This past week, I was treated to a presentation from our City Planning department.

I found some very interesting stats and information.

Some of the highlights.

Highest percentage of “empty-nesters”. I guess it’s true this is THE place to retire. Being a government town, I guess that’s not really a stretch.

Right behind the empty nester’s are the one child family. Surprisingly,  a whopping 42.6% of the city falls into this category.  Guess these folks are doing their part to maintain the global population.

Many of these folks live in the downtown core, and as a result we also find the highest percentage of folks who walk to work in the country (in a major urban city I think needs to be the qualifier) at 7.5%.

For a city without a subway system (and the debate on that one still rages on), we have the highest public transit use.

The downtown core still has the highest prices. So, I’m guessing the folks with no kids walking to work every day, who have no plans to move and likely have their house mortgage free, will be happy to know that their house value continues to rise.

Pardon me if I seem a little cynical here, but for most of these folks, this is probably their retirement plan. Sell the $1M house, move out to the edge of town (within city limits) and spend the rest of their days wondering why their kids are only part the way through their 40 year amortization and don’t have any money.

The condo boom is still booming. The city sees this as the next great thing. The odd high-rise, but for the most part projects that construction companies can complete within 18 months. Affordable housing (oxymoron?) is still a top priority (if not a pipe dream) for the city. To their credit things do seem to be working, but I can’t see how they can sustain it beyond 2020. Of course that’s where the city’s outlook currently ends.

I wonder when they plan on revising the 20 year plan. Certainly they are currently tracking everything they have planned, but at some point when things fall off the scale or go off the chart (like housing prices) someone’s going to have to revisit and restate the 2020 plan.

The city has set its limits and in-fill construction is the the way for the next little while. No more urban scrawl (finally). There is so much unused or wasted space within the city limits. This will be good for maintaining property values, but eventually we’re going to burst at the seams.  Migration from the rest of the world is still our number 1 source of people moving to town and the major reason why our prices have remained stable.
Should be an interesting couple of years.

‘Tis the season as they say.

Starting a new year off with a fresh start.

Now I’m not one who goes in for that whole new years resolution promise that dies somewhere around the time when the Visa bill shows up or January 3rd when you go back to work and fall into all the same old habits again.

I do however believe that setting goals is a very important task. It was once described to me this way.

There’s a ship in a port. The ship is pointed in the direction of the destination. Without any course changes or adjustments, what are the chances the ship will reach it’s destination? Or you are on a sailboat with no rudder and no keel, what are the chances you’ll get where you want to any time soon? Aren’t you at the mercy of which way the wind is blowing?

So if you don’t set big goals (which port you want to get to) and don’t set smaller goals (course changes & adjustments) along the way, how do you expect to accomplish anything?

I have read many a goal setting book. Currently reading one and plan to read more. I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know it all, but I’m amazed at the number of people who don’t even try and set a goal period!

I’ve been fortunate enough to bump into T. Harv Eker and his seminar series. I just found his 3 day course life changing. He is such a good speaker. I highly recommend his book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.

Go to his 3 day intensive weekend course. You will thank me later. Best of all it’s FREE!!

Anyway back to goal setting, I’ve used his goal setting system now for 2 years. It’s the most complete package I’ve seen. It starts with your BIG DREAM and slowly narrows the focus down to 3 year, 1 year, this quarter, what are you doing to do this week to get you to your goal.

Now for me it takes 2 full days before I’m happy with what I put down. What I find is as I’m going through the steps I remember or find things I’ve forgotten. So I go back and add them and continue. The hardest part is committing to what to do quarterly. This is where you really need to think. Of the list of things for the year what can or should I accomplish first.

Now sometimes things don’t always line up nicely with the quarter, but the idea is that you’ve started it and you are at least moving towards your goal or BIG Dream.

Now what good is a goal if you don’t celebrate it? Well, that’s part of the package too. You decide ahead of time what you will celebrate with if you achieve certain levels of performance. You have a list of at least 12 things you are trying to accomplish plus your Double Diamond (the big thing you want to work on). You score yourself at the end and there are three levels. Basic meaning you’ve moved forward (even if you start the process you get this much), moderate (you tried, you succeeded) and advanced (you accomplished everything you set out to do and kicked butt).

You decide what type of reward is appropriate for each level.

Anyway, really good stuff.

Well folks the holiday season has passed and I have completed two moves. A personal move & an office move.

Now they say when you move, you should always have 1.5% of the purchase price, cash, available for miscellaneous expenses. I’ve moved a couple of times previously and always noted that there was always something that comes up either the day of closing (lawyers discover something that makes them uncomfortable, this takes time to resolve & thus increases the expense) or shortly after you move in (something always breaks).
I’m going to cover the last option as, although my most recent move and the day of closing went off with (relatively) without a hitch, a few things came up after the dust settled.

Now, I don’t want to scare people away or have folks post all their horror stories, but here are a few things that I wouldn’t normally expect to happen.

I am a wise consumer (at least I like to think so). I did have an inspection done on the property. Several “deferred” maintenance issues did come up but I expected those as I could see many of them when I first saw the property and used this to negotiate a lower price.

One of the items disclosed was plumbing. I went through the building with the inspector, his comment was that the overall plumbing was a little suspect. Little things here & there.  Nothing major, but certain things will need to be fixed… eventually or as you upgrade/replace items.

So I can say I didn’t know things were not perfect, but I did not expect the following.

We ran the dishwasher. Day 1 no problem. Day two, I notice that it started to back up in the sink, but only slightly. Next attempt, we had to turn off the washer. We get out the liquid plumber. Sit & wait. Eventually it drains. Can’t really tell if it worked as there was no sudden “pop” as the drain suddenly emptied. Run the water. All seems good. We try the washer again. Seems the problem is still there.

I take a look under the sink. Hm. That’s odd, no p-trap. I was warned things are a little odd about the plumbing. Well, there has to be one somewhere or we’d be dead from the sewage gases. (That reminds me of another story about a tenant & a shower I’ll have to recount some day)

I’ve had plumbing problems in other houses requiring the use of a “snake”. This has ALWAYS fixed any drainage issues I’ve had. I gave it a shot. I fed in about 6 feet of wire before I finally hit something. I twisted & turned and thought I had made it through. I tried to pull what ever it was back up. It came up a little too easy. There was a blob on the end of the wire, but nothing major. The sink wasn’t draining yet either.

Undaunted, I tried again. A little further this time I hit something hard. Ok, maybe that’s the p-trap. Couple of twists and I am able to go a little farther. But that was it folks. I tried so hard to twist the wire that I actually put a kink in the wire. This sucker wasn’t going anywhere.

Time to call Mr. Rooter. He brings in his “power” rooter. Down about the same distance & bank. He can’t get anywhere. He goes down to the basement. Well, I see several problems. (Uh, oh). I’m going to have to replace these drainage pipes here. They were not installed properly or to code. I suspect a grease clog and now I see why.

I have to give this guy credit. Not only were the pipes not to code & looked like someone’s 7 year old put it together, but there wasn’t just 1 clog. While examining things, he noticed signs that the “1 minute” plumber had been used more than once to force the grease clog further down the drain.

When he opened up the drain to replace it, he discovered 8 Popsicle sticks stuck in the p-trap. No wonder it wasn’t draining to well.

We thought that was the end of it, but Mr. Rooter continued for another 2 hours. This guy was persistent. Thankfully. It seems there was 3 more clogs further down the pipe. He got them all.

So, now about that 1.5% that they recommend you have on hand for “moving” expenses. Guess where a good chunk of it went?

Well, at least we have 1 major plumbing problem solved.

Next time we’ll cover off the advantage of renting a water heater.

I did mention the plumbing was a little suspect, right?