Susan Walters

I am working on a deal right now and though it wasn't required by county code, I encouraged my buyer to complete a septic inspection. The water is city, not well - no inspection warranted.

The company who did the inspection is highly reputable but the recommendations begged another opinion, particularly given circumstances of a very heavy snow melt of a season's accumulation two days prior. The downspouts on the back of the house were also submerged and not very far from the field.

The verdict had been cautionary - septic field failure in one to three years. The second and third opinions differed considerably. This was the make or break part of the deal. The sellers were already upside down in the mortgage, even with relocation company help, and the buyer was as far up in price as he could go.

Number two and three septic opinions turned in a different verdict and both said the field probably had plenty of life in it. There wasn't true "failure" evident and the quality of the gravel/stone in the pit was evidence of that. Most likely, water table conditions, clay soil, downspouts, flat lot, and the early spring thaw all contributed to the equation and initial verdict.

The lesson here? When a buyer says they are about to throw in the towel on a deal, on a property they really like, seek additional advice! There are so many variables in a situation like this that no one really can predict what might happen. In this case, the family size will be decreasing from previous so right away there would be improved conditions in the field with less water usage.

This is a deal that could have fallen apart. A reasonable buyer and additional advice is saving the deal. All is well that ends well. Now let's march to closing!

After spending a fair amount of time working through taxes with my husband tonight, I totally let loose and camped on the sofa. Woo Hoo! I scanned the channels for good movies, found nothing appealing, and worked my way through the regularly scheduled offerings.

As usual, I gravitated to the DIY and abundant real estate oriented cable shows.I'm thinking that with all this programming, and I suspect the audiences would not be there if there were no interest, we are in for a huge upsurge in activity when the fear factor in real estate evaporates. Just my opinion....

Anyway, I clicked on one show that shall remain nameless but in looking at the description, "A Charming Home Has Been On The Market For Over A Month," I immediately thought, "In what market!!!!???"

Real estate is local, and I know I am preaching to the choir here, but if people are watching these shows and believing that one month on the market is a catastrophe, well, we are all incompetent real estate fools! One month may introduce buyers to the property, excite real estate professionals to the property if price and condition are ideal, but to call in emergency help? Hmmmm, seems a bit extreme to me.

I am selling in Ann Arbor, Michigan and I gladly accept your pity. :/ However, I am seeing a huge uptick in buyers right now but urgency can hardly be described as their motivation. Choice is still so huge in the market that decisions are difficult, even for those who carefully whittle down their showing preferences to just a few properties.

Sellers are generally realistic and motivated. I spent Saturday evening presenting to sellers my plan for making their property more palatable to buyers. It involved furniture moving/elimination, cutting holes in walls, new doors, new kitchen counters and eating areas, more landscaping (if spring ever comes to Michigan), and the addition of more baths. I had lain awake one night thinking about how to get their property to sell and arrived that day with floor plans and enthusiasm. They couldn't have been more delighted. My ideas had been in their minds already to some extent, but at much more cost. We actually moved some furniture that night and I bet the other transformations are well on their way. Sometimes perception is NOT reality, and that is all I see their problem being - there is much more space than meets the eye but solid walls do not convey that.

So back to those cable TV shows. NAR has had a great ad campaign running for a long time now, talking about real estate being local. It couldn't be more true. National news does not represent local reality, good, bad, or otherwise. Consult a local realtor for the real story. Forget about cable TV.

As we weather the unusually cold winter in Michigan, with snowfall already close to the season expectation and half the season still ahead of us, we recently invested in some supplemental electric heaters.

We are watching every nickel we spend since my husband lost his automotive position in late October and heat was big on the list of "can do without." Of course, we cannot completely do without it and fortunately have two zones of heating in our home - one in the primary area of the home and one in the bedroom area that also includes my office and the kitchen.

Zone 1 was adjusted to a 60 degree temperature for day and lower for night. Zone 2 was adjusted to 55 degrees day and night. There are time variations for weekends via the programmable thermostats but those temperatures are not toasty by any means.

The three supplemental electric heaters were purchased for under my husband's desk, under my desk, and under our high school daughter's desk. With a cooked meal in the kitchen for dinner, we were heating up the property to a comfortable level. No t-shirts allowed; we dress for winter with two layers on the top plus socks and slippers on the bottom.

Our family TV area has a large bed-size quilt made by my mother that is incredibly warm and can cover multiple people on a sectional sofa. It feels a bit like Little House on the Prairie sometimes, particularly The Long Winter, but no one is complaining. It is a source of conversation to our regular visitors who know to dress warmly when coming to our house. One of our children's friends gleefully exclaimed once, "You have so many fleece blankets!" We do.... We raise the temperature for our less regular visitors who haven't necessarily dressed for winter. It is a trade-off to enjoy their company.

Back to my main point though. Do these little supplemental heaters really keep our massive propane expenses in control, given that we are adding electric charges to the mix? The cost of the units was less than $100 and they will likely last for years so cost can be considered inconsequential.

I was thrilled to see that Ask This Old House was covering the topic of supplemental electric heaters the other night but disappointed to not have any information reported as to whether the idea makes financial sense. They were heavily in favor of the oil or water-filled radiant heaters, reminiscent of the old fashioned radiators removed from older homes and happily discarded when ductwork was installed for central air. What a mistake - those units will throw heat long after the boiler has stopped firing; I know, we owned 2 previous homes with them and miss them greatly. No blast of cold air as the furnace turns on or cools down, just heat, always heat, hotter and then very slowly cooler. Progress is not always progress.

So thoughts anyone? Aside from caulking, weatherstrip, insulation, and the passive solar technique of covering windows on sun-less days/times and opening the window treatments wide on sunny days, do these supplemental heaters really help? We feel better but will our pocketbook? We need to know and haven't yet seen an electric bill reflecting changes. Why suffer if it makes no difference in the end? Comments are appreciated and wanted.

I first heard this phrase of wisdom from Norm Abram on This Old House in the early 80's when my husband and I bought our first house and I became engrossed in the series. I literally never missed an episode for years - it was the thing I cared about most. OK, in TV time, it was the thing I cared about most....

I learned so many basic skills from watching the guys on the program that I felt I could do anything. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing but when a friend of my husband's came to our home one day and we were showcasing the things we had corrected in the 1940ish structure, he was shocked when I said we needed to scribe the woodwork to fit the plaster-contoured wall into the basement. "How do YOU know about scribing?" he asked. "I watch This Old House," was my answer. (What a chauvinist!) It was the first DIY show, it is still the best, for true construction knowledge (in my opinion) and I will love it until the day I die. I do watch other DIY shows and was caught up in one tonight about renovation mistakes. So much was true - some mistakes we have made, some we have avoided. I loved the one about accurate measuring. Measure twice, cut once.

My best example of this error was when we had an addition put on our house about 6 years ago - very competent company and subs. We were relocating/reusing windows that were being displaced; I had supplied the dimensions for the windows and the framers had taken my word as gospel. The windows did not fit into the framed openings.

When the error of my measurements collided with rough openings needed, the supervisor and I came up with a simple plan to rearrange where the windows would go. I think only one or two openings out of five needed minor modifications, and to my delight, a spare window found the perfect home in what would have been a blank second floor wall. The contractor just looked at me, put an arm around my shoulder, and the framers said at least I was always one step ahead of them. Sometimes you cannot plan these things and out of lemons you make lemonade.

Renovations can be treacherous. We still laugh about the addition and having those guys in our house for months, almost like family. My youngest recollects the day she slightly awakened to find a man pushing open the attic access in her room while she still slept (they started VERY early and it was summer break). Me, I remember the day I was washing dishes in the kitchen and singing, as I so often do for fun in my home (I can't carry a tune) until my older daughter reminded me that there were men just 15 feet away while I belted out, "I need some hot stuff, baby, this evening!" They told me I was their favorite customer ever, but I did put on coffee every morning and had a cooler stocked with soft drinks, carbonated and not, and beer for the end of the day. Those guys did a great job!

There was some material left at the end of the job - small pieces that we asked them to leave for fire starters in our natural wood-burning fireplace. There were also a few large pieces of the tongue and groove they used for the ceiling - we finished parts of the interior of a basement room with that and created a frame for our youngest's work of art. I doubt there would have been any leftovers at all but I was privy to the conversations. They knew what they were doing - they measured twice and cut once. Who wants to go back to the lumber yard for just one board?

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Things were looking pretty grim when I last posted. In Michigan, nobody is going to deny that things are sad. Ask Congress.

My husband lost his job in the auto industry on October 28, 2008 after nearly 20 years as a dedicated and continually valued professional. At first it felt devastating but then with the severance package we felt empowered. A huge bonus to leave? Well, I guess that is better than, soooooorrrryyyy. Or a note on the door when a person arrives for work one day.

We paid down debt and allowed ourselves many months of expenses, not even allowing that I would make a dime in real estate - that is a pretty iffy proposition in Michigan as well. Tomorrow is a new day and it started the day my husband lost his job. Amazing what adversity will do to the spirit!

I felt I needed this bridge blog, husband with salaried job no more, wife with commission only job, as always. My husband has had numerous responses to his highly qualified resume and he evaluates all of them. Looking for a job is almost as difficult as having a job, except it can be done in sweats and occasionally allows for loading the dishwasher midday. Sadly, no job offerings have been in Michigan.

The quandary of the bailout of the auto industry is evident to all of us here in Michigan. No one wants to bail out private industry, but is the banking industry not private? We just bailed them out; if I were a better mathemetician, I believe that might equate to the auto industry bailout, to some power of whatever. OK, again, not a mathemetician; let's see what that bank bailout really costs us in the end. P.S. Homeowners are still losing their homes in record numbers.

Bottom line? I spoke to two people in the last two days who are or were auto industry suppliers. One person plainly stated that the loss of one job in the 'big three' auto industry equated to 7 jobs total in the greater auto industry, suppliers included. Can our nation afford this industry defeat?

So it is looking pretty clear. We will probably be leaving, though I will stay until our daughter finishes high school in 2010 and of course her braces need to come off - we relocated once mid-braces and it was starting all over again, expense wise. We are not doing that again. Funny the things you value.

Should there be no commutable offer for my husband, we will dearly miss our home. It is a treasure that has been enjoyed by many, particularly our children and their friends. We will miss Ann Arbor, the bastion of liberal thinking, always pushing the envelope. We prefer to stay for now, but I don't know if that is reality.

The ocean is calling, probably eastward. Family and familiarity will be near. Time will tell.