Ever wonder where the term “lucky break” came from? Ever fight over the “wishbone” from the turkey or chicken? In 322 B.C. the Etruscans termed the receipt of the larger peice of the bone and it’s accompanying wish to be the “lucky break”. The Romans brought the practice to England and the English brought it with them to America.

Most of us have some kind of family traditions handed down through the generations. Some of us preface the Thanksgiving meal with everyone stating what they are thankful for. Some of us single people have been seated at the kid’s table for way too many years. That is a separate blog topic.

Some people have certain foods they always include in the menu. One of the most fascinating to me is the eating of the Turducken. I had never heard of this gastronmic phenonema until a couple of years ago. Evidently for some this has become the standard fowl fare of the holiday.  For all of you neophytes the Turducken is a chicken in a duck in a turkey. How wrong does that seem?

the turducken unveiled

I polled my co-workers to see what family traditions they have. One of them said growing up they always had chicken instead of turkey because why buy a turkey when you can get a chicken from the yard? They were not poor people but had a frugality born in the depression years. My paternal grandmother always made pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving until she realized that nobody them.  Everyone ate the ones my Mom made. Grandma’s pies were always watery. She made three pies to a can of pumpkin while Mom made two. They were much, much better! Again, people of Grandma’s generation economized where they could.

There are many non-food related traditions. One of my co-workers gets together with the guys in the neighborhood to slave over a big pot of hot oil while they deep fry the birds for their women folk. He said they drink some brews and complain about the cold and the danger of the hot oil. Then they take their browned birds back to their respective families and enjoy a nice meal. It’s a good guy bonding experience.

 One of my co-workers and her family spend their Thanksgivings reading the holiday sale ads and prepping their black-Friday shopping excursion. It is an all out-get-the-best-deal-you-go-to-Target-I’ll-hit-Walmart campaign! Patton and his troops had nothin’ on  this group!

Another of my co-workers family always plays blackjack after dinner. It’s played for pocket change only, but it has been a long standing way to end the holiday in her family.

Many people I know spend their post meal time napping. I think the rumor about the Tryptophan in the turkey making you sleeping was started by exhausted parents hoping to get some much needed rest. Keeping those holiday traditions alive is hard work!

I used that title just because it was fun to think about. Right now in the real estate world it seems like there is much more of a downside than and upside except for rentals.  The fallout from the slow market and the foreclosure situation has created a very robust rental market.

About sixteen years ago, the rental market was so tight in Boulder that people would come to the paper and ask to see the next days’ classified ads. They wanted to see the new ads  before they were printed so they could get a jump on their “competitors”.

Smart people said “aha!” realizing there was a huge demand for rentals here. Builders were building, and realtors, as well as private citizens, were cashing in on the boom and buying properties before they were even finished!

So the next cycle  was too much inventory for the market to bear. Rents started to come down, owners/landlords had to rennovate and remodel to keep older properties competitve.  Potential renters started to negotiate on rental amounts.

Then the economy started to take head south and more and more people fell victim to foreclosures. Those  who lost their homes turned to rentals. So the upside of the down is that property managers, landlords and owners have been enjoying a very good market. 2008 was the first year in a very long time that I heard some apartment complex managers say they had a waiting list.  

It seems that there is almost always an upside for someone!

Times are tough for most of us right now. It’s very easy to dwell on the negatives. The economy is in crisis. Major corporations are laying off thousands of employees. The automobile industry is on the brink of disaster. Gas prices are down. Oh wait, I’m going the wrong direction.

A woman called in this morning to tell us she thought we should only put good news on the front page of the paper. She thinks all of the bad news we print is depressing.

In truth we have to report the news: the good, the bad, the ugly and the depressing. To use, what has been determined to be one of the most annoying phrases in the language, “it is what it is”.

I think we have to work a little harder right now to find the good news. But I think most of us can find something that is positive and good in every day. As the song says “count your blessings instead of sheep”.

As an experiment I think we should all concentrate on trying to find at least one bright spot in every day. It doesn’t have to be a strobe light, maybe just a firefly. I believe if  we all keep looking we will find the good. Not to say we can ignore the bad. but even a swarm of fireflies can cast a fairly bright light.

Zillow.com

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Acceptance

There is a Chinese saying “May you live in interesting times.” Some say this is a blessing and some say it is a curse. I think the one thing we Americans can agree on is that we are certainly living in an interesting time.

History happened last night. Argueably history is always happening. Every day in this country thousands of people are affected by life altering events. My personal history was changed ten years ago on November 4th by the devastating death of my father. November 4th, 2008 history changed locally, nationally and globally. I find it hard to believe that anyone in this country doesn’t feel that their personal history has changed as well.

After 9/11 people literally took to the streets in shock and disbelief and sorrow. I was in second grade when President Kennedy was shot, and while I really didn’t understand what was going on, I could tell it was a cataclysmic event. I couldn’t spell the word but I felt it. I’ve seen news clips from across the nation after the assassination. American citizens were literally walking through the streets like zombies. There was outrage and shock when Martin Luther King was assassinated and again when Robert Kennedy was killed. People took to the streets in violence after the verdict was announced in the Rodney King beating trial.

People took to the streets last night, too. Across this country they were literally dancing in the streets. Right here in Boulder, Colorado there was dancing and singing and shouting. There were tears too, but it seemed they were tears of joy rather than anger or fear or sorrow.

Oprah Winfrey said in an interview yesterday evening, that she hadn’t seen such unity in this country since 9/11. It feels good to be united in jubilation rather than sorrow.

No matter what your personal beliefs, or political affiliations might be, it would be impossible to be impervious to these historical events. People registered and voted in record numbers in this election.  We as a people, as a nation, have spoken. It was the “shout” heard round the world - ‘YES, we can!!!”

Now the work begins....

I’m going to have to use the “F” word in this blog. It has never been a popular or pleasant word but in this current climate it has become a dirty word indeed. Okay reign in the speculation. This is, after all, a real estate blog. The word I’m referring to is foreclosure. It’s kind of like saying cancer. Not a word you ever want to have reason to use.

In researching information for this blog I came across two stories that really resonated with me and  made me think about how awful it would be to lose your home.  For most of us owning a home; having a place to truly call our own, was a big part of our American dream. We, along with our parents, and their parents before them, worked hard to make this dream come true. The stories I read reflected what happens when that dream is shattered.

The first story was about a single mother and her 10 year old son Danny. She worked very hard, worked long hours and scrimped and saved and was finally able to buy a small place. She and her son moved in, and because they had a small yard, Danny was finally able to get the dog he’d always wanted. He adopted a mutt from the pound and named him Jack. Danny and Jack were inseperable. All was good for awhile but then the economy started to change. Gas, food, heating costs all started to go up. Danny and his Mom lost their home to foreclosure. Unfortunately the only place Danny’s Mom could afford to rent was in a no pets facility. Jack was sent to live with some friends. Danny was devasted. He told his Mom that he would try to find work mowing lawns and try to make some extra money so they could get their home, and Jack, back. I’m not sure how this story ended. I hope Danny and Jack will be reunited some day.

The second story I read was about a couple in Prineville, Oregon. Prineville is in central Oregon, near Bend and not far from where I grew up. This story was about a couple who had again, worked hard their whole lives and with their combined salaries managed to buy their dream home. Not a mansion, but a small “be-it-ever-so-humble” house.  Again, the economy turned bad and one of them lost their job and they went into foreclosure. There wasn’t a lot of detail in the story but evidently they felt they had no recourse or hope and they committed suicide. They were discovered in their home. Their dream home.

A home of one’s own. Mom and apple pie. A boy and his dog. All pieces of the American dream. Home is where the heart is except when you’ve given part of it to a scruffy mutt named Jack.  I have to pause here and wipe away the tears. The I.S. department hates when I cry on my keyboard.

Beware the online scam!

This very wired world we live in has spawned a whole new generation of con-artists, flim-flam people, scammers,  scoundrels and other assorted snake oil sales persons. (It was easier when you could assign gender to these labels!)

Some of the biggest scams that newspapers see are for pets and muscle cars. Specifically English bulldog puppies and American heavy metal - GTOs and Valiants. On the recruitment side “work-at-home” positions are coming to us via TDD or TTY calls. We’ve seen enough of these to be very wary. We also get alert bullitens from a company that acts as a watch dog for advertsing scams of any kind.

On the real estate and rental side of advertising there are numerous scams proliferating the web. One of the most recent scams we’ve heard about is for fraudulent rentals. Potential renters read about a property on a website and correspond via email with the alleged owner of a property. Renters usually receive an application which of course gets approved. Then they are instructed to wire funds for the full rental amount or in many cases a deposit to “hold” the property. These prospective renters have been told the will receive keys via FedEx the next day.  Of course the keys never arrive.

The old adage “never by a pig in a poke” would serve well here. In most of the fraudulent situations potential renters never got to see inside the property. They saw the homes from the outside and could see that the places appeared to be empty and  looked to be available. In most cases the properties were actually for rent but not for the great rental price they’d seen online and not by the person they contacted.

In some cases where the potential renters were out of the area, the properties turned out to be for sale, not for rent. Some poor young college student showed up at his newly rented, but sight unseen home, only to find a for sale sign from a local realty planted on the front lawn. When he called the realty company he found that that the home had never been for rent. Again, don’t “buy” sight unseen. I’m thinking some of those mail order brides arrived at their new homes bearing very little resemblance to “their” original photos!!!

Some rules that should always be followed. If it seems to good to be true, it probably is. Always meet the landlord or owner face to face. Make sure they show you the property. Ask questions. Never wire money. Get a receipt for the full amount you pay up front. You can always google any address to see what information you can find out before you  contact a potential landlord.

There are websites dedicated to the topic of online fraud. Scamoramo.com and Scambusters.com are two that you can check to find out additonal information about online scams.

If you see a suspicious ad alert the web administrators. Most web sites have a way to flag and/or remove these ads.

In some rental scams the real names of property owners have been used in conjunction with fraudulent email addresses. If you think your property has been used as bait in a scam tell the website to remove the ad. Then file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov/faq, sponsored by the FBI and National White Collar Crime Center.

As real estate and rental professionals we must be ever vigilant and keep ourselves apprised of the scurrulous individuals who populate the web.

Don’t forget to vote!!! It is a privilege and a right! Check out our Voter’s Guide on this website.  We included the guide in the Sunday edition on October 12th and will have it again in theSunday edition on November 2nd.