6 worst homes fixes for the money....

It's the magic phrase uttered by almost anyone who's ever considered the cost of home remodeling: "We'll use our home equity and get it back when we sell." Unless you keep those projects practical, though, you might just be kidding yourself.

For example:

• Steel front door: Good.
• Master suite addition costing more than the average American home: Bad.

Every year, Remodeling magazine looks at the hottest home upgrades and renovations and calculates just how much owners get back when they sell. Upkeep is more popular than upgrades these days, says Sal Alfano, editorial director for Remodeling. These are the projects that often recoup the biggest slice of expenses at resale. But prices and returns do vary regionally, he says.

Ever wonder what brings the lowest return when you plant that "for sale" sign? Think high-dollar, high-end and highly personalized add-ons that make you drool. Like a totally tricked-out garage built from the ground up. Or a super luxe master suite addition. Or the home office redo designed just for you. Here are the six improvements that, in their 2010 report, ranked dead last nationally when it comes to getting those renovation dollars back at resale.

Home Office Renovation:

The standard home office renovation, meanwhile -- complete with plenty of built-in storage and high-tech wiring -- is this year's biggest loser in the resale value sweepstakes. Nationally, homeowners spent an average of $28,888 and can expect to recoup about 45.8 percent at resale, according to the report.

Backup Power Generator:

On average, when homeowners have a heavy-duty backup power generator installed, they spend about $14,718, according to the report. Average amount of the price recovered at resale time: 48.5 percent.

Sunroom Addition:

While it seems simple enough, the national average for a sunroom addition is $75,224, according to the report. Homeowners can expect to recoup about 48.6 percent when they sell. Be careful in areas of historic designation, some areas will not allow you to affect the front of the house or anywhere that can be viewed from the street.

 

Upscale Master Suite Addition:

For a super-deluxe master suite addition -- which adds square footage and uses only top-dollar materials -- the average cost is about $232,062, according to the report. Sellers can expect to recover about 52.7 percent at resale.

Bathroom Additions:

For a moderately outfitted addition with synthetic stone or plastic laminate surfaces, figure parting with about $21,695, according to the Remodeling report. Go upscale, with finishes like premium marble or fine tile, and you can easily spend in the neighborhood of $40,710. Either way, you can expect to recover about 53 percent at resale

 

Upscale garage addition:

The price tag for a top-of-the-line detached two-car with all the trimmings is about $90,053, according to the report. You can expect to recover about 53.6 percent of that when you sell.

Why is this important? Be careful when looking at remodeling and make sure you do your research on the value you will receive.

I can do most every job in Real Estate

But the one I dislike the most is painting. I had to paint the trim and touchup spots yesterday for a house I own and am selling. It reminded me of the first time I really did lots of painting, our fraternity house. The summer time before school started, for 2 weeks, we lived and worked on the house. It was hot, sweaty and not a fun time.

Fast forward to our house in Atlanta, we, I was married at this time with my wonderful wife Liz, thought that it would be a great idea to ask our friends and family to help us paint, in exchange for Pizza and camaraderie, we forgot to schedule painting for the winter or spring, instead doing it at the height of summer. I don't think I walked straight for a week after that experience. Also, our family relations were a bit strained afterward.

Don't get me wrong, painting is important to a house, it shows character and in many cases can protect the walls and structure against the ills of water, heat, and cold. Now that we have a stucco house here in Jacksonville, FL, we have had to paint the exterior twice. Sure it would nice to have a ceder shake shingle or brick house that does not need painting, but there would always be interior rooms and so I try and outsource as much of this as possible. I am not a clean painter, my wife calls me a messy painter.

So on my properties, I practice, practice, practice, I take my time not to rush through, use drop cloths, and make sure that I stop in between each task item. I need to stay positive and make sure that I have the energy to complete the work, so I am positive that this old dog has learned some new tricks. Perhaps proof positive that the more you do something, the better you get at doing it.

Jack

I found this interesting about Blackstone Group...

What Blackstone's new real estate business really means for the market…

Private-equity giant Blackstone Group recently announced it would start making private loans to landlords who are looking to grow their residential housing portfolio, but are struggling to raise capital from traditional sources like banks. According to Blackstone, the minimum loan is $10 million. And the rates will float between 5% and 7% for up to five years.

Some people view this as a bullish development for the real estate market. But I don't think the implications for the real estate market will be very large…

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac already enable a huge amount of residential mortgage lending. The U.S. is by far the best market in the world for long-term fixed-rate real estate lending. And I'm sure that Fannie and Freddie will get back into the landlord-lending business at some point.

In the short term, Blackstone's actions will increase the amount of capital available for apartment development a little bit, which is good for our country. But I think the bigger issue is not what this does to the capital markets. I think the bigger issue is what it could mean to Blackstone shareholders…

I don't believe large-scale landlords are able to efficiently own single-family homes. It requires so much overhead to maintain an individual property that I doubt it can be done in scale.

So I see Blackstone's decision to move into apartment lending as a sign that it may be ready to unload its large amount of residential property. I always felt that experiment would end in failure unless Blackstone was willing to quickly flip the properties. I think this is an indication that Blackstone will be unloading its residential real estate much faster than people expected… The firm already announced it would accelerate its real estate sales over the next 18 months.

I believe Blackstone discovered that the overhead cost of trying to maintain a portfolio of single-family homes is too great… And I'd be surprised if they don't liquidate that portfolio quickly over the next five years. And that's wiser and much more efficient than trying to own individual homes and then getting into the business of lending to small-scale apartment owners.

So far this year, Blackstone has spent $5.6 billion on real estate (mostly single-family homes), up from $4.7 billion at this point last year… It's now the largest landlord in the U.S.

To me, Jack, this looks like the beginning of the end of Private Equity buying homes, if they cannot make the returns they wanted, they will look to dump them as other equities rise in value and play those trades. Watch interest rates, as they rise, you will start seeing more properties on the market. Banks need higher rates to make more money.....

Cutting down trees at 7:30 in the morning

I was awakened this morning to the use of a chainsaw to cut down trees that had fallen yesterday afternoon as a result of some strong wind and rain. Living in Jacksonville, you may hear something before the 8 AM hour, but most of the time it is a car using its horn. Not chainsaws or crews cutting items.

Since the storms roll through the afternoon and evening hours, it is understandable that the workers can only get to the issues the next day. But really, 7:30 in the morning? Perhaps they could add an air horn to let us all know it is time to rise and shine. A new version of a rooster.

This in not a common occurance, and I understand the need to get to other jobs, if this is a handyperson doing the work. It is good to get work done, especially at 7:30 if the work needs to be done and especially if it HAS to be done. What work do you HAVE to get done today?

Jack

Customer Service

I may have written about customer service in the past and I am going to write about it again. I purchased an item from a 3rd party, it was supposed to have arrived 2 weeks ago, but the delivery company would not deliver the item without a signature so for 4 separate instances the item was loaded onto a truck, and they tried to deliver it, and now have sent it back to the 3rd party.

In a day and age when I can track and package with the push of a button, do the shipping companies not call and schedule delivery of items? Has customer service come so far to be pushed back into the dark ages when it comes to common courtesy? Why can't I receive a simple call when a driver is in my area, so I can rush home and get ready for the delivery of my item?

So I contacted the company by Twitter and their email system. The email system was absolutely worthless. Send an email into oblivion or the far side of the moon as far as I know. Instead, I decided to use social media, so I banged away on Twitter, Facebook and looked for other ways to contact them. I did receive communication by Twitter. I had used Twitter when an airline lost my bag in New York, to great success. So I was hopeful I would get similar results.

In the end the shipper sent the package back. They said they tried to help, maybe they did, maybe not, but the bulk of the blame resides here in Jacksonville. Why is it that these people could not pickup the phone and make a call to me and schedule a time for delivery? Simple common courtesy. They could have even used a computer to make the call.

As Clark Howard calls it, this is Customer No-Service.

Jack

Friends come in and out of your life

I learned a lot about people in my 14 years as a salesperson. I learned that NO does not mean NO, it only means, I don't have a need for your product or service at the moment. I also learned that people come in and out of your life on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. The key to life is to always be willing to meet other people.

Shyness is a natural part of growing up. We all were shy at one point in our life, hiding behind our parents when introduced to "strangers" in our family and among their friends. However, as we grew, our needs changed, we now noticed members of the opposite sex, we noticed that we shared common traits with others and that being shy was really just something you did when you were younger.

We all need each other to survive, you can't sell to a computer and expect the computer to love the product or service you deliver all the time. After all, who built and programmed the computer? (Forget Hollywood for a minute) That is right, we did, human beings. So it stands to reason that if we want to receive something from other human beings, perhaps we need to learn to GIVE and get back to the days of being a teenager and having no fear.

So as friends come in and out of your life as their and your situations change, always remember that it is good to get youthful and get out there and make new friends. Who knows, perhaps the next person you meet can help you to satisfy a need. You will never know until you start! I like Wayne Gretzky, the famous hockey player's quote, "You miss 100% of the shots you never take."

Start taking shots!

Jack

6 homicides in Jacksonville so far this July?

Normally, I say that the heat is the reason for the homicides in the summertime. Lots of people in small spaces make people a little more unstable, but killing unstable? It seems every time I turn on the TV or twitter, I learn about a shooting, robbery, a break-in, it is almost becoming common place. Has crime gotten so bad that we accept it as a society in Jacksonville?

Our fearless leaders, law enforcement, mayor, are engaged in a bitter process with the budget for 2013-2014 going on now, pensions being the main issue. No one seems to care that citizens are killing each other or committing more crimes. Where is Sheriff Rutherford? Was a time when the Sheriff would walk the streets to ask the neighbors about their situations. Is it too hot for our Sheriff?

Then our mayor likes to be on TV so much, I'd swear he works for a TV station. I have yet to hear him discuss the issue about the rise in crime. He claims to be a man of the people, yet I have not seen him in public except at a Jaguar press conference. Maybe he is lobbying for a position when the citizens boot him out of office. He does look good on TV.

I remember when John Delaney was in office and his staff gave away Crape Myrtles and discussed volunteering to help each other. That was a long time ago, have we come that far so fast? Mayor Peyton was a nice mayor, but I don't remember much of a lasting effect from him like Delaney had with the Better Jax Plan as well as the giving away and volunteer efforts. Maybe we should look to get back to what was working a few short years ago. Take care of ourselves and our communities, as it seems our leaders do not care like they did a short time ago.

Jack