Let's talk about Country Living - Page 6

Sledge,

If you don't approach them the answer is automatically "No".

You will have to consider legal access to the land you are interested in unless it borders a road.



Tons more work! Clearing, putting in septic, drilling a well, etc, etc.

Jon.

Sledge

Oooof!! Good thing you are savvy with using the maps that the county has!! You are miles ahead of anyone else looking for property in terms of knowledge!!

I had a crisis with insurance earlier this year...not flood, but get this....over my renovations. I have been redoing my house for 9 years, and the insurance co. decided they didn't like this, because I didn't have all the exterior siding on and was taking so long to finish it. Therefore they were supposedly worried about water damage claims. (I had to remove the upper storey stucco quite a while ago to raise the upper storey walls and put a new roof on.) The house, being 80 years old, is sheathed with rough 1" lumber on a diagonal, and looks like h*ll. To top it off, I sheathed the upper new walls with scraps of 3/4" plywood so it doesn't look so good either! And holding down a 9-5 for most of those years didn't leave a heck of a lot of time to work on the house...

With a mortgage, the bank wants insurance. Without insurance, the mortgage gets called. unh-oh!!

I couldn't buy construction insurance because I'm living in the house. I guess I didn't fit in the nice organized checkboxes they have on their questionairres down in the city. With the end of my old insurance days away, I finally found an old guy who did farm insurance who came out and inspected my spread. He said "it looks worse than it is" and mentioned the checkbox thing and the drones in the city. He said he works with the more senior (and practical) insurance guys in those same offices and gets past the idiocy. I had new insurance right away, at less cost that what I had been paying before.

Crisis past. (Phew!)

One idea: Could you investigate the flood areas and find something that is maybe is on the edge of a flood area where the expected flood may be shallow, and have a house pad built up to above the elevation of the maximum expected flood? I'll bet the flood maps are set up to a "100 year flood level" that is somewhat theoretical, because it is a flood that statistically is expected once every 100 years. So you could present a letter from an engineering firm who designed this earth platform to an insurance company telling them the house is located high enough to be above any potential floods. This might allow you to get some land with low value and leverage it into something that is worth a bunch!

I did this once on an industrial property for a hazardous chemical (PCB) storage facility. All we did was take a Cat and push up an earth platform several feet above the surrounding area, to the 100+ year flood level.

Jon.

Sledge,

Man, you've had more problems than I with siding!! At least I'm not trying to match some obsolete profile. I'm just stripping the stucco and going to re-side with bevel cedar siding. Well, not exactly bevel cedar but I picked up a couple of lifts of 2x10 cedar from where I worked a few years back and just recently had it resawn into 1 x 10 boards. I start them on a bevel and they work out just like bevel siding, without the fragile thin edge that bevel siding is known for.

Did you consider just re-siding the one side of the house with something you could easily purchase?

Blankety-blank insurance companies!!! Won't insure guys who are honest and trying to get it done but will insure idiots who will leave their dog locked in the living room and then make a claim because it tore up the rug!!

Jon.

< sigh > It's kind of a shame have to put up with so much grief from the insurance companies. It never used to be like that back in the day. The idea that they send someone around to inspect / audit your property is disturbing. I guess they're more than happy to take your money in but they're trying to reduce their payouts on claims.

It sucks because the consumer ends up footing the bill for their selfishness and "cost shifting".

I've had a number of customers come to me in a panic saying that if the don't re-shingle the roof or mitigate some other problem that they were going to lose their insurance. These are big ticket items that the insurance companies are demanding. It makes it pretty hard on a working man that's living paycheck to paycheck.

I guess they don't care just as long as it prevents a [U]possible[U] payout in the future.

It's come to a point where i won't take on insurance jobs anymore.

It's just plain wrong to make profit from work that a customer was forced into doing.

Yeah, its all in forcing the little guy to fit into a checkbox on a form.

The insurance company that will make big money is the one who will accommodate the customer: If your roof is getting to the point of needing replacement, then either delete water damage coverage or make it more costly to cover the risk. Don't just force the customer into fixing it!!

Same with siding....I would have gladly accepted a water damage exclusion due to no siding.

I guess the insurance business is getting too big and too many people "fit" the boxes since they live in identical houses on city lots. So the big guys can ignore the occasional oddball and treat him like dirt--fix it or go elsewhere! Its just too bad there isn't an "elsewhere".

But I still wonder about the insurance covering the stupidest claims that should be refused because the homeowner did something supremely idiotic. Doesn't this drive up the costs to the rest of us, too?

Jon.

Originally Posted by sawmilleng

Yeah, its all in forcing the little guy to fit into a checkbox on a form.

The insurance company that will make big money is the one who will accommodate the customer: If your roof is getting to the point of needing replacement, then either delete water damage coverage or make it more costly to cover the risk. Don't just force the customer into fixing it!!

Same with siding....I would have gladly accepted a water damage exclusion due to no siding.

I guess the insurance business is getting too big and too many people "fit" the boxes since they live in identical houses on city lots. So the big guys can ignore the occasional oddball and treat him like dirt--fix it or go elsewhere! Its just too bad there isn't an "elsewhere".

But I still wonder about the insurance covering the stupidest claims that should be refused because the homeowner did something supremely idiotic. Doesn't this drive up the costs to the rest of us, too?

Jon.

This may sound a bit off the wall so take it with a grain of salt:

It's about the money but it really isn't.

Insurance falls under banking and finance.

There are all different kinds of people out there and there are all different kinds of jobs. Different personality types are just naturally drawn to certain occupations.

I think that if you really got to know the people sitting in leadership positions in the finance industry you might find that they aren't very nice. In their world it's the law of the jungle where the strong take the weak. If you're going to survive in that world you need a certain amount of poison running through your veins.

There comes a point where money stops being money and becomes power.

This is really more about wielding the power to crawl up your butt, make you jump through hoops, and conform to their standard. On some level it's about domination & submission.

Stop and add up the numbers: Take what you earn in a year. Now deduct all of the direct taxes and indirect taxes you're paying to the government. ( That includes currency devaluation.) Now deduct everything that you're paying into banking & finance. That would include interest on loans and payments to insurance companies that you are compelled to make. Maybe add in all of the other things that they are forcing you to buy.

If it adds up to more than 50% of your earnings you are not a free man. If you're 100% caught up in the cash economy it's pretty hard to escape.

That's one thing about living in the country .... If you can do more for yourself you're not quite so caught up in that trap.

Originally Posted by NHscrapman

100%
But the town I'm in is around 80% retired age people, most still working while living in very old houses. So when you open one up it goes on and on and on.... what do you tell these poor folks. <sigh>

Sometimes you can do some pro-bono work for those most in need but for the most part you have to take care of yourself first. If you're not profitable you can't help yourself. If you can't help yourself you can't help another.

We all took a hit with the recession. Many of the wealthy were driven into the middle class. Many of the middle class were driven into the working class. Many of the working class were driven into the dirt.

I lost ALL of my working class & middle class customers when the recession hit over the winter of 2007 - 2008. My client base is almost exclusively the wealthy and even they aren't spending like they used to.

Pre-recession the construction game was about growth and expansion.

Post-recession it's about doing enough repair work to hold on to what you've got.

Gawd ... these old places are money pits. It takes about three times more labor to do the same job on an older home as one that is newer. That's at least three times the expense.

I try to be sensitive about how i explain it to someone that i know really can't afford it. I provide cost estimates so they can decide for themselves if it's something they can afford. Quite often times they get angry with me regardless.

So much of it is timing and perhaps a bit of dumb luck.

I really didn't start out with the intention of going out on my own. One of the local businessmen called and asked if i would take on a couple of weeks of repair work at his place of business. It was an old building and two weeks turned into 8 months. From there it just took on a life of it's own. It was 2001 -2002 and construction was booming. I had anywhere between 12 - 18 months of steady work ahead at any given time.

By 2006 i could see the handwriting on the wall. Over the winter of 2007-2008 business dropped by 50% and it never did recover.

I've made my share of learning mistakes along the way. I've had some very difficult customers that gave me many sleepless nights.

Construction isn't like a lot of other services. If you're an electrician or a plumber you probably won't be on the job for more than a few hours. Maybe a week tops ...............

On some carpentry jobs you will be there for weeks or months because it's so labor intensive. If you've got a difficult customer you've got problems.

There is no perfect customer. We all have our own little quirks. It's just a question of figuring out who you can work for and who you can't stand to be around for any length of time. Before committing to a job i casually sit down with a perspective new customer and try to get to know them as a person. I do an assessment .... Can i meet this person's needs and expectations ? Sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes the answer is no.

If the answer is no, then i try to line them up with someone else that i think they would be a better fit with.

Red flags:

The customer wants to work with you !
Narcissistic personality traits
Emotionally driven ( the trades are heavily logic based )
Customer has no idea of what they want.
Alcoholics ( You'll see booze all over the house )
Nitpickers, compulsives, and anal retentives
Just plain crazy

A lot of it depends on your social skills. If you're really good with people you'll do better.

I'm kind of a cranky old fart. Fairly good at my trade but just a wee bit too forthright for some people's tastes. I don't have the patience with people that i had when i was younger.