Mortgages: Are Americans that Short-sighted?
My wife and I have been going through the fun process of house-shopping (some sarcasm intended). One thing that has really surprised me is that the lenders we have talked to are still pushing ARM’s and other “creative” financing options to get people to buy houses they can’t afford.
Haven’t we been through this before? Isn’t that why banks are writing down billions of dollars right now?
The last mortgage company I talked to kept trying to tell me that I should pay more for a house in order to buy the interest rate down - it doesn’t stop there - for 2 years. That’s it - pay 3% more for your house so you have a lower payment… for 2 years.
So what that tells me is that at least some people are willing to implicitly bet that their income will increase over the next 2 years despite all of the economic data that would should convince them otherwise. Oh well - hopefully it will leave plenty of nice houses on the market for good prices when the next wave of ARM’s resets…
I got a Mac
I’m more surprised than anybody to read these words on my own site - I always swore I wouldn’t do it.
I have to say, though, that in the few days since I made the purchase (just an imac - I wasn’t ready to change my whole life with a macbook pro) I have been very happy with the computer. Yeah, I wish that Apple would keep the politics out of their business, but that’s a different issue.
FrontRow is what I always wished my xp media center would be - clean, intuitive and hasn’t given me any problems… yet.
That being said, I have always loved my brand new computers and I know I’m still in the honeymoon phase. The real test will be how I feel about it in a few months. I’ll keep you updated.
New look and feel
Well, it’s been a couple years since I launched my blog and figured it was finally time for a change. I like the theme because it’s not busy and seems easy to navigate. Let me know what you think.
Honey Bunny in critical condition
I try not to write too many things on my blog which aren’t related in some way to internet retail (with the occasional exception of a BlogDesk accident), but a lot of people have been asking what’s wrong with our bunny so I thought I would share.
Our bunny hasn’t been eating and we finally realized that she was having a problem just chewing up her food and swallowing it. Luckily we found a vet in Utah that specializes in rabbits (and other “exotic” pets) and they diagnosed her as having Gastrointestinal Stasis.
So our bunny (Honey Bunny, you may recognize her from such fine products as critter cords) is in critical condition and we think she will be there for at least 4 days (in the pet hospital).
Some people think we’re crazy for being willing to spend so much time and money caring for a bunny - I mean, what does a new one cost, right? $30?
But Honey Bunny has been a part of our family for a long time (Jen has had her for five years). She’s been there for some of the hardest times of our lives.
I figure money will come and go - I feel good about spending money on someone who has brought us (especially Jen) so much peace and happiness.
Jen’s trip to France
My wife is in France until next week. She’s having a lot of fun - I’ll have to go back with her some day.
Summer Day 2
I live in Utah - Utah sucks in the winter. Well, it’s good for some things - Nate’s got the details. But today is Summer Day #2 at Sewell - a day that we crank up the thermostat, wear shorts to work and have a barbecue. It makes the winter almost bearable.
Gone for a week
I’m in New Orleans for a few days before leaving on a cruise to Cozumel and Costa Maya. I have never been to a place in the US where I really felt like I was in a foreign country but I definitely feel that way here.
It’s a cool city - we’re just going to spend a couple of days having fun and trying some good food before taking off on the cruise. Jen and I just got a new office space for Vizad so I’m sure we’ll have plenty to do when we get back.
THX Opening Sound
Warning: totally non-internet retail, non-internet marketing related.
One of our employees at Sewell was in a local a cappella group, Vocal Point, and their album coming out this fall has a sweet a cappella version of the THX sounds that you hear at the beginning of a movie.
Check out Gthing’s THX post to hear it.
Kiva
I put a new banner on the right-side of the page (near the bottom). No, I’m not making any money off of it - it’s for Kiva, a non-profit focused on P2P micro-lending. It’s an awesome company that allows you to lend money to a specific entrepreneur in a developing nation. You can watch as your entrepreneur starts their business - at the end of the cycle (when the loan is eventually repaid) you have the option of withdrawing your money or using it to fund another small startup.
They claim a 96% repayment rate, which is awesome. I would love to see this same model used in a for-profit setting. I think that if people could make competitive returns on their money there would be more interest in funding these micro-startups.
Tivo - a bad taste in my mouth
Let me preface this by saying that I have had a Tivo for three years now and I always loved it. Recently, though, we got Dish Network so we decided to get their HD-DVR.
The Dish Network DVR is not nearly as easy to use as our Tivo was, but because it was cheap, works easily with our service and will let us record HD programming we have been happy with it. For the past two months, however, I kept forgetting to cancel my Tivo subscription. Finally tonight I decided to just get it done since we were charged for another month.
One thing that I have always loved about Tivo is how easy it is to do anything with it. If you ever need to change anything about your account online it’s really easy.
Except cancelling your account. They tell you to call a 800 number and go through a few prompts. Finally, the prompts tell you to call customer service during business hours to cancel in person.
Why do they make you call during certain hours to cancel your account? Because the harder they make the process of cancelling the more common it will be to have people like me keep their account active for a couple of months. That’s a pretty lame strategy to squeeze a few more pennies out of your customers - glad you’re finally profitable, Tivo, but I would think twice before signing another contract with you.