Everything You Didn’t Want to Know About Blog “Plumbing” Want to know why — amongst other reasons — Google is a $200 billion behemoth? Because it collects big bucks from advertisers to place their ads on millions of big and tiny Web sites, blogs, etc. (mine is decidedly in the latter camp). Meanwhile, Google essentially...Read More
A Bigger Role for Home Warranties No, this isn’t a call about where housing prices are headed next year. Rather, it’s an observation that home warranties are becoming a bigger part of real estate sales. Background Local utility companies have offered home warranties for years now. The basic plan typically covers the home’s heating plant...Read More
That was the question my client posed to me the other week. To answer it, I did a little investigating. eBay Tutorial Just navigating eBay’s instructions easily consumed an hour-plus. During that time I learned that eBay charges an “insertion fee,” a “notice fee,” and “picture hosting fees” — not to mention “optional feature fees”...Read More
In Demand: Twin Cities Ice Dam Contractors “April showers bring May flowers.” –Proverb “December blizzards bring January ice dams.” –Ross Kaplan Judging by my email inbox, the Twin Cities’ potentially record-setting December snowfall has been a boon for contractors specializing in ice dam removal. If you aren’t familiar with the phenomenon, ice dams occur when...Read More
“Don’t Truck That Snow Away So Fast!” One of the fringe benefits 🙂 of pulling a couple very late nights the last week is seeing the procession of large trucks show up around 1 a.m. to clear my office parking lot of snow. Since the blizzard that hit the Twin Cities a week ago, the...Read More
Rental Repair Risks; or, Becoming an (Unpaid) Property Manager In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car. –Thomas Friedman Until recently, my answer to whether prospective renters should hire (and pay for) a professional inspector would have been “no.” That’s because if something non-trivial breaks, most leases specify that...Read More
