For Sale By Owner

     It was almost impossible to buy a house in Hainesport twenty-five or thirty years ago.  This township was like the Hotel California - you could check out, but you could never leave.  If you wanted to check in, you had to wait for some old timer to die.  Then you could buy the place ... unless one of his kids moved back into the house.  Thanks to a couple of developers (and a couple of retired or dead farmers) we had some spurts of population growth.  When the housing bubble broke around 2007 there were some houses, but it was difficult to qualify for a mortgage, and the properties sat, and sat, and sat.
     These days I see lots of for "For Sale" signs.  When I go to Realtor.com I see that the properties don't last long on the market.  Unless a place is tied up as a foreclosure or short sale, or it is priced too high, it sells pretty quickly.
     As Mike and I ride our bicycles around town, we see that Weichert, Remax, Century 21, Keller Williams, Long & Foster, and Berkshire Hathaway hold most of the listings.  Those guys are getting about 5% of the sale price of every piece of real estate that's sold.  That's $15,000 on a $300,000 house.  You can buy a Ford Focus for that kind of money.  Why don't people sell their houses on their own?
     Before Mike and I moved into our current abode, I sold my former home as a For Sale by Owner (FSBO pronounced fizzbo).  It didn't take long for me to figure out that the professionally lettered sign I planted in front of the place was only drawing some local looky-loos.  I sent emails and flyers to all the local real estate offices.  I got a bunch of offers to sign up and list the house from various agents.  None of these agents wanted to bring anybody over.  I could have placed advertisements in the local papers and hosted open houses, but newspaper ads are expensive.  Besides that, most people were shopping on the internet.  The answer was to get the house on the MLS which would get it on Realtor.com.
     Thanks to my sister-in-law, I learned about Realmart Realty.  For a flat fee of about $395, Realmart put my house on the MLS, which meant that the house was also on Realtor.com.  I decided to offer the buyer's agent a small commission.  Suddenly real estate agents were trooping through, and I had a contract in two weeks.
http://www.realmartrealty.com/Default.aspx
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jackyao

     I just got an email from Realmart.  They have an interesting new option called the Buyer Rebate Program.  Instead of going to Remax or Century 21, buyers sign up with Realmart.  They travel around to open houses until they find a place on which they would like to make an offer.  Then they contact a Realmart agent who handles the sale.  When all is said and done, the buyer receives a rebate from the commission paid by the seller.  They can use the rebate toward closing costs or to reduce the purchase price of the home.  All of this happens because Realmart is a transaction broker.  Transaction brokers remain legally neutral, working for neither buyer nor seller. They have to act honestly and fairly within the law.  They often work for a flat fee.  Here's an article about transaction brokers: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/transaction-brokerage-750.html

And here's a video:
     
         


          Working with a transaction broker is not the way it's usually done.  From the seller's side, a transaction broker is an attractive option because the costs of selling are reduced.  When I sold my house five years ago I had two options.  I could pay just $395 to get my house on the MLS and hope buyers came my way.  I could also offer the buyer's agent a commission of 1% to 3%.  I offered 2% thinking it was neither so cheap as to insult the agent nor so generous as to hurt my pocketbook.  These days the seller can't get out of paying a commission of 2% to 3% to the sellers agent - unless you are lucky enough to find a buyer without an agent.  Even with paying a 2% to 3% commission, the costs are smaller with a transaction broker.
     From the buyer's side, there may be more disadvantages than advantages to going agentless. You have to find your dream home by yourself by researching on the internet and going to open houses.  Since a transaction broker doesn't have a fiduciary responsibility to anyone, you won't be suing your agent if something goes south.  You could hire an attorney, but that would eat up your Buyer Rebate.
     Still, a transaction broker could be the way to go for those with an independent streak.  You won't find smaller commissions or rebates to buyers anywhere else.
   
   
         

Nom Nom

     I don't find stuffed cabbage appetizing.  Those slimey, translucent packages of rice and chopped meat never brought out the "nom-noms" in me.  Maybe it would taste delicious, if I could get it past my lips.  Then I found a recipe for unstuffed cabbage - the same ingredients, different presentation.

Unstuffed Cabbage

Ingredients:
1 lb. 93% lean ground beef (or turkey)
1 tbs. olive or canola oil
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced or crushed
1/2 small cabbage, chopped
1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce (8oz.)
1/2 to 1 cup water (depending on how juicy you like this dish to be)
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup rice
1 tsp. parsley flakes for garnish

Method:
Heat the oil in a large skillet using medium heat.  Saute the onions until tender.  Add the meat and garlic, and cook until the meat is browned.  At this point I drained off the little bit of grease that was rendered from the meat.  Add the remaining ingredients, stirring in the rice so as much as possible is submerged in the fluids.  Cover and bring to a boil, then turn the heat back so that it gently simmers.  Simmer for 25 minutes.

     Take the skillet to the table and plop it on a trivet.  Dig in.  Call it a one pot meal.  Call it an ovenless casserole.  All I can say is, "Nom, nom, nom."

Where Is the Fiction?

     Why do I almost never read fiction?  Did I have enough of romantic fantasy during my thirty years between husbands?  Did I hear too much hooey during my twenty-five years at the welfare board?  Maybe the old saw about truth being stranger than fiction means reality makes for a better read.
     Here are the mini reviews of what has been on my Kindle recently:

     With or Without You by Domenica Ruta - A story about growing up in a dirty house with a drug addict for a mother.

     David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell -  Do you have a disability (especially dyslexia)?  Are you stuck attending your back up college instead of your first choice?  Are there twenty-eight children in your kid's first grade class?  After reading this book, you might come to the conclusion that a lot of perceived negatives could be blessings.

     Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris - This is yet another collection of humorous essays by Mr. Sedaris.  Who knew the English are the world's worst litterbugs?  The dog poems in the last chapter are an unexpected surprise.

     F in Exams by Richard Benson - This is a collection of the funny wrong answers from people who didn't study hard enough for their tests.  It was funny at first, but it got old fast.

     My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag by Jolie Kerr - It's a collection of how to's for house cleaning and laundry.  Heloise did it first, and did it better, if you ask me.

     Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky - After ten years in the hospitality business, Mr. Tomsky was burned out.  He quit and wrote a book.  You'll never valet park your car again after reading this. The long and short of it is probably just tip everyone generously and you'll have a good vacation.

     Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell - I pretty much love anything Malcolm Gladwell has to say.  You can have a genius IQ, but most of the time you need timing and lucky circumstances more than smarts to get ahead.

     A First Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by Nassir Gaemi - When times are good we need sane people in charge; however, in times of crisis the mentally balanced are not our best bet.  Our best crisis leaders have been a little wacky. Whether they be depressed, manic and depressed, or sex addicted, Mr. Gaemi assures us nut jobs are best at the helm and  extreme personalities are the second best.  I'm not completely comfortable with that.

     Pilgrim's Wilderness by Tom Kizzia - It's a true crime story.  Robert Hale, aka Papa Pilgrim, relocated to the Alaskan wilderness.  He presented himself and his brood (a wife and fifteen children) as simple Christian folk.  He was really a sociopath, an abuser, and a child molester.

     I read one "real" book, Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham.  In 1954 Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, New Zealand teenagers, murdered Pauline's mother, Honora Parker.  After serving a few years in jail both left New Zealand and settled in Scotland. Pauline changed her name to Hilary Nathan and lived in obscurity.  Juliet Hulme changed her name to Anne Perry and became famous for writing mystery novels.

                

Poetizing

About dogs -

Mary had a little Bichon
He was as cute as a bug
And everywhere that Mary went
That Bichon peed on the rug.

Jack Sprat, he hated cats
His wife, she hated dogs
The household pet could be a bird
Or maybe pollywogs.



About romance -

Roses are red
Violets are blue
It would be nice
To get poems from you.

Every if they're silly
Even if they're corny
That kind of stuff
Really gets a girl horny.



About physical fitness -

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily ... merrily ...
Ah, screw it.  I hate rowing.

Mister Softee

     Mike and I hear the Mister Softee jingle at least four times per day.  It starts around 1:00 p.m. and might end around 9:00 p.m.  We usually resist temptation, but on occasion we succumb - our usual, one small chocolate and one small chocolate and vanilla swirl.
     Mister Softee, based in Runnymede, New Jersey, has been around since 1956.  The business is owned by the Conway family.  There are 350 franchises operating in 15 states.  Mister Softee expanded to China in 2007.  We had a choice between Mister Softee and Good Humor when I was a kid, but these days Mister Softee is the only game in town.
     And that's the way the Conways would like to keep it.  Since around 1990 rogue ice cream vendors have been driving counterfeit Softee trucks and passing off their soft serve as the real thing.  The Conways have had to defend their brand a number of times.  The latest dispute occurred earlier this year when New Yorker Dimetrios Tsirkos decided to drop out of the Mister Softee franchise organization.  He changed the name on the sides of his trucks from Mister Softee to Master Softee and altered the logo a bit - waffle cone instead of wafer cone.  Then he cranked up the jingle and drove around the neighborhoods.  The Conways filed a trademark infringement lawsuit and got an injunction that Tsirkos ignored.

          

     After some time passed, Tsirkos removed the word "Master" from the trucks and drove around selling "Softee" ice cream.  After some more pressure, he removed the word "Softee" and the ice cream man logo and called his business New York Ice Cream.  The Conways say Tsirkos has not satisfied court orders because he has not paid royalties or returned the trucks' music boxes and menu boards to Softee franchise headquarters.  Additionally, the trucks are still blue and white, distinctly Mister Softee-ish, and that has to change.  The battles rages on.
     What a world.  There's a dark side to a kid chasing an ice cream truck, but I'm not gonna let it keep me from a chocolate cone after some sweaty yard work.

Identifying Mushrooms

     Mother always said to eat only mushrooms from the grocery store.  Mushroom identification is tricky business and should be left to the experts, she said.  How right you were, Mom.  I found a cluster of big, beautiful fungi around a tree stump.  I can't identify these specimens with certainty even though I have searched and searched the fungi guides.  If times were tough, and those spore factories around the tree stump were the only thing between me and starvation, at least I wouldn't poison myself.  Of the several varieties of mushroom these plants could be, all the possibilities are edible.  Check out these beauties.

They look like roses.

A closer view.

   
     So, what are they?  My best guess is meripilus sumstinei or black staining polypore.  I came to that conclusion because:        
          1. Location - they are growing at the base of what used to be an oak tree.
          2. Timing - meripilus sumstinei grows from July to September.
          3. Appearance - fleshy, gray/yellow, fan shaped caps grow in clusters.
          4. Bruising - meripilus sumsinei bruises black when it's cut or touched.
I made some cuts on one of the caps.  That area was black the next day.  This fungus also turns black at the end of its life cycle.  You can see that the second cluster from the left is blackening.
     A single meripilus sumstinei can weigh up to 30 pounds.  It should be eaten when it is young and tender, before it becomes leathery.  It is said that its flavor and texture is like steak, especially if it is liberally sprinkled with Emeril's® Essence.  One can fry it in oil, but it has to be simmered in soup or sauce for 20 minutes before it becomes fully tender.  So far, no one has proven any medicinal value for meripilus sumstinei.
     Meripilus sumstinei has look alikes.  Grifola frondosa or hen-of-the woods appears later in the season and is more tan or brown in color.  Bonderzewia berkeleyi or Berkeley's polypore is bigger and probably more yellowy orange.  Sparassis spathulata or cauliflower mushroom looks like cauliflower, not like a rose.
     The study of fungi is called mycology, and a biologist who specializes in mycology is called a mycologist.  Hats off to mycologists everywhere.  Your job is not easy.            

    

Niagara Falls

     We spent just a few hours in Niagara Falls.  It's such a tourist trap.  We enjoyed the majesty of the falls, then got out of town.

There are three falls - Horseshoe Falls, American Falls, and Bridal Veil Falls.  American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls are on the American side.  Horseshoe falls is mostly on the Canadian side.  The boundary line between Canada and the United States runs through Horseshoe Falls.  The true boundary line between this country and Canada has been in dispute for years because of erosion caused by the water and because of construction at the falls. 

You can take a boat ride up to the falls from either the American or Canadian side. 

Hornblower operates Canadian side cruises.  Hornblower passengers wear green ponchos.

Maid of the Mist operates American side cruises.  Maid of the Mist passengers wear blue ponchos.

Here I am, in front of Horseshoe Falls.  It's a lot like seeing the Grand Canyon.  Wondrous!

You can visit the site of the Cave of the Winds and walk up to the base of Bridal Veil Falls.  These days, the Cave of the Winds experience is just a walk in the mist.  In the old days (From 1841 to 1920) visitors went into a cave behind Bridal Veil Falls to watch the water fall in front of them.  A rock fall in 1920 made the cave unsafe.  The cave was destroyed in 1954 by another rock fall and the subsequent dynamiting of a dangerous rock overhang.  Those who pay for access to the Cave of the Winds area are outfitted with yellow ponchos and special sandals.  They use wooden bridges to walk to the base of Bridal Veil Falls.  The bridges are set up each spring and taken down each autumn.  They can't remain in the winter because of the ice. 

A view of Prospect Point Park on the American side and Ontario, Canada on the Canadian side.

Buffalo, New York

     Yesterday I wrote about our adventure at Saratoga Race Course.  Since horse racing is the sport of kings, it should come as no surprise that lodgings in Saratoga during racing season cost a king's ransom.  We saved a bunch of money by staying in Lake George, 30 minutes north of Saratoga.  Lake George is like most family resort towns - souvenir shops, miniature golf, and soft serve stands.  One might call it call it mini Gatlinburg.
     The next leg of our trip was Niagara Falls.  Again, we found the hotel prices high at our destination.  The TripAdvisor reviews were only average, even for what appeared to be the nicer properties.  Our solution was to stay in Buffalo, New York, sixteen miles south of the falls.  We couldn't have been happier with that decision.  We stayed at the Hampton Inn and Suites in downtown Buffalo.  The hotel was clean, the staff was friendly, and the parking was free.
     Besides saving some coin, we got to see Buffalo, and Buffalo is cool.  It was a miserable place in 1990, but by 2010 Forbes rated it the 10th best place to raise a family in the United States. Downtown is a nice looking blend of beautiful old buildings and sleek modern designs.  Every place we saw (and we drove around during an afternoon) was clean, really clean.  The weather was perfect.  Buffalo has sunny, dry summers with just enough rain to keep the grass green.  The breezes off Lake Erie keep summer temperatures just right.
     You can't leave Buffalo without going to the Anchor Bar for some Buffalo wings.

Frank and Teressa Bellissimo established the Anchor Bar in 1935.  It is located at 1047 Main Street.  Teressa created the famous wing recipe in 1964.  Today, the bar is owned by Edith Bellissimo, Teressa's daughter-in-law, and Ivano Toscani.  

"Teressa" presents a plate of wings to customers.  There are some seafaring references, but by and large the decor consists of motorcycles, license plates from everywhere, framed newspaper clippings about the bar, and photographs of various politicians and celebrities who have visited the establishment.

Mike chowing down on his order of wings.  I opted for the Buffalo style chicken breast sandwich.

You can't leave without a shirt.

                        

Saratoga Race Course

     Mike always wanted to go to Saratoga Race Course, so we went.  He's an old hand at the horsey business.  I, on the other hand, am a newbie.  Check out all the things I learned.

The gates open at 11:00 a.m.  We got there so early we were at the front of the line.  

Troy, a member of Security, was obviously happy to see us.  Every employee we met was SUPER nice.

   

We had time to kill from 11:00 a.m. to the first race at 12:25 p.m., so we shopped.  Race tracks were men's territory until 1875 when Colonel Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr., founder of the Kentucky Derby, convinced upper class women that horse racing could be a classy event suitable for families.  Ladies showed off the latest fashions at Churchill Downs.  When the derby was televised in the 1960's, ladies attempted to be recognized on TV by wearing bigger, more flamboyant hats.  This "made in China" example at $150.00 gave me sticker shock.
     

Trying on is free!

There is so much horse themed artwork.

There were two groups performing all day.  This foursome did jazz and the other did calypso.

This is the silks room.  Silks are the costume that the jockey wears.  Each horse owner has his own colors and design.  There are 3,500 different silks at Saratoga.

Some tracks use rotating racks like the system used by dry cleaners.  It's done the old fashioned way (on hooks) at Saratoga.  The silks are grouped by color.  An owner might get a separate area outside color grouping if he races frequently.  A staff of two men run up and down the aisles, grabbing the outfits as needed.  They are able to wash and dry them between races since "silks" are really made of synthetic fabric these days.  Check this out: http://www.drf.com/events/top-10-most-eclectic-silks-racing-history

Here we are in front of the main dirt track.  There is a turf track inside the dirt track with a second turf track inside that.  The second turf track is used for steeple chase (jumping). 

Saratoga opened in 1863.  It is often called the oldest race track in the United States, but Freehold Raceway in New Jersey, operating since the 1830's, is actually the oldest track.  You can see that horse racing was a man's sport back in the beginning.

Readying the horses.

Horses parade along walkways that are only slightly farther than arms length from spectators.

Mike, heading for our seats under the roof.  We stayed here during the hottest part of the day.

Nice shot, huh?

This is the post parade, the formal presentation of the horses before the race.  The horse and jockey are accompanied by an escort called an outrider.

This is Race 6 being won handily by Coast of Sangria.  

That's not beer!  They spray water on the dirt between each race.

After the water, they prepare the surface of the dirt.

This high roller ($50.00 minimum) places his bet with a human.  Machines have replaced most of the tellers.

These ladies are sporting hats worthy of the clubhouse.

Baseball caps and beer.  Mike and I are grandstand folks.

This is La Madrina, winner of race 8.  The jockey is Javier Castellano.

Depleting our retirement fund $2.00 at a time - these are our losing tickets!