We Did This to Ourselves

It's been awhile since I ranted about something.   

Economy, economy, economy….it’s all we care about.  According to the pundits, there must always be expansion if there is to be happiness.  Contraction indicates misery.

I listen to friends tell me about how bad things are out there.  People can’t find jobs.  Nobody seems to have any money lately. Businesses are sucking wind.  Ours isn’t immune.  In the past several years we’ve watched the average market price for everyday items fall precipitously at auction.  The decline as been so steep, we now have a rather large list of items we won’t even allow through the front door due to the fact that they won’t sell for enough to justify using our valuable real estate to display them.  It’s bad out there.

My take is that we did this to ourselves.  Our free market economy encourages consumption.  That is….buying stuff, using it up, throwing it away, then buying more…..infinitum.  Marketers take pride in getting each and every one of us to buy more stuff.  Our houses are filled with it.  If we replace our kitchen cabinets with white ones this year, there’s no question that next year’s color will be anything but white.  Anyone who is anyone can’t have outdated cabinets.  Call the contractor. 

We sell homes all the time.  Recently, we sold one that had perfectly usable…everything.  It was just “outdated.”  The buyers whined about how many thousands it would take to upgrade the home.  Functionality has become irrelevant.  What matters in our society is how it LOOKS, not how well it functions.  We’ll replace solid wood cabinets with particle board ones if they LOOK more modern.  How’d that happen?  How did we get so shallow?  More than half the people on this planet would just like something to EAT or a place to get out of the cold and rain…We rip out perfectly good fixtures and cabinets so our friends won’t talk about how cheap and behind the times we are.  But getting back to my point…It’s the pursuit of all the stuff that requires an ever increasing amount of money.  We demand pay raises and minimum acceptable wages because we feel we’re entitled to new cabinetry, new cars, new clothes and a flat screen TV.  It’s the American Way.

Outside of America, wants and needs are more modest…requiring less capital.  When any four walls and a roof will do for today, the worry is not a pay raise, but rather any job that will bring in enough to provide the ability to subsist.  Jobs are going away because we live in a global economy where people will work for $1 an hour or even $1 a day.  Why pay the union guys $37.50 an hour with paid 5 week vacation, double overtime and mandatory health benefits when you can get the job done for $1 per hour and nothing extra?  In many places, people will bow at your feet for $1 an hour.

It’s easy for us to say that people who work for such wages are exploited….and there’s no question that many workers ARE exploited, but we are so darned used to the big numbers, we can’t understand how anyone, anywhere would work for the little numbers.  As a result, companies are abandoning high cost labor resources to utilize the less expensive sources.  That’s the way it is.

If it were your company, and you had to answer to shareholders, what would you do?

The relentless pursuit of stuff, economic expansion forever, and bigger things had gotten us into this mess. If everyone just wanted less and wasn’t concerned about what color the cabinets are, we’d need less money, we’d be under less pressure and we might actually be able to work for a wage that would keep us competitive.  Our desire for material things is becoming our undoing.  It’s not the government, it’s not the immigrants or the folks in China, it’s us.  

Time to take a look in the mirror and ask some big questions about where we are going.

We feel entitled to drive this...

When plenty of people in other countries would be happy with this...

You found WHAT? Cover your eyes if easily offended! I'm serious.

" You must see some interesting things in your line of work" an inquisitive auction customer says to me.  Indeed I do.  Sometimes I see things I don't WANT to see.

I can tell an awful lot about a person when I enter a house and sift through their belongings.  I get to view it all...especially when the seller is deceased  and we are told to go through EVERYTHING in order to properly inventory and assess value.  So I offer a caveat for the living.  If you got something you don't want anyone to find, you'd better bury it in the yard because if an executor sends our firm to handle the disposition of a deceased individual's assets....I'm going to find everything that person never wanted anyone to find.  Ask me...I'll tell you stories of things pulled from dark corners of closets that we didn't have the heart to turn over to any family member.  Lets just say there'd be a great deal of awkwardness.

I realize that nobody knows when they will get "sent for."  By the time the end is near, most people aren't very mobile so most often family and friends end up taking care of little things like bringing clean clothing and making sure the cat is fed.  It isn't often that someone's dying aunt pulls a family member over and whispers that they need to go to her house and get rid of that crumpled bag in the old luggage in the bedroom closet because it contains...well...a few potentially embarrassing things.  A riding crop and a leather mask.... maybe?  Something else?

It doesn't happen like that.

Nobody says anything about it.  Invariably, we find it...after the fact.

I wasn't surprised to find out that most people...old and young have dirty little secrets.  We're all a little debauched now and then...C'est normal.  Charity workers, dedicated parents, business leaders...everyone.  Believe me, I know.

So the next time you reach into the deep recesses of some drawer or behind the shelf unit in the den or even into the little cedar box that you hide in the rafters above the ceiling tiles....remember that someone, someday, will likely find whatever it is you are reaching for if you happen to leave this world without it.  It might be someone like me, which would be good since part of my job description involves being sensitive to the bereaved.  I'll make sure nobody cries more than they have to.  Promise.

Just something to think about......

No matter how well you think it might be hidden....think again.

I've gone and complicated my life a bit...a short renovation chronicle.

I used to love messing around with real estate.  I've been a broker for 18 years and have probably purchased and renovated at least that many properties.  Then, at some point I decided that I'd had enough.   Dealing with multiple properties meant dealing with mounds of assorted utility bills, maintenance issues and tenants who have a nervous breakdown if a door hinge develops an annoying squeak.  "It's so irritating and I really feel that since it is a maintenance issue, you should come and deal with it.  Can you come today?"  I'd wince and croak "Have you heard of WD-40? Get to know it....along with duct tape."

So...three years ago, I sold the last property I owned other than my personal residence.  Suddenly life got simpler and I absolutely relished it.  But real estate people are like restauranteurs.  No matter how irritated and pissed off our ventures make us, we can't seem to stay out of the grinder.  We secretly crave the feeling we get when our lives are turned upside down.  There must be some sick pleasure in yelling on the phone at a food purveyor who can't fill an order correctly or a tenant who is tardy with rent one too many times.

In the back of mind, I saw the real estate meltdown coming.  It simply wasn't possible to see 15%+ annual price gains forever, so when the disaster struck I was already sitting on the sidelines well on my way to a full simplification of my life.  In reality, the massacre of the local real estate market was far worse than anyone could have expected.  Foreclosures piled up and sellers went into panic mode, seizing whatever opportunity they had to make a deal with even lukewarm buyers.

Still an investor at heart, I couldn't help but watch closely as prices continued to tumble.  The few investors that had survived the mayhem were now poised to make once-in-a-lifetime deals....and they did.  The prospect of jumping back into the market suddenly became more than a passing thought.

For those who don't know, a recent sequence of events has resulted in my living in a wonderful little rental space in town.  It is small and cozy and perfect.  My dwelling provides me an excellent opportunity to test my resolve at living a (sort of) minimalist lifestyle.....but....I'm a real estate OWNER at heart.  As much sense as it makes to rent from a standpoint of maintenance and simplicity, I have this gnawing need to own my home...to have control over renovations, layout and choices of paint color.

To make a long story short,  I decided to toss some low ball offers into the ring to see what might happen.  "No, no, no...don't do it...not now." I thought, but apparently, no offer is too ridiculous in this market and against my better judgement, I'm now the owner of a cute 1100 square foot 1940's Sears and Roebuck house.  As of today, I've owned it for exactly 12 days and in that time an awful lot has happened.

The real estate fiasco has all but shut down new home construction.  Tradesman and sub contractors now occupy their time watching Judge Judy and doing odd jobs for neighbors so there's no shortage of eager folks with hammers, trowels and saws who'd jump at the chance for a substantial job.  As a result, in 12 days....the entire plumbing system has been replaced, the kitchen and bath have been tiled, and a new roof graces the upper section of the house.  What remains is some electrical work, an interior repaint and having the wood floors, which for years remained buried under ugly green carpet, refinished.

In better times, banging out these jobs at such a pace would have been impossible.  Wait times for the best and most skilled tradesman were often measured in months.  Now they ask if they can start tomorrow.  Personally, I enjoy working in a house where there's lots of banging, sawing and the occasional low thud of heavy construction material  or equipment hitting the floor.  I join in, crowbar in hand, removing crappy shelving or tearing up old tack strip from the hardwood.  I used to do a lot of the big stuff, but I'm no tradesman.  Although the results were typically satisfactory, it took weeks and even months longer than a skilled professional would take to knock it out.  I've since learned that time is money...and in the end, paying to get the job done quickly might actually save a few bucks in the long run.  Certainly now, more than ever, is a time you can get nearly anything done quickly.

First step....get all those old appliances out of the way...

Deep green carpet?  Umm....NOT!  It goes bye-bye.

Next step..removal of vanity made of "oatmeal" (particle board) and the fake tile board.

Someone was smoking crack when they chose this color.  Can you say "Kilz?"

Cement board going down where the cigarette burned linoleum was.

Off comes the old roof.  Dry forecast for a few days...

Hey, how'd the roof get in there?

Much better.

Not a bad result in the bathroom either.  The glass tile border was just a last minute idea that worked pretty well.

Gorgeous floors, but someone's dog had an incontinence problem.  Let there be big industrial, high amperage sanding equipment....

New lid.

And...the finished product!  Actually...this is where I'm living now.  Pretty darned nice and right in the middle of downtown.  I'm reluctant to leave....and I might not! 

My goal is to have the entire project finished in 30 days.  But then what?  Honestly, the jury is still out on this one, but I have several options.  Some have suggested that I break my lease and move into the house.  Financially, this would be a pretty good move but I actually LIKE where I'm living right now and I'm not in a hurry to move again.  The most likely outcome will be that I rent the house to a tenant.  The going rental rate for the area will more than cover any monthly expenses for the house and the positive cash flow will offset my current rent.  A final option is to simply flip the house when it is finished.  Flip?  In this market?  Actually a lot of people are doing it.  You just have to buy REALLY low.  Even after the renovation costs there's room for a reasonable profit even if I price the house very low to attract a buyer.  From a simplification standpoint, this would be the best option.  Sell, simplify and invest the profit.  I admit it's mighty tempting, but part of me still envisions moving in after my lease is up.  I suppose in the coming months, the best path will fall into focus.  In the meantime I've filled my life once again with sheetrock dust, construction dumpsters and coming home encrusted with the dirt and grime of full fledged home renovation.

What's it worth to you?

What's it worth?

This is the question I am asked most often.  An understandable question, but I dislike it.

I've been an auctioneer and appraiser for about a dozen years and have been messing about with antiques for another half-decade more than that.  When I am asked the "question" the honest answer is "I don't know."

Sure I can sometimes come up with a ballpark figure, but that is about it.  What all these years of auctioneering has taught me is that something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it...nothing more and nothing less.  Forget guide books, appraisals and Antiques Roadshow.  If someone tells you your mother's old rocker is worth $500, they had better have their checkbook out, otherwise that statement of opinion isn't worth anything.  Truth is, I could look you right in the eye and tell you a discarded egg carton is worth twenty bucks, but if I'm not willing to hand over a crisp Jackson, my words are meaningless.

It makes perfect sense that a potential seller wants to have an idea what sorts of numbers to expect after an auction.  Will it be beans or filet mignon while out to dinner?  I really don't know until we have all those bodies in the gallery, wallets open, ready to spend.  To mention specific numbers is professional suicide.  If I say 100 and the market says 60, I look like crap.  You can't argue with the market.  Still, I am prodded and poked, my facial expressions watched closely for a hint.  "I don't want to give it away now" barks my potential client. "I don't want to give it away either" I retort.  My earnings are tied to my ability to sell an item.  The more money I can pry from a bidder's hands, the more money I make, but I can't make miracles when the market scoffs at an item.

During this process it becomes easy to determine if a seller is too emotionally attached to his or her belongings.  If someone is too enamored with stuff, I will never deliver a number that is big enough to satisfy the client.  We could have 300 bidders and fetch record breaking prices and I'll get responses like "It had to be worth more than that. My sister's husband's brother's cousin offered me (insert ridiculous number here) for it ten years ago. I guess you just don't get the right people at your auctions."  Somewhere out there is a legion of folks, their pockets stuffed with money running around the country offering random people greatly inflated prices for their junk.  They make their offers and then they're gone...like the wind.  By the time I show up, this magical buyer who by the way was ALWAYS turned down, is no longer available to make a purchase.  "Oh, he moved."  "Well, she died in '97." Always something.

After years of this sort of thing, I realized that when you want to sell something, just sell it.  Don't look back.  Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.  If you got to use it and enjoy it, don't expect to get more than you paid for it...or even half.  I know people who have been dragging around heavy assets for years trying to get the very best price.  They're sure they've got something special and nobody seems to recognize it.  One day, the right person will come along and....Yeah, OK.  Tell your family to dig an extra big hole when you die so they can toss in all your beloved items.  Maybe someone will pay what you want in the afterlife.

This week, some more of my (now former) possessions found new homes.  Some sold for great prices, some didn't, but it doesn't matter.  In the end, it all evens out.  The windfalls usually negate the disappointments and it all works out.  eBay and Craigslist have huge audiences and you'll know fairly quickly if you've priced something too high.  You might get inquiries, but nobody will be serious.  Ignore what others are asking for similar items.  What matters is the price that something SOLD for.

During these last couple of years as I have made my physical load smaller, I have sold items at at my own auctions, some on eBay, and a few on Craigslist.  I have never waited more than a week to get an item sold.  If I got no responses, the price came down.  If I sold at auction, there was no minimum.  Each time money changed hands, I have felt freer, less weighed down.  It's hard to put a price on that. Surprisingly, the dollars have added up to a not-so-insignificant amount.  Over the last year the tally has topped five figures, often coming $50 or $100 at a time.  That's how much stuff I used to own and I didn't consider myself to be a packrat.  Far from it.  So here I am, all those dollars later, even happier than I was when I owned and toted around all those things.

Surprisingly,  I actually have very little left to sell...I only have some necessities and a few of the things I truly love.  There's little to worry about.  If someone broke into my place and stole everything, I'd be able to replace the majority of it in a week.  I don't need insurance riders anymore.  Now the new challenge will be to maintain a life with less material things.  There will be temptation and I will occasionally cave but I'm ready to ignore the calls to materialism and start living.  Look around....are you?

What's more important?  Going home without all the stuff or loading it up, taking it home and dragging it into the garage because you couldn't get a few extra bucks?

Putting it into Practice

Geez....a month to the day since my last post.  An awful lot has happened.  Without getting into detail, there has been a great deal of last minute change, not the least of which involves my relocating to a smaller dwelling.  I sit in my new space as I type, running over the events of the past few weeks.  Interesting is that I have had to put into practice all those words about material possessions I've been writing.  It has been a fascinating exercise to say the least.  I've finally been forced to live by my own words.  That's not a bad thing.

With the recent changes, I decided that perhaps I should write more about my own experiences as they relate to the things I own, or perhaps what I may decide to not own at some indefinite point in the future.

Before the move I had to assess what was coming and what wasn't.  Some of that process centered around the sheer bulk of an item.  Considering that I move a lot of heavy things for a living and often utter expletives while trying to manipulate  non-geometric, unevenly weighted monstrosities down winding stairways and narrow openings, I wasn't about to swear at my own idiocy while grimacing under an object with the approximate mass of a Volkswagen that I happened to own and couldn't leave behind.  That said, I decided I would take no more than 4 or 5 "large" pieces.  The others needed to go.

First out the door to someone else's home was my monolithic grandfather clock.  Although I loved the grand piece, I rarely wound it and actually took great pleasure watching someone else wheezing under its great weight.  In many ways, watching it go was cathartic.  I no longer actively collect clocks and it was time to let a bunch of them go to new homes.  In the end I took five with me, two of which were no larger than a cigar box.  The five would be my remaining connection to my collecting days and all functioned well enough to be wound and used regularly.

As for the furniture...everything needed a purpose.  Nothing could be sentimental or merely decorative.  The heaviest piece chosen was a tall Mission bookcase which could serve a variety of storage purposes since I was would be living in a pre Civil War home that had little storage.  Although heavy, it was narrow and would not have to be manipulated through doors.  To deal with seating, I toted in a European design sofa and a chair and to hold my TV, there would be a need for the low slung cabinet on which it had been sitting.  My office desk was the most irritating of the pieces in that it needed to be disassembled into pieces in order to get it out of my old office.  Every time we thought it would go out the door, a new appendage would jam against a wall or door frame and out would come the screwdriver to amputate it.  Everything else could be moved solo or packed in a box.  This was going to be a minimalist move no matter what.

It was now time to whittle back everything else so that a couple of trips with the pickup would be all that was required to finish the job....more on that later.

I'll MAKE it fit.

The Cost of Owning Things

I never thought about a lot of things I purchased once I owned them.  I figured the amount I paid at the store was the cost of the item.  Turns out that is not entirely true.

It's easy to illustrate the ongoing costs of things by using some obvious examples.  How about cars and homes?  These are big ticket items that cost far more than what we pay initially.  They incur costs like maintenance, taxes and insurance.  At one point, I would have never dreamed of renting a property to live in, but after thinking about it....what is the total cost of all those taxes and yearly insurance renewals?  How about the yard tools I need and the time it takes to groom the property so it doesn't get overgrown?  Oh, I'll need a shed for the yard tools, gasoline and yearly maintenance for the mower.  My HVAC?  That needs maintenance too.  Forget pride of ownership for a moment and focus on sheer time and dollars.

The big things are easy, but what about all the small things we overlook?  Sure, we need things like chairs, magazine racks and tables to outfit our homes and it's hard to imagine these things have an ongoing cost to own them.  They do.  It doesn't become evident until we have a quantity of items that is greater than our ability to manage them.  What the hell does that mean?  It means we have more things than we know what to do with.  I guarantee nearly everyone reading this can find a fair quantity of things around the house that have been upgraded, rendered obsolete, not used due to loss of interest, not used due to not having replacement parts or batteries, has no current purpose but we think it might later....

In aggregate these are the things that make a modest home feel smaller.  These are the things that force us to park the car outside because they are filling up the garage.  When the car is outside, it is exposed to the elements and depreciates.  That's a cost.  When our things fill up space we use for living, it costs us to heat them, cool them, move them, deal with them.

I've said this before....Everyone should have to relocate every 18 months or so.  The task of gathering up all of our crap and boxing it is a sobering one.

Fairly frequently, when a client calls us to sell items, we will find boxes in closets, garages and attics that have been moved multiple times from home to home and never opened.  You can't tell me it didn't cost anything to move it each time.  "What's in the box?" I ask.  "Oh that's my aunt's punch bowl set.  We've moved it from house to house because I keep thinking I might use it someday.  We had it in storage for a year when we moved from Indianapolis, but now I guess it needs to go."  Multiply that story by the dozens or even hundreds of items that might fall into that category for a single family.  Now get out your calculator.  Owning stuff costs us.

Open those closets, crawl into the attic and be ruthless with your things.  If you haven't seen it in more than a year....eBay, Craigslist, Salvation Army.  Less is cheaper.

Get it out of the garage.  It's costing you.

Can Fantasy Become Reality

Of late, I have gotten off track and have been spewing a great deal about our country's obsession with consumerism.  Back to some minimalism.

Lately my job has been taking me into some interesting homes filled with unusual and treasured items.  I stand back and witness the struggle people have with releasing the things that have been part of familiar surroundings.  It has forced me, over and over, to take stock of my own life and the tangible belongings that are part of it.

The title of this post deals with a fantasy.  Specifically, the one I have been having.  No, no...it has nothing to do with blondes or foreign beaches.  Actually, now that I think of it......  Aaaanyway, the fantasy I'm talking about involves the nearly complete release of all items cluttering up my life.  I imagine myself in a small, airy, modern, urban flat maybe 450 square feet or so.  I have only the necessities.  It is a comfortable little place and with me are a few carefully chosen items around that make me happy.  I have my laptop, a few books and perhaps a compact stereo that is easily hooked into my iPod or Pandora, my knife kit, cookbooks and some good pots and pans.  The rest are incidentals and not much more.  Most of life will revolve around experiences and not things.

As I glance around at my current life, one thing stares me in the face.  For many years I collected and restored antique clocks and timepieces.  Over time, I have amassed a significant collection. This isn't a hoarder type collection of anything and everything that has to do with clocks but rather, in my humble opinion, a nice aggregation of styles and types.  I took the time to refine the collection so that I had no duplicates and most of the items were genuine, unadulterated, antique originals.  They number nearly thirty in all and some are quite large and imposing.  Although all the clocks are scattered throughout the house, they still take up a lot of room.  There is no earthly way they could all be part of the minimalist fantasy.

I've been grappling all week with how many I should sell to scale back.  To me they're all attractive and many have long, interesting stories behind them, but when I moved to a smaller home some years ago, I was unable to set up my hobby and repair shop.  My new digs were simply too small and I now had a family that required my attention.  My equipment is now long gone and maintaining the collection mechanically is now much more difficult.  Now I understand the decisions that people must make after they've called on me to clear things out for them.  By picking up the phone, they have made a commitment to themselves to release material things.  Sometimes the decision is made for them due to monetary issues, other times it is simply a matter making life less weighty.  Folks in the latter category have a tougher time making decisions for obvious reasons, but when they do, I admire them for it.

I have reasons to keep them all, but I won't.  Which ones stay and which ones go?  I decided that the collection should be reduced by at least two thirds.  There's no particular reason for the mathematics here, just a desire to significantly cut back.  My decision is that I will pare back to ten or less, most of which will be smaller items that can fit together on a shelf or niche somewhere.  Because I see them every day, it is hard not to flip-flop on which to keep.  The solution was to somehow make my decisions final.  I grabbed a bunch of adhesive labels and told myself that once a decision was made to sell an item, it was to be marked with a label that would not be removed.  Of course I could change my mind, but a needed something symbolic that would keep me in line.  The labels would be fine.  I set to work.

As I stood in front of each clock, running through my history with it, it is easy to see how letting go can be hard.  Things have associations....some warmer or more personal than others.  When we make a conscious decision to let something go, we worry that we might lose or forget the association...the story that brought it to us in the first place.  Life is full of stories.  There will be plenty in the future that might revolve around other objects.  It doesn't mean I have to own them.

Long ago I was told that we never truly "own" old or historic items like antique clocks, we simply pay for the right to take care of them, to have them in our presence, to add to their collective history...then at some point, we pass them on to the next set of caretakers who will hopefully receive satisfaction and joy from them and preserve them until the next "owner" comes along.

It's time.  I've used twenty one labels.

It has been an honor to have cared for you and preserved your history.  I've received joy from your presence.  It is time for you to do the same for your next owner.