Moving house and writing up my life

It's been nearly two months since I last posted here - once upon a time I posted most days, sometimes more than once a day.

There's been a lot going on in our household - selling our house, for one thing, and trying to find somewhere else to live for another. At the moment we're 'boarding' with my daughter - who bought our house. So in a sense, things have hardly changed at all. She and her partner and foster boys had already been living in the house a year or more when she bought it, due to circumstances beyond her control. So it was no big change for any of us!

But we are looking for another house. The market, however, has gone crazy in our city. Once you could sell your house and find another easily because it was a buyer's market. Now it's completely the opposite: sellers are the winners, and buyers, if not quite the losers, are certainly having trouble buying something else. The prices are moving upwards at such a pace that if you leave it too long, what seemed a good sale figure on your own house, suddenly becomes not enough when you go to buy something else. And that goes not just for bigger houses but for little townhouses, units, places known as 'doer-uppers' - which usually stands for a place that going to take a good deal more than you paid for it to actually live in it.

When I last posted, I 'reprinted' a piece from 1994 which first appeared in a column I used to write - called Column 8. My intention is to keep on posting these columns (if they're not completely and utterly dated). There were five years of them originally!

But what's held me back from doing that, in part, is that I've been typing up more than 700 printed pages of a journal I kept from 1989 to around 2000. The journal was originally on an earlier computer, and thankfully I kept a printed copy of it. However, it had felt risky for a long time that I only had it on paper, so it's now all back on computer again. Amounting to something like 500.000 words, I guess.

More recent journal notes, from 2000 on, were typed straight onto computer, and copied from one model to another as time went on. And well and truly backed-up online.

When we began to tidy up things that we own in the present house, preparatory to a shift, we got rid of a lot of it. As you do. Including lots of papers and things that were really no longer of value. But I decided to keep a bunch of around 45 exercise books I'd written in over the years. Some of them are completely full; some have empty pages. Most of them relate to my spiritual journey - they might be classed as letters to God. Usually written in the morning, often at white heat (if my handwriting is anything to go by), and, to my surprise, more full of insights than I'd expected. Others relate to the craft of writing - various different approaches to encouraging myself and keeping my writing skills honed.

I've begun typing these books up too, and inserting the entries (which are mostly dated) in amongst the journal entries. It's intriguing how the more down-to-earth journal stuff contrasts with the spiritual. I might not live long enough to complete the task. But I'll give it a go!

Photo courtesy of F. Muhammad from Pixabay 

Playing musical chairs

My sister-in-law in the UK lost her job while we over there visiting last year. She was one of dozens of people working in the sub-prime mortgage area, which, as far as I could work out, found ways of getting the banks to give mortgages to bankrupts and other people with bad credit histories.
Of course the people paid through the nose for these bad credit loans, which were often for mortgages for 100% of the property. Sometimes banks would even give more than 100% of the property’s value. An absurd situation that was destined for a fall.
However, people are still able to access mortgages and loans and all manner of credit in spite of their past. Is this a good thing? It might be for someone who’s inadvertently fallen on hard times, and who’s struggling to get back on their feet. But as a general thing that’s available for all and sundry, I’m not so sure it’s healthy, and I suspect there will be many more tears before bedtime.
One site – whose logo is shown below – specialise in accessing a variety of ‘bad credit offers’ as they call them, and giving people the option of which one to go for. I guess it’s a way of doing business, but I feel concerned about it as a long term solution.

When I was young banks were very cautious about giving loans to people wanting to buy their first home. Getting a mortgage was a major undertaking. And then along came mortgage consultants and the like, and banks started falling head over heels to provide cheaper mortgages and bigger mortgages and mortgages with polka dots on. Suddenly the customers could do no wrong, and the banks couldn’t wait to give them money.
Now of course, with house prices falling again after a massive boom, some of these people are suffering because they’re having to repay mortgages on houses that have lost considerable value. It’s pretty scary really.
Don’t get me wrong, banks should be open about giving mortgages. That’s part of their core business. They should be as helpful as possible. But where they’ve gone wrong is encouraging people to mortgage themselves way over their heads, for homes that the people often can’t really afford.
Equally, many young people don’t want to start small and build up: they want top quality homes now. So the faults are on both sides, though perhaps not equally.
So what has all this got to do with music or the arts or anything creative? I guess you could say it's a form of playing musical chairs, or being creative with money that doesn't exist. If you were of a mind.

Buying and Selling

I heard the other day that an old friend of my daughter was not only selling stuff successfully and profitably on Trade Me, but was also the owner of three houses. I know if you get into rental property investment with your eyes wide open and a serious intention of purpose, you’ll do well. It’s overall safer than stocks, definitely more profitable than gambling on the horses, and the occasional awkward tenant apart, it’s usually not too much of a hassle.
We didn’t do very well with it, because we jumped in and bought a house with our eyes mostly shut; saw the problems but ignored them in our enthusiasm to give the thing a go. In the end, while we never had it empty of tenants - which was something of a miracle – we had to replace the roof, redecorate it at least twice, and never managed to deal with some of the problems the previous owner had left us. Things like wonky cupboard doors, and floors that were uneven, and terribly badly put-together shelving and so on. And then the lounge was too small, and ran into the kitchen -–which was also small.
In the end we got rid of it at a loss. Our worst ever investment. We did make some money on another house we bought for rental: my son-in-law who was living there with his daughter was asked one day if he’d be interested in selling it. He was quite happy to move out, and so was my daughter, because there were 40 steps down to the house from the road (!)
We’d bought the place cheaply – probably because of the steps. That’s the way to buy a rental property. Buy something that’s cheap, but is still in good condition. The less you have to spend on it, the better. The person who was interested in buying the property was willing to pay twice what we paid for it! That’s the way to go!
Admittedly the property market was on the move, and we managed for once to catch the wave. As it is at present it might not be so healthy.
Furthermore, the government is thinking seriously about reducing all the perks landlords can get on owning property. Not so good.

Photo courtesy of elisfanclub on Flickr.com

Lap of Luxury

After visiting so many stately mansions and large abodes on our travels around the UK, you’d think we’d have got an idea what it means to have a luxury home. But it seems we’re not really aware of what’s current.
A modern luxury home is expected to have all sorts of things included that once upon a time would barely be dreamed of. Many of them are ‘smart’ houses. They’re equipped with high-tech computers that monitor and control all manner of features in the house. Remember when Tom Cruise goes into his apartment in the film Minority Report and speaks to the lights? That’s just a very simple example. The computers in smart houses sort out not just the lighting, but the heating, the cooling, and the security. (Just don’t let there be a power cut - although no doubt many of these houses have their own generators as well.)
Modern luxury homes are also made of eco-friendly building materials, and incorporate a large number of features that make them green in the very best sense. (If we can just get computers to go green we’ll be really making progress!)
And then of course, the humans in these ultra-clever homes expect to be looked after - pampered even - by their homes. Spa pools, whirlpools, saunas, heated marble floors and towel bars are the sort of things that will keep the soft as soft humans happy. And for the woman - or her maid, more likely - the kitchens in these homes are aimed at the gourmet cook. They’re expansive (the kitchens, not the cooks) and they have smart appliances. That ‘smart’ word again. What does it mean when it comes to kitchens?
Because these luxury homes are likely to be networked electronically, kitchen items, from stoves to fridges may start ‘talking’ to each other. And may even ignore the humans!

Finding your way

When I went to visit my uncle recently, I saw that he’d been one of the few people in the city who’d taken up the offer of having his house number set into a little rubberish triangle in the asphalt on his driveway. These things were supposed to make it easier for taxis and other visitors to see the house number - especially if the number on the letter box, for instance, was obscured by bushes.
However, I always felt that these little numbers weren’t big enough to be seen, even though, like the cat’s eyes we have in the road, they reflect light. And obviously a lot of other people had a similar feeling. The little signs never took off, and you can see only a few scattered around the city still.
An address plaque needs to be big and visible to be of use. As a former postie, I know how many people’s house number signs are under par in terms of visibility. I can say this with a clear conscience, as our house number is large. But even then, someone will miss it!

Endowment mortgages

I’d never heard of endowment mortgages until yesterday. Yet another approach to dealing with the endless trickiness of cash! Seemingly, the borrower (that’s usually someone like me) does two things when he takes out a mortgage. He engages to pay the interest only to the bank or mortgagor, and pays what would normally be the money coming off the principle to an endowment insurer. It’s something in the nature of a life insurance. The endowment insurer invests the money and the hope is, that by the time the mortgage is finally due, there will be plenty to pay off the mortgage, and a small sum on top as an ‘endowment’ – that is, you’ll have actually made some money out of having a mortgage instead of paying virtually twice what you originally borrowed. 

Apparently these were very popular in the 80s, when there was a good rate of return on the endowment side of the equation. When interest on investments went down somewhat, they weren’t always as successful an item as they had been, as the insurers weren’t paying out the expected rate of return. Endowment Express is a kind of brokering firm for those who want to sell their endowment policies to get the best rate. (As I understand it, some insurers are giving ridiculously low returns on those who want to buy out of the endowment.) They say that those who want to sell their endowment policies will have had a surrender-value quote from the life company. Usually a rather low amount quote, it seems, which must be a disappointment after years of what was supposedly a saving process. Endowment Express says they could give the borrower up to 35% more. They do this by using their expertise to ensure the endowment policy gets valued by every possible purchaser, including specialist buyers. The question is, perhaps, why would you want to pull out of your endowment policy? There are a number of possible reasons: redundancy, paying off debts, divorce and the complications of splitting the assets, repaying the mortgage or moving house, or the payments are just too high. 

When we were property owners (that is, property other than the house we’re living in), it was quite common for borrowers in that particular market to borrow on an interest only basis; not paying anything off the principle. The idea behind this was that when you did the house up and sold it, you’d get your principle back and wouldn’t have had to deal with it in the borrowing process. It made sense, as long as you were able to make money on selling the house! Being us, we didn’t.

The Mould Hunter

Every year my wife points out the (small) area of mould high up on the wall (11ft stud in this room) of one of out lounges. It’s an outside wall, and she says, every year, that perhaps there’s a leak in the spouting in that area, or that water is accumulating in the spouting there.
We used to blame it on the gas heater, something we’ve long stopped using. I liked gas heaters but sometimes there was a smell that permeated and became intolerable after a while. Usually it was a problem with the heater rather than the gas. I liked them because they were close to open fires in ‘feel.’ Open fires – I miss ‘em. We used to have two in our house: one was absolutely pathetic, but it survived quite some time. The other we got rid of early in the piece when we made two rooms into one. But there’s nothing quite like an open fire. (Now with global warming stuff going on all around us, open fires in houses are almost unheard of.)
Back to the mould. I came across the New Jersey Mould Company (sorry, guys, I can’t spell mould the way you spell it – it just don’t look right at my end of the world). And when I checked out their site, lo and behold they have a Mould Dog.
I quote, "Traditional mould sampling won't find the mould hiding inside your walls. Hunter the mould dog will."
I’ve included a picture of Hunter, who looks like a nice friendly feller. The people at NJMC go on to say: "Dogs have been trusted for hundreds of years to detect and locate things that humans can’t find. Since 2003 we have been using specially-trained dogs, trained just like bomb dogs or drug dogs, to detect and locate the source of mould growth by detecting the gasses (MVOC’s) mould growth gives off."
I find this most intriguing. I’m not sure that Hunter would have much trouble tracking down the annual mould at our place – although he might have a bit of trouble reaching it…! However, he might also find mould we hadn’t discovered ourselves. Now that would really give my wife something to "mention" each year!

Disclosure statement

The NJMC has a link to a very interesting article on the use of dogs in tracking down mould. Well worth a look.