All My Rowdy Friends Have Fallen Down

Falls are the leading cause of injury, especially hip injuries, in American elders. Managing our environment can go a long way to reducing the likelihood we will fall and hurt ourselves. Photo source: Shutterstock

This post originally appeared in the Cameron Herald and Thorndale Tribune on 2020-01-30 and on the Hearts, Homes, and Hands blog on 2020-01-31.

And the hangovers hurt more then they used to

And corn bread and ice tea took the place

Of pills and ninety-proof,

And it seems like none of us do things quite like we used to do

— Hank Williams Jr.

My balance is not what it used to be. In fact, I’m a little envious of my friends in their seventies who still ride their motorcycles. I had to give mine up a few years ago after an ear infection left my balance just enough off that I had to think about every reaction. When you’re flying around at seventy miles an hour with nothing between you and eternity but your leathers, having to think about your actions means you are too damned slow. Well, I am anyway. I don’t want to lay down a bike. I don’t even want to fall out of bed!

As we get older, we tend to fall more. And as Hank Williams Jr. Says about hangovers, falls hurt more than they used to. The more falls hurt, the more wary I become of falling. I’m not just being overly cautious or paranoid. According to American Family Physician, “Falls are the leading cause of injury-related visits to emergency departments in the United States and the primary etiology of accidental deaths in persons over the age of 65 years.”

Some reasons we fall include balance issues (don’t I know it!), environmental hazards (like pets, kids, or clutter), illness, medications or alcohol, vertigo, and vision problems.

If falls are so painful and dangerous, what can we do to avoid them? Of the listed causes, about the only categories we have any real control over are medications, alcohol, and environmental hazards.

We often think we don’t have control over the medications we take, but we really do. Medications are supposed to make us healthier. If your medications make you more likely to fall, dizzy, drowsy, or just less alert, discuss that fact with your doctor. Doctors usually have options—various medication or combinations of medications—that get to the same result. Each person’s body is different and reacts to medications differently. It may take several attempts to figure out what works best for your body.

A glass of wine among friends is a good thing, but I’ve had to become more aware of how it affects my balance as I get older. Please enjoy safely.

Alcohol bridges the gap between medications and environmental factors. To paraphrase Hank again, “All my rowdy friends have fallen down.” I’m leaving alcohol in the environment and out of my body more often than I used to. I’ll still have a drink with dinner now and then, but that’s about the extent of it these days.

That leaves the environment. To help some elder tenants be safer, Hermits’ Rest Enterprises recently installed grab rails in a bathtub and around toilets. My nephew applied non-skid tape to a slick bathtub. I’m thinking about building sidewalks between my house and garage to avoid uneven spots in the yard. And though it hurts my pride, I’m even considering a stair chair. Those stairs are getting longer and steeper every day—especially when I first wake up and haven’t had my coffee yet.

Hearts Homes and Hands may not be able to do the handiwork needed to make your environment safer, but we can help you assess the risk of falling and recommend solutions. We can help with decluttering and keeping your environment cleaner, healthier, and safer.

Inflated ARV: Market Timing

Source: Austin Board of Realtors® It’s much easier to predict market cycles in real estate than in the stock market (where many would say it’s impossible), but you can still lose your shirt by assuming the market will always go up.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus blog on 2016-10-24.

One of the easiest mistakes to make in renovating houses is to overestimate their After Repair Value (ARV). In this post, I’m not going to delve into motivations for inflating a house’s ARV. After all, I’ve done it to myself, so far be it for me to cast asparagus on anyone. I’m just going to talk about how it happens, and there are only a few ways:

• Use the wrong comps.
• Mis-time the market.
• Make the numbers fit the model.

I originally planned to talk about all three of these risks in one post, but I soon figured out it would be way too long. Click here to open all posts on this topic.

Mis-time the market

In the stock market, they say the fastest way to go broke is to try to “time the market”—that is to buy when the market is lowest and sell when it is highest. Real estate markets move much more slowly, and we have leading and trailing economic indicators to help us time the market. Some things to consider are:

• Special uses
• Seasonal differences
• Renovation time
• Market cycle

Special Uses

Unless you really know what you’re doing, owning a farm or ranch can be very expensive. For example, a gate won’t stand up to a tractor. Oops!

Special use properties make it easy to misjudge their value.

Farm land is cheaper in bulk; buying by the acre gets expensive. But farm or ranch land doesn’t produce any income unless you actively work it, and—while it does appreciate over time—you can be looking at decades to see significant improvement.

Offices, industrial space, and recreational properties exaggerate swings in the local business cycles. You must have a really good finger on the local economy’s pulse to play in this park—or need the office space yourself. It also costs more to get into this game than standard housing. That said, there is plenty of money to be made if you find a property where the use is about to change—like along the perimeter of where a new Box Store is going in.

Seasonal Differences

We missed the sale window for this lake house because of a combination of factors. We’re now holding it over the winter and using it as a vacation rental to make the mortgage payments until we can sell it in the spring when people are thinking about life on the lake again. Always have more than one exit strategy.

Housing in general sells better in the spring and summer, but resort housing exhibits this behavior on steroids. Many fewer buyers even think about buying a lake house when it’s too cold to get in the water or a house on a golf course when the greens turn white with snow.

We also know that water frontage adds considerable value. But what happens when a drought sucks the lake’s shoreline a quarter mile out? During the last drought, the receding shoreline exposed everything from illegal sewer lines to missing persons still sitting in their rusting cars.

Renovation Time

This is a big one—and one that has bitten every investor I know. You expect a project to take 90 days, but it actually takes six months. Maybe you find unexpected conditions. Maybe it takes longer than anticipated to get permits. Maybe you contractor flakes out.

At a minimum, that means you have additional holding costs for each of those three months, and that can really add up on a big project. At worst, it means you may miss the selling season or even hold a property into a down cycle.

Market Cycle

Given time, real estate will probably appreciate. But never assume appreciation in your purchase decision. If you do, you may wind up holding the property for decades or centuries to recoup your investment. Just look at the Rust Belt or Detroit.

The rule of thumb in Austin is that we have a five year cycle. The market goes up for three years and slumps for two. But the market is unpredictable. As my friend Shenoah Grove likes to point out, “We are now six years into our five-year cycle.” While this prolonged up-cycle is being driven by bigger economic trends—growing population, strong economy, oil boom (yes, the price per barrel is down because we have so much production right now.)—the likelihood of an adjustment makes longer renovation project much more risky.

Given the human trend to assume an up market will last forever, I’d be extra careful about every buying decision.

Construction Management Academy

JD Esajian explains all the steps involved to permit a house his team is renovating in La Jolla.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-08-03.

As Sue Ann mentioned the other day, I spent the weekend in San Diego at a class called the Construction Management Academy. It was two full days under the tutelage of JD Esajian, formerly of Flip That House and one of the founders of CT Homes and Pacific Builders.

There were a lot of details to pick up on, but we didn’t spend as much time on management systems as I would have preferred. Instead, JD used several of their current projects to call out the things you have to be aware of in a construction project, many of them unique to projects that sell for more than a million dollars in California.

Here are a few of the chestnuts I brought home for the Hermit Haus team:

Here I am on a rooftop deck of a $3.2M renovation that turned a 2K square foot home into a 4K.

• It is cheaper to fix problems uncovered in planning than in construction. Spend the time needed to thoroughly plan every project instead of trying to minimize the time between closing on the purchase and the start of demolition.
• Some neighborhoods have lengthy delays for permitting. (We know this is also true of Austin, where two of our projects have taken more than a year to permit.) That’s okay so long as you know it going into the project and take the appropriate steps:
  • Factor the extra holding costs into your purchasing decision. Usually, this means negotiating a lower purchase price, but it may mean leasing the property out for a year while you work on getting the permits.
  • Make sure your financing plan takes the lag into account. You don’t want to have to repay the purchase and renovation loan(s) before your have started your project. Also, you probably don’t want to be paying high private- or hard-money interest rates for a year before you start work.

I’m going to have signs like this one made to post at all of our job sites. Not all adults behave as such.

• You can’t count on appreciation to help you out if you buy wrong. Run your numbers many times before you fork over the cash.
• There has to be a transparent, workable system to facilitate communication and accountability among all team members, including yourself, contractors, lenders, and anyone else involved in the project.
• Always have a contingency in place. There is a truism that you never know what you’ll find when you open a wall. Or a floor, for that matter.
• You’re not alone in this business. Network with your peers. Chances are someone else has already solved the problem that has you stumped.
• Every company should have a mission statement and a code of conduct. Make sure yours are prominently displayed on every job site.

Ash House Update

Front of the house, repainted and slightly landscaped. Mismatched chimney cleverly disguised by a tree.

Here you can see the three colors we are using. All from a Frank Lloyd Wright collection.

Back view, showing new doors, sparing you the sight of the actual yard.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-05-16.

A group of us went by the Buffalo Trail house to check on the renovation work on Saturday. We even braved a flash flood warning to do so. Rehabbing is not for wimps.

All-in-all, I’m pleased with the progress the contractors are making on the place. They have the yard mostly cleaned up. That makes a tremendous difference when you consider how jungle-like the house was at purchase. If my kids were still kids, I’d no longer be afraid to let them play in the front yard. The back yard is still another matter.

Mowing the lawn did show how little grass grows under the dense canopy. So even cleaned up, the yard is still a little foreboding. We may have to put more effort into thinning the forest that we had originally anticipated.

The exterior brick has been power washed and painted—mostly. Thanks to the weather, the painter missed the chimney cap. The rains kicked in again about the time they finished painting the body of the house. So we have this reddish-brown chimney sticking out of a white roof on a gray house. Details. But the painter assures me it’s “on his list.”

Power Washing Cleans Up

Power washing the brick of your project can really make a difference in its appearance.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-05-09.

I won’t be long today. This post is just a quick tip.

Power washing the brick of your project can really make a difference in its appearance. I know that sounds self-evident, but it’s easy to forget about because of that. Just look at the difference between the two shots of the Buffalo Trail house before and after power washing. I know these aren’t perfectly comparable pictures because we don’t have a continuity department tracking the angle of every shot we take. Still, I think you can get the gist. Power washing the brick and fascia prior to painting makes a big difference. On some projects, it may even be enough.

We’re not finished yet. We will paint the brick to give the house that elegant, modern feel. We’ll have more pictures when that’s done.

Everything Changes

There were three sliding glass doors in this project: one in the master bedroom and two in the family room. All will become French doors and picture windows.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-04-27.

There is nothing so constant in this world as change…change and the value of collaboration.

We found out today that the walls we were planning to remove at the Ash House so we could “open up” the kitchen to the dining room are load bearing. The cost of engineering the LVLs to replace the walls and the delay in the project for engineers, permits, and inspection would cost more than we could expect to get from the change. So, we’re going to revise our thinking a bit and scale back to renovation instead of redevelopment on this project.

We’ll still have a really nice kitchen with a breakfast bar, just not the open concept we’d hoped for.

We have already removed the ugly and questionable built-in sideboard in the dining room, and we can still make better use of that space. We’re going to remove the (non load-bearing) wall that separated it from the shallow pantry to make a really nice pantry that will be accessible from the kitchen. From the dining room, the former sideboard will become a smooth wall. It will be a good place for an antique sideboard or maybe just some art.

Removing the plywood from the broken sliding door brought an amazing amount of natural light into the family room. We’ll replace all those sliding doors with French doors. In the family room, the two sliding glass doors will have one set of French doors and huge picture windows. That combination should let in as much light as the two sliding doors do now.

White roofs are more energy efficient, because they reflect back much of the brutal Texas sun.

As you can see from the photo, the roof is being replaced as I type. We went with a white shingle for aesthetics and to save on energy costs for our new homeowners.

The replacement windows are still about six weeks out. I’m glad we ordered them up front. The good news is that means we don’t have to spend time and energy masking or cleaning the windows when we paint the outside of the house. We’ll just paint the old windows and have a nice, clean look when we replace them.

All-in-all, we’re continuing to make progress. As with everything, flexibility is key. We’re not letting obstacles like load-bearing walls stop progress on this project. We’re being flexible and moving along. When we’re done, this will still be one of the nicest houses in the neighborhood.

Communication Is Key

About a week into demo, the front yard is still overgrown. It is also soaked from more than six inches of rain.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-04-18.

I walked the Ash House with our partner Larry and one of Larry’s favorite GCs this afternoon. We had more than six inches of rain yesterday, so the yard was really wet. Unfortunately, the rain prevented us from getting started reroofing the house, which made a couple of leaks very apparent.

The meeting was to make sure all three of us are on the same page with regard to redeveloping the house. The contractor thought a couple of our ideas were a little extravagant, so he removed them from the original bid. We had to be firm that we really do want to open the kitchen up to the dining room and bring all electrical to current code. So please make sure there is money in the bid to cover it.

The GC has also found a couple of problems while demoing the bathrooms and kitchen. You never know what you will find when you open a wall. In this case, we found more work to do and more money to spend. But we will not sell a house we can’t be proud of. So our margins just got a little thinner. Here’s hoping they don’t disappear completely.

Communication Is Key

The siding is up on the kitchen bump out.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-02-03.

The Blue Ridge project is still running behind schedule, and there were a couple of developments that will put it farther over its budget this week.

First the good news: the cabinets and countertops are in in the kitchen and both bathrooms. The granite countertops really pop against the white cabinets, which are not quite Shaker style. We even had the folding table in the laundry room topped with the granite.

And the siding is up on the kitchen bump out—the one where we had to remove the brick facade last week. Part of it got knocked down, and it was safer to remove the rest of the brick than to repair the remainder. The horizontal HardiePlanks echo the siding on the other three sides of the house. It looks good, even in the weird default primer color. It will look even better painted to match the house.

That brings us to the bad news and the title of this post. Last week, we messaged the contractor, Chris, a picture of the color fan showing the color we wanted matched against a wall. The contractor asked if we were sure, and we responded that we were without really understanding what he was asking. The problem is that each blade of the color fan has a range of shades of the color ranging from very pale to dark. We had used the lightest at a different house, and that one had a note written on it. Chris thought we wanted the color with the note, and we thought he would understand we wanted the one that matched the background against which we took the picture of the color fan blade. Neither of us actually mentioned the name or color code.

So when I showed up to inspect the property today, I asked in all innocence if they had just sprayed the house with primer. “No. That’s the actual color you guys chose.” Argh! The whole exterior of the house is the wrong color. So we get to buy more paint and pay to repaint the house: More money over budget and more time lost!

The bottom line is this: when you are talking with your contractors (or human beings in general), be as specific as you can. If you’re talking about paint, talk color codes and names. It’s an easy mistake to make and a difficult lesson to learn—again. Get Sue Ann to tell you about the time I had her house painted orange.

 

Paying Contractors

We have paint and texture on all drywall at Blue Ridge, but we seem to have lost a week in the process somewhere.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-01-23.

The Blue Ridge project is taking longer than expected. Don’t they all? But the texture is on the walls and painting has commenced.

As best I can tell, we are about a week behind schedule without having encountered any serious delays, just a series of small ones. But, as with pennies, small delays add up.

This situation is an example of why you should pay your contractors on completion of tasks, not on a time-based schedule—no matter how good they are or how much you trust them. Unfortunately, we agreed to weekly payments on this project, mainly because we had too much going on, had our primary contractor back out of bidding because of too much work already booked, and urgent relief at having found a recommended GC who was willing to start two weeks earlier than anyone else. Not to mention the distractions of the Christmas season.

All of that now leaves us in a situation where we have to renegotiate the payment schedule at the end of the project.

When you pay on task completion, you risk having your project become a lower priority than “more lucrative” projects. On the other hand, paying on completion guarantees you won’t be paying for undone work, but it doesnt guarantee timely completion. Either way, delays increase your holding costs during a project.

Here are some lessons we’ve learned over time:

• Have your contract written so you pay on completion of a task rather than on a schedule.
• If the contractor is furnishing the materials, keep the upfront payments minimal, but reasonable.
• Keep tabs on the work as it progresses, and don’t be shy about asking questions.
• Always plan on paying at least 10% more than the bid. There will always be things you didn’t know about when the project went out for bid.
• Plan for at least six weeks of holding costs beyond the scope of the project. There are almost always delays in the renovation and sale processes.
• If you plan for a longer, more expensive project, you’re in good shape if it comes in on time and on schedule. The inverse is not true.

 

Construction Update: The Value of a Dumpster

The nanny suite has been skinned with hardiplank, but its emerging beauty is hidden by debris. Thanks to the dumpster, Blue Ridge looks inviting, even in the middle of the renovation.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-01-18.

This post started out to be a quick update on the two renovation projects we currently have running, but you know me: I can’t resist wagging my tongue when something finally sinks in. So, I’m going to preach (probably to the choir) about dumpsters first, and give a short update at the end.

Many rehabbers use dumpsters at their projects—certainly all of the ones you see on television. But others let the refuse pile up or pile it onto trailers to take to the dump when they are ready. The GC I have used for the last eight years falls into the later camp. “Why pay the money for a dumpster when I can haul stuff away much cheaper?” he asked the first time I suggested getting one. Not being intimate with that part of the business, his logic swayed me. He is handling the Villa Park project.

We decided to use a dumpster at the Blue Ridge project as we brought on a new GC who actually preferred renting a dumpster. The photos at the right show the difference between the two projects, both run by professional contractors who are very good at what they do.

I won’t compare overall costs, because the two projects are radically different and have produce dramatically differing qualities of debris. But priced by the yard, the dumpster method seems to win out, even in cost. Thirty yards of debris cost roughly $500 to dispose of at Blue Ridge. The same amount of debris cost about $450 to dispose of at Villa Park. So I saved $50 by having my GC haul off the waste. But take another look at the two pictures.

Now here are some hidden costs of having your GC dispose of the construction debris:

Lost work

Your crews aren’t making progress on your project when they are at the dump.

Neighborhood respect

While I haven’t received a single complaint about the debris at Villa Park, I haven’t had a single neighbor inquire about what we do and if we can help them. We have had a stream of neighbors at Blue Ridge wanting to see the project, and several talked about friends whom we might be able to help.

Workplace safety and productivity.

None of the crew on any of my projects has ever reported an injury. That said, I can’t help but believe piles of trash around a project have to decrease productivity as workers carefully negotiate the paths they have left.

Pride

While I am proud of the work we’re doing at both projects, and I know I will be extremely proud of the final products, I am ashamed of going to the Villa Park project now that I have seen a well maintained workplace at Blue Ridge. I believe the workplace conditions will also affect the pride of craftsmanship in the workers, too.

I am now an advocate. We are ordering dumpsters for the Villa Park project, and I have made a convincing economic argument to that contractor in favor of them.

Villa Park Update

We have now passed all inspections and are moving forward with finishing out the walls. The skylight has been removed and roofed over. It wasn’t leaking, but they eventually do.

Blue Ridge Update

All walls inside the house have been refloated after removing the popcorn. We lost a day because someone turned off the heat, and the drywall compound didn’t dry overnight. We should be ready to paint early next week, and the flooring will go in shortly thereafter.

Blue Ridge Demo Day

Blue Ridge during demolition. Compare this to the photo of the Villa Park nanny suite below.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-01-03.

It’s unusual that you can say that a house looks better right after you start demolition. The demolition process usually piles trash throughout the house and around it, making it look trashy or even scary. But as you can tell from the picture, the Blue Ridge house is an exception to that rule.

The first thing we did was to take out all of the excess shrubbery behind which the house originally hid. That opened up the front of the house and made it much more inviting. Unfortunately, it also emphasized the damage that is been done to the front arch.

Carol, Sue Ann, and I had previously agreed that we would take down the arches on either side of the kitchen to get the house and more modern look. I think that plan is working, even with the pile of rubble piled to either side of the kitchen.

The interior of the house is pretty much as described in the opening paragraph—trashy. The kitchen and both bathrooms have been gutted to enable a clean, 21st century renovation. The ancient carpets have been removed, and the faux beams have been taken down from the ceilings. All of that debris is stacked in various places around the house awaiting delivery of a dumpster that has been promised by noon Monday.

Bootcamp

Suna and I enjoyed our dinners together, regardless of how “trendy” the restaurant was.

The view from our hotel room was much better than last time. So was the room. Here’s our graduating class with former Dellite and now Fortunebuilder Linda P. with Suna. I am hiding in the back, as usual for a hermit.

Here’s your ticket; pack your bag

Time for jumpin’ overboard

The transportation is here

Close enough but not too far,

Maybe you know where you are

—David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, and Tina Weymouth

Suna and I spent the weekend with Carol and Russell at a Fortunebuilders “Two-Day Intensive.” Folks from Houston to Waco who joined last week were there, so it was a networking opportunity besides being a great learning opportunity.

I learned that when Fortunebuilders speaks of “systems,” they’re not necessarily talking about automation. They mean anything that you can reduce to a series of repeatable, coachable steps. The system we focused on this weekend was evaluating houses to buy.

First they taught us a formula to help ensure we make money on every flip. Then they taught us how to fill out an evaluation form that helps determine how much repairs will cost and plug those numbers into the “secret formula” that apparently “everybody uses.” Then they loaded us on buses to walk though a couple of houses and put what we learned into use.

I’m very happy with the quality of instructional design in the Fortunebuilders educational materials. They actually pay attention to good design and adult learning theory, unlike much of the other stuff on the market.

 

Oops! Wrong Color

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Yesterday ended and today started poorly. Suna didn’t sleep last night worrying about the house getting painted the wrong color, in spite of my saying repeatedly that we would get it fixed. The way the world works, we are extremely lucky to be this far into the project before the first miscommunication happened.

And I take ownership of this one. She told me what color she wanted the house, but I got confused when we only picked out two colors. That was because she didn’t realize we were painting the body of the house as well as the fascia, sophets, and trim. Sigh.

The fascia looks good…better when it’s painted.

The contractor was very nice and volunteered to eat part of the cost of repainting since he was involved in the miscommunication—even though I had already told him it wasn’t his fault. He even said it wouldn’t throw us that far off schedule. He will pick up more paint and have it fixed by the time we get home from work tomorrow.

I guess it’s part of getting older. I make more mistakes than I used to. Or maybe I’m just more willing to admit them.

While we were talking about the paint, he also pointed out that one of the vent caps on the house was missing. I guess it blew off in one of the storms. We hadn’t noticed because you can’t see it unless you are standing in the neighbor’s driveway looking at the chimney. At least we know how the squirrels were getting into the attic.