Striving to create a better life for everyone by sustainably solving real estate problems

(512) 807-8777

Monthly Archives: April 2017

Starting a Book List Recurring Segment

Successful people are readers. Most are voracious readers. What have you read lately that influenced your life?
Let us know by email or comment.
Photo source: Pinterest

If you read a lot of books on entrepreneurship or business, you’ll find most of the authors say somewhere something like, “All successful people read a lot of books.” That’s not just self-interest in selling more books. What it really says is that successful people have a commitment to lifelong learning. It’s a requirement for success.

Many people are content to put their brains in low gear once they graduate from college, or even high school. After all, kids, family, and the typical 10-hour workday take so much energy, they don’t have a lot of extra energy available to actively learn new things—at least not new things that don’t have an immediate application. I understand. I’ve been there, too. A commitment to lifelong learning is hard. But it’s a requirement for success.

Why do I say that?

Continue reading →

8Shares

Cooking with Gas!

We’re sort of excited that the appliances are finally in, so here’s another Bobcat Lair update.

gas range

I can see making many meals on this thing! And it’s pretty.

Look, we’re cooking with gas! The cooktop looks like it will be easy to keep clean, and it works very well. Easy on, easy off. I had to pick it from a big box store website, because it was the last thing we needed to get. However, we ended up getting it the same place that we got the ovens, with enough discount that it was “free.”

oven and fridge

ovens and refrigerator in what used to be a hallway.

The ovens, are also new. And they are the same marvelous contraptions we have at the ranch house. If you are a short person and are able to buy top-of-the-line appliances, this Bosch double oven is the thing for you. The doors don’t swing down; they swing OUT! That means you can get to things in the oven without so much risk of burning yourself, and loading and unloading is MUCH easier. Besides that, the racks feel like the doors on a Volvo or something. Very sturdy and solid. They extend all the way with no risk of falling out. I also have to say it’s the best cooking oven I’ve ever owned. Really true to the temperature you set it to, though it cooks faster in convection mode. I guess some things are worth the price.

The other appliances are two years old, yet unused, since we got them early on when we thought it would just be a couple of months before we got the renovation permits. Silly us.

Continue reading →

0Shares

Saying Good-bye to a Friend

Blanco Oaks and Sign

Selling is part of this business. My fellow investors have significantly improved this property over the last few years.

I’m saddened to announce that we will officially be saying good-bye to an old friend in a few days.

For the last few years I’ve owned a stake in the Blanco Oaks Apartments. I am only one of the investors in this community and a fairly minor one, at that. So when the rest of the owners voted to sell the community, I could either go along or buy them out. I decided to go along because I didn’t want to either manage the property myself or put a team together to buy out the other owners.

Before I go any further, I have to say that I am not saddened because I am overly enamored of the cash flow this community generates nor because we won’t be realizing a profit on the sale. I’ve always believed if you take care of the people first, the money will follow, and Blanco Oaks has been a great example of the philosophy coming to fruition.

Continue reading →

0Shares

Could You Cook in This Kitchen?

Videos! Our readers like videos. So, fine, I’m going to put in this post a fun video Anita and I made at the Bobcat Lair project. We were just a little overjoyed at the newly installed downdraft ventilation system we are using there, instead of a big ole range hood.

kitchen view

If we’d installed a range hood, we wouldn’t have been able to put in our pendant fixtures.

As you can see in the photo, you have an unobstructed view all the way across the house. I was standing in the breakfast nook in the photo. The ventilator rises majestically from its storage spot when needed, but otherwise just looks decorative. It’s our hope that the gas cooktop will be installed this week. All the appliances are in, and there’s nothing stopping the installation. I hope. Things have slowed down again, and every day the house just sits, we are racking up storage fees.

Continue reading →

0Shares

Just the Facts

If you’ve read many of our blog posts, you’ve probably figured out that we are what you’d call “do-gooders” at heart. Each member of our growing team wants to do what we can do to make the world a better place.

annual report

This little booklet is the Wikimedia annual report. It’s great reading, with heart-warming stories and surprising statistics.

One of the do-gooder things Lee and I do is contribute to the Wikimedia Foundation. These are the folks who bring us all those free articles on Wikipedia. As contributors, they send us a copy of their annual report each year, so today I was reading my latest copy. The title alone really got to me: Facts Matter. Yes. Today a lot of folks say we are in a “post-fact” society. It’s true that people are free to use information other than facts to form their opinions and world views, and they certainly do. But, as you might have guessed, that’s not what we prefer.

And regardless of how you form your opinions on social and political matters, we believe the people we work with have a right to honesty and truthful information when they do business with us. That’s one reason we blog about our ups and downs, and share our work honestly on this website, our Facebook page, and our LinkedIn page. We want our partners, contractors, buyers, sellers, and lenders to know who they are doing business with.

Go to any of the pages on our site, and you will find out the facts about us. What are our qualifications? How long have we been in business? What have we done in the past and what are we working on now? How does it work when we buy a house from you, partner with you, or use your money to invest in our project? It’s all there in those menus at the top of the page. Please use them!

We also expect honesty and the facts from those we work with. If you’re our contractor, tell us if there will be additional costs or if a mistake is made. If you’re selling us a house, disclose its problems. We need the facts in order to make our own good decisions!

And by the way, if you want to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation, the annual report, with lots of different front covers, is available on their homepage. So many people use their services, yet so few contribute to them. Their work is important, if you value facts.

9Shares