Apr 22
2009

You better buckle up because this is gonna be a long one.

Scenario 1:

Bob and Ted live 4 blocks from each other and have identical homes. Bob and Ted both list their homes for sale, Bob lists his home at $155,000 and Ted lists his at $160,000. Bob sells his home to Karl for $150,000 with $4000 back to Karl for closing costs (essentially selling for $146,000).  This benefits Karl in possibly two ways, he gets a $155,000 home for $5000 less and he gets $4000 in closing costs, basically it saves him $9000. But he ensures that the value of his newly purchased home is only $146,000, thus putting him already $4000 underneath his home in an already bad housing market, and he’s counting on someone else to raise the value of his newly purchased home.

Later Ryan makes an offer on Ted’s home for $146,000. Ryan is using Bobs recent sale as a comparison and claiming that Ted’s home is only worth $146,000. Now by simple appraisal tactics Ryan is correct, when the appraisal comes in they will use Bob’s sale as the comparison and Ted’s home will be valued at $146,000(ish).

What should Ted do? Don’t budge Ted, don’t budge.

Scenario 2:

Bob and Ted and Larry live 4 blocks from each other and have identical homes. They all list their homes for sale, Bob lists his home at $155,000 and Ted lists his at $160,000, Larry also lists his home at $155,000. Bob sells his home for $150,000 with $4000 back to the buyer for closing costs. We’ve already discussed how this “benefits” the buyer. Jim then offers $146,000 on Ted’s home with the reasoning that Bob’s identical home only sold for $146,000.

Ted then counters the offer at $155,000 coming down $5000 from his original listed price. Jim being an economically wise man accepts Teds offer and they begin the contract proceedings, the appraisal is done and comes in at $150,000. At this point Jim could back out of this deal and not lose anything, but as we said Jim is an economically wise person and he presses on. Jim has $15,000 available for a down payment on his home so he gets a mortgage for $140,000 and puts the $15,000 down.

Now you are thinking, well that’s stupid why did Jim pay that much for a home he knew was barely worth $150,000. The answer is, Jim is thinking ahead and not just about the here and now.

Suppose Ted sold his house for the original $146,000 that Jim offered, what would this do to Larry’s home value? it would drive it down,  and not only Larry’s home value but Jims new home value is now only $146,000. By accepting Ted’s counter offer and coming up with the cash to put down Jim’s new home (Ted’s old home) is now valued at exactly $155,000 (you see the value of a home is determined by the buyer not the appraiser, the appraiser is just trying to get close) furthermore Larry’s home value is now on the rise because the NEW comparison is Jim’s new home. Who cares about Larry’s home you say, Jim should only be worried about himself. Well he is, you see by putting down $15,000 on his new home Jim now has that much equity in his home, he didn’t “spend” the $15,000 on a home he “invested” it in something that despite the bad economy will likely bounce back and be worth more in the future. Furthermore, if Larry can now sell his home at $155,000 it then solidifies even more the value of Jim’s new home. To summarize, Jim’s seemingly “foolish” purchase has benefited him in multiple ways

  1. His new home is worth exactly what he paid for it
  2. he has $15,000 equity in his new home
  3. he has a lower mortgage payment because he invested cash
  4. he has raised the value of homes around him which in turn should raise the value of his home when sold.

Can you imagine what would have happened if Ted had sold his home at the original $146,000? it would make Larry’s price much more difficult to come by and when Larry sells his home at the same price as the other two the housing market continues to fall.

Conclusion

It seems we live in a world where everyone is waiting for someone else to fix the economy. The Government can’t fix it by throwing money at it. That word “stimulate” is just that, it’s intended to be a shot in the arm, if you want the economy to turn around start making wise investments, the housing market will bounce back but it can do it a whole lot quicker if there are more Jim’s in this world. And when the housing market bounces back so does the rest of the economy.

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Mar 11
2009

So this is really not going to make sense, me writing about American Idol on what used to be an Outdoor Site. But I don’t care.

Sometime toward the end of season 6 I watched my first ever episode of American Idol, and to be honest it wasn’t that bad. By then most of the bad contestants were weeded out and there seemed to be some pretty good talent, and aside from the fact that I can’t stand Paula (she just can’t talk), I got interested and My wife and I like many made it a weekly program to watch. Jordin won everyone clapped and roses fell from the sky.

Then came season 7, eh it was ok, Paula loved everyone even when they sucked and Randy was becoming annoying. I wasn’t quite as interested in it as the previous year but still got behind a few contestants and I think I may have even voted once (probably for Carley Smithson). I was never a big fan of Archuleta but I thought that Cook did a fair job of grunging up his tunes. So I was OK with him winning.

Now we are on Season 8, and it is a disaster. Paula can neither start nor finish a sentence, Randy and his 18 year old in a 50 year old body persona is nerve racking to say the least. Simon hasn’t had an original thought I’m sure since season 1, and the only thing I can say about Kara is at least she is fun to look at. In fact since Norman Gentle is gone there is nothing entertaining at all about this season. Nobody can choose the right song and for some reason all the judges are hung up with getting to know who the contestants are. Here’s a hint, if you wanna know the contestants take them to dinner, if you want to hear some music, let them pick the song and sing it. Sure it may suck but at least they are putting themselves out there. Why do we even have judges at this point anyway? Isn’t the public supposed to decide?

So I think unless there is a drastic turn around this may be my last American Idol.

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Mar 9
2009

So recently I found, well I had known about it but never tried it, MP3 downloads on Amazon so I decided to give it a try. I have to say it’s awesome, and for a non-iPod owner such as myself (I know i’m one of 3) it is the new hotness. You pay the same amount as you would for iTunes and the great part is you can burn them to CD (sure you can with iTunes), or load them on any MP3 Player(I favor the Zen vision W). It is so much better than iTunes for the simple reason that they are not protected (at least they don’t seem to be). I know you iPod purists out there are probably gnashing your teeth right now because I said that, but in my opinion Apple became a little bit more like Microsoft and the Corporate Music giants out there when they made iTunes protected. On top of that, I can plug my Zen directly into my Television and watch movies.

I don’t consider myself a tightwad but I don’t see me ever dropping $200+ on any iPod no matter how awesome it is, however I probably wouldn’t hesitate to get another Zen ;-)

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Feb 28
2009

Lately I’ve been fixing computers a lot for mostly family members. And what is frustrating about Technology is that unless you read a tech blog or magazine or talk to someone who reads a tech blog or magazine you don’t know that pretty much any software you pay money for is duplicated for free somewhere, you just have to know how to find it. And really I don’t care if folks want to dole out hundreds of dollars for software, but what irritates me to the core is when they spend money on stuff that is supposed to keep their computer safe from hackers and viruses and it does just the opposite or nothing at all. I suppose I can’t mention names but there are two Anti-virus and Firewall giants amongst General PC users (meaning those who get their computers from Best Buy or Dell) that make you pay for their software and then their software doesn’t do the job. And they only have to compete with each other because the majority of PC users don’t know there’s something else.

My suspicion is these software giants have a secret pact with THE software giant to provide sub-par protection for the average user, because the first thing people say to me when they are having problems is, “do I just need to get a new computer?”. I suppose I could tell them yes and hope they ask me to build one but there’s no way I can compete with the PC giants in price so we’d be right back in the same boat in 6 months.

So since I’m not affiliated with anyone I’m going to spill it out right here because even though I’m sure nobody is reading this blog it may make me feel better. Below you’ll find a list of major software providers, and right next to them you’ll find their 100% FREE Competition.

Major Anti-Virus / Firewall Software
Norton
McAfee

Free Anti-Virus / Firewall Software
COMODO
Avast Anti-virus only (but a good one).

Word Processing / Spreadsheet / Presentation / Email client
Microsoft Office

Free Word Processing / Spreadsheet / Presentation / Email client
OpenOffice.org word processor, spreadsheet, presentation
Mozilla Thunderbird email client

Photo Editing Software
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator

Free Photo Editing Software
The GIMP
Inkscape

I’m sure I’ve missed some and that is OK, I’ll think of them and be back. In Adobes defense they do build a good product and from what some graphic designer folks have told me it’s still better than The GIMP, but for a schmuck like myself who only dabbles in the graphic design area The GIMP has more features and things than I’ll ever use.

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Feb 18
2009

So pretty much every day from the time I installed this blog I have wondered what to write on next. It was easy to do on the e-com dev blog because I was always running into a new little solution to share but since I feel it un-necessary to put the same post on two blogs I have decided to keep my tech entries on the e-com dev blog for as long as they’ll let me.

So lately the job hunting situation has been pretty bleak…it seams there is still stuff out there (not so much in Cache Valley but other places) but nothing is coming from it. I mean I’ve probably gotten a dozen rejection letters for the hundreds of applications I’ve done, kinda sad I measure my success by rejection letters huh :-)

My buddies over at ICON must be on pins and needles, from what I hear the situation over there is not good at all, and the layoff I was on was just the first of many, and possibly more to come.

I’m considering opening this blog up to the public as yet another outdoor adventures blog site where folks can share pics and stories about their outdoor goodness…. we’ll see.

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Feb 13
2009

Welcome to the Red Pine Sports blog, the all purpose blog for all purposes. a little History, about 3 years ago I had this fantastic idea, I was going to open an e commerce store and make millions, well at the time I was still in college so it was delayed for roughly 2 years until finally last may www.redpinesports.com was opened, and nobody came. I’m sure that is mostly because I had done no advertising and promoting but that was all because of a money issue. Sure I could a borrowed money to get started but I’m glad I didn’t cuz what I found out was running an online store is no picnic and I’d rather not. So just after Christmas 2008 I shut the store down after what was a very frustrating holiday season for most store owners, I’m pretty sure I owned the least profitable website in the world…and yes by that time I had done some advertising (albeit not in the traditional way).

Recently I re-opened the store for a few days thinking I might take another stab at it but then decided against that and have now turned it into what you see before you. I have absolutely no expectations of it being something popular like “gizmodo” or “lifehacker” and that is OK, mostly I figure it’ll be a way for pals to keep up with each other and share some valuable information.

I couldn’t decide on what type of blog for it to be, you know technical, outdoorsy would be a nice fit to the name but to be honest I don’t wanna do the outdoorsy 24/7 so I thought maybe i’ll just do an all purpose blog and I was pushed over that edge when a good friend of mine said “why not? it’s your blog you can do what you want with it.” And I figured you know he’s right, I’m the boss dangit I can do whatever I want, I don’t need to conform to the cultural norms and stick with the geeks or the rednecks or even the whitecollar corporate big shots. So this blog will have no particular focus at all. Maybe that doesn’t make sense, but I kinda like the chaotic.



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