Good vs. Not So Good Contractors[Editor’s Note: see “Giving Good Invoice” for an update to this post.] In my various capacities as a Realtor, remodeler/rehabber, homeowner, and neighbor, I’ve witnessed a wide range of contractor etiquette. At one extreme, there are contractors who show up late, leave early, and seem to spend the time in...Read More
Financial Crisis Fall-Out One of the things people are realizing, in the wake of Wall Street’s melt-down, is that today’s economy has far too many people who good at designing exotic financial instruments, and not enough who are good at actually making things. Real, live, concrete things — as opposed to complicated pieces of paper...Read More
129 Minneapolis Homes for < $35k! The neighborhoods aren’t swanky, and there’s no guaranty that prices won’t fall further. But on the eve of 2009, no fewer than 135 homes within the city of Minneapolis are for sale for less than $30,000. In many cases, that’s less than the value of the land underneath the...Read More
Bad Numbers??The S&P/Case-Shiller report for October (there’s a one-month lag) is due to be released tomorrow, and the numbers are likely to be ugly: the Sept. numbers were down 17.4% year-over-year, and down 1.8% month-to-month, respectively, and there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that things got worse in October. So, to repeat, it’s not going to...Read More
Madoff’s Legacy: A New Generation of Bicycle Thieves?In the post-World War II Italian movie classic, “The Bicycle Thief,” the protagonist makes a moral full circle. At the beginning, the faceless but dignified day laborer is the victim of a seemingly innocuous crime: his bicycle is stolen. To the worker, however, his bicycle is everything: not...Read More
