn. Many of Edison’s breakthroughs were the result of taking an idea from one field and applying it to something entirely different. Using carbon to boost telephone transmitter volume came from his earlier attempt to study resistance in electrical cables. That cable experiment was unsuccessful — carbon’s resistance changed too easily to meet his needs — but while working on phone transmitters, it occurred to Edison that carbon was just what was needed to replicate sound waves. His resulting innovation was a crucial part of every phone until the digital age.

Look at the big picture. Edison didn’t just invent the electric light. His company also built the electricity-generating infrastructure to run the lights, complete with power stations and transmission wires. It came as no surprise to Edison that power generation became a more profitable industry than bulb manufacturing — people buy bulbs only now and then, but they pay to run them every day. Building an integrated power system also gave Edison an advantage over competitors, who had to build lights that would work on his system.

Explore ideas. Some of Edison’s discoveries came from experiments that were meant simply to increase his knowledge. He made a crucial breakthrough on his electric light while experimenting with heating metals. Edison believed that the key to an electric light lay in finding the right filament — but during his experiments with metal, he was struck by the effect of impurities in the metal. It occurred to him that impurities in the air around the filament could be significant. He decided to put his filament in a vacuum. Sealed-air lightbulbs remain in use to this day.

Find a kernel of success in failure. Edison used to say that he never had a failed experiment. Even when experiments went wrong, they still boosted his knowledge.

Example: Edison poured a huge amount of time and money into an ore-milling company, only to see the venture fail when ore discoveries in the Midwest reduced prices. The ore operation has been widely regarded as Edison’s greatest folly. Before the company failed, though, Edison noted that the sand that was a by-product of ore milling could be sold to cement makers. Seeing an opportunity, Edison soon entered the cement industry, patenting substantial improvements in both rock-crushing and kiln technologies. He received royalties on every barrel of cement produced from kilns of his design. His company even supplied the cement for the original Yankee Stadium. None of this would have happened if Edison simply had written off ore milling as a failure.

Keep improving. Edison often spent years refining his ideas. Continued innovation enabled him to stay ahead of his competitors by lowering manufacturing costs and improving quality.

Example: Edison filed more patents related to electric lights in 1882 than in any other year — even though he had already perfected the practical incandescent lamp three years earlier.

One reason why Edison was able to refine his ideas was that he didn’t sell the rights to his inventions — his company manufactured and sold his products. Edison used feedback from customers, salespeople and engineers to perfect his designs.