Sol Young

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on real estate - Lately been hearing a lot of people talking on the subject of short-sales, and I’m trying to digest some of the numbers. The NAR (National Association of Realtors) is describing 18% of homes on the market as being upside down (the owner owes more on the property than he or she could sell it for). I feel for the those in this situation.

A big curiosity is how the upside down sales are distributed. 18% is the average, which means there are big swings around the country. Along the Central Coast of California (San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Morro Bay, etc), it’s roughly 50%… But in many locations that are still undervalued, prices still rise.

This is what I’ve been thinking and talking to people about when the topic of real estate comes up. Not many dinner conversations go by without hitting on this topic.

Anyway, the reason I’m on the topic of real estate in this post is because I spent all weekend remodeling… Well, thinking about Facebook applications, Google Social, and other apps while remodeling… Phew!

We gutted the 2nd bedroom of our apartment. First we tore it down to the studs, and then tore out the studs themselves. The plan was to leave a beautiful exposed brick wall.

Unfortunately, the bricks are starting to powder up and refinishing them would have involved amounts of muriatic acid I don’t want to think about (my wife had to run and dive out a window to escape the fumes last time - aweful stuff!)

The decision for covering the bricks was made easier by being able to shrink our heating and cooling bill with some rolls of insulation. So I framed away.

I should note that Galina and I are nearly drooling at the thought of being done with the remodel. Having Summer weekends free for outdoor (and computing) activities will be heaven on earth.

By the time the sun was setting, we called it a day and went for nice walk (some decent sunset pics).