Birthday MONTH (& Other Oxymorons) If you’re an about-to-be 12-year-old boy (OK, my younger son), how do you squeeze the most out of your birthday? After all, by definition a day is only 24 hours — and you’re not even awake for one-third of it. Slippery Slope The answer: morph “day” into “weekend.” As in,...Read More
vs. “Family Home”(?) “Starter home“: a relatively small, economical house or condominium that meets the requirements of young people buying their first home. My association with “starter home” — and I’m sure many others’ — is a small house, usually two Bedrooms (or three very small ones), that may (or may not) be in rough condition....Read More
Knowing What You Don’t Know — & Doing Something About It “When I bore people at a party . . . they think it’s their fault.” –Henry Kissinger “Better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re an idiot, then open it and confirm it. –Yiddish saying Who says “I don’t know” more:...Read More
“The Only Color That Matters in Real Estate is Green” “Steer-ing”: the discriminatory practice by a real estate agent of maneuvering a client from a minority group away from considering a home in a white neighborhood. —Dictionary.com Realtors quickly learn that there are taboo words in real estate. Like, anything relating to creed or color; socioeconomic status; or even directive behavior such as “steering.” Nouns vs. Verbs Which, of course, is all as it should be. But,...Read More
Real Estate Acronyms 101 Thrown by an unfamiliar acronym, I just got off the phone with Northstar MLS, who helpfully cleared things up. It turns out that “C-SOAP” stands for “Contingent on the Sale of Another Property.” The status isn’t new, just the acronym (in the last month, in fact). MLS Status So, “C-SOAP” refers...Read More
“Long-Term Greedy”* . . . Minus the “Long-Term” “Our employees shouldn’t expect the firm to pay for their defense when they steal from us.” –Goldman Sachs spokesman, explaining the company’s refusal to pay the legal fees of software programmer (and former Goldman Sachs Vice President) Sergey Aleynikov; “At Goldman Sachs, Even the Legal Fees are Different”;...Read More
