December 2016 – yoursalso

Month: December 2016

New Home Construction Earnest Money

Posted on December 30, 2016January 12, 2017 by DM

I completed the previous post writing about earnest money. In this second post about new construction, I will specify six way a buyer can possibly get his or her earnest money returned from the builder or seller.

The first reason buyers can potentially get their earnest money returned is if the house appraises for less than expected. So, if the builders agrees to put an appraisal contingency in the contract then the buyer may be able to get his or her earnest money returned if the home appraises for less than the original purchase price or the buyer can agree to only purchase the house at the appraisal value.

The second reason buyers can potentially get their earnest money returned is if the builder agrees to a financing contingency. This means that if you cannot get financing, then you can potentially get your earnest money returned. This one is harder for obvious reasons.

The third reason buyers can potentially get their earnest money returned is if the builder agrees to a sell of buyer’s previous home contingency. This means that if your old home doesn’t sell, then you don’t have to purchase the new construction.

The fourth and probably most important reason buyers may be able to get their earnest money back is if you find out the new construction has major flaws. Many minor flaws can be fixed and the deal can go through, but if there are major flaws buyers can get their earnest money returned. Make sure there are no major flaws.

The fifth reason buyers may get their earnest money returned is that the house isn’t finished. So, if the home isn’t finished a buyer can get his or her earnest money returned.

The sixth reason a buyer can get his or her earnest money back is if the seller backs out. This will not typically happen in new construction unless the builder decides not to complete the subdivision that is being developed.

The caveat to the above six approaches is that the builder will have to agree to put the contingencies in the contract. Not all builder will agree to write all of the above or any of the above contingencies in the contract. If the contract says none refundable you will not probably get the earnest money back without a lawsuit. Check back to the blog for part three of the series on new home construction. Please feel free to share this post on your social media page, leave comments below, and subscribe to this blog.

<br />

**$19.00 Available in long sleeve, short sleeve, women styles, and men styles**

Purchasing a New Construction Home

Posted on December 27, 2016December 30, 2016 by DM

I have decided to write multiple post to provide valuable information to assist in the buying of new construction. This will be the first post in the series of posts. I plan to write three post in this series. I will add more post if necessary . The first new construction home I bought was over 13 years ago. The other three homes, I purchased were pre-existing homes, but recently, in the last few years(2014-2016) with the improving economy, builders have been developing new communities in my area; so, I’ve been thinking about new construction again. This first post will focus on two topics, location and the term earnest money.

There is a catch phrase that goes location, location, location. In my experience, most new construction for single family homes are developed in desirable locations for people to live. With that being said, in considering where to build new construction, you want to make sure the area where the new construction is being developed has the amenities that are important to you and or your family. What is considered an important amenity can vary from person to person and from family to family. So, location, location, location does not have a universal meaning. For example, if you’re married with a family, being under three miles from a grocery store may be a high priority on your amenities list. If you’re single and don’t cook this may not be high on the priorities list. A more universal desire may be the desire to have the shortest commute as possible to your job. Those are pretty simple examples, but do your due diligence. Find out what’s important to you and or your family to help you decide if the location of the new construction will work for you.

The next topic that will be introduced is “earnest money.” Some new construction for single family homes require earnest money before the builder will start to build a home for you. Earnest money is in its most simplest terms is money to confirm a contract. Earnest money is paid at the time you sign the contract to have your new home built. For the most part the earnest money in none-refundable. This means that if you decide that you don’t want to purchase the home after it’s built because of a reason like “change of heart”, then you forfeit your earnest money to the builder. My real world example is when I purchased new construction. I paid the builder $6000 earnest money to build my home up front at the time I signed my contract. I ended up purchasing the home once the builder completed construction because I loved the home, but if I had decided not to purchase the home because I had a “change of heart”, the builder would have kept my $6000 earnest money. Do not get alarmed, you are not required to have $6000 for earnest money on all single family construction. I’ve seen earnest money as low as $500. Also, don’t get alarmed there ARE ways to get your earnest money back if the builder or seller agrees to put them in the contract! In the next post, I’ll discuss ways to get your earnest money back, if necessary, if the builder or seller agrees to put the contingencies in the contract. Read my next post for those. Feel free to share on your social media page, leave comments, and subscribe to this blog.

Toronto Canada Vacation Suggestion

Posted on December 24, 2016January 23, 2018 by DM

This post is the part two post of the Toronto Canada tips. We ate at a very good restaurant called Michael’s On Simcoe.

The service was good. The Food was tasty. I had the half organic Chicken, rolled and sliced, truffles corn, yukon potatoes.

I was able to see the largest truffle I’d ever seen in person.

This restaurant is a recommendation.

If you’re a person who likes to dance and listen to good music, we attended the club EFS on a Friday night.

EFS has a reasonable dress code which is always appreciated. The music was great & the atmosphere was good. We attended
“the Ballet” dance club on Saturday.

If clubs are not your interest, during the daylight hours, we played Ping Pong at SPIN.

I thought that the following was interesting.

The piece of metal at the bottom, allows you to throw your trash away without having to touch the trash can with anything other than your foot. We souvenir shopped in China Town mainly because we were short on time and we were on foot; so, it was the closest place to souvenir shop.

Toronto Canada Vacation Tips

Posted on December 24, 2016January 23, 2018 by DM

toronto-airport — **Figure 1. There are two Toronto airports. This is Airport Code YYZ.**

I recently(September 2016) took a vacation to Toronto Canada. I wanted to briefly share a few helpful tips with you. I will also make a few suggestions. Monetary exchange rate could always change, but currently $1 U.S. Dollar is equal to about $1.33 Canadian dollars or another way to look at it is that $1 Canadian dollar is about $0.75 or seventy five cents in the U.S. This exchange rate can fluctuate; nevertheless, it may be a great opportunity to do a little high dollar shopping. Personally I didn’t capitalize on the shopping aspect, but it did come in handy with taxi cab rides. For example, let’s say the taxi drivers says your fare is $25. The taxi driver is only talking about Canadian dollars; so, if you pay with a credit card, when you see the charge on your credit card statement, it will be less than $25. So, my recommendation is to get Canadian dollars when you arrive in Canada or use your credit card or debit card to pay for items. Otherwise you may overpay for an item if you use U.S. dollars. Let’s use the taxi cab ride as an example. If the taxi driver says your fare is $25, a person from the U.S. may give him or her $25 U.S. dollars. If you were to give the taxi driver $25, you would have just given the taxi driver a hefty tip and on top of that, you may give him or her an additional tip because you’re not familiar with the exchange rate.

The second tip is to contact your cell phone carrier to find out if there is an option you need to “temporarily” add to your cell phone plan to allow your cell phone to work(for making phone calls and texing) in Canada. Any time I mention work as it relates to cell phones in this article I’m referrig to texing & phone calls. I will not name any cell phone carriers in this post; nevertheless, don’t assume your cell phone will automatically work in Canada. I’ll tell you a few scenarios. I went to Canada with a bunch of my buddies. One cell phone service automatically worked in Canada. I will not name the carrier. Another cell phone carrier’s cell phone only worked if the person had Wifi. Then a third cell phone carrier’s cell phone did not work at all. The third cell phone carrier’s cell phone did allow people to send emails if he or she had a wifi connection. The most important take away from this second tip is to CONTACT your CELL PHONE provider before you go to Canada otherwise you will be without a cell phone and when you’re in a foreign country without a cell phone you will be immobile unless you have a friend that does have a functioning cell phone. Not having a working cell phone will take away from your vacation. The people who did not have functioning cell phones in Canada were very dependent on those that did for things like calling taxis and uber, ect.

The third tip is that if you have a large group of friends going you might want to consider using airbnb. It is probably more economical with large groups and it can save you money. We used airbnb

toronto-cananda-airbnb — **Figure 2. Airbnb house during our stay.**

during our stay in Canada. For our vacation it was the perfect decision. I can’t stress prefect enough. We split uber or taxi rides to the airport, grocery store, and going downtown; so, the cost was negligible. Using airbnb worked for the purpose of our trip. With the number of people we had, it was the most economical option. If you’re vacationing alone, then a hotel will probably be the best option because of the monetary exchange rate I mentioned above plus you may or may not have to pay for taxis and uber to go to different downtown locations. If you stay in a hotel, you may be less dependent on your cell phone also. Please check back to this blog, I’ll use a future post to post a few tips for nightlife, sight seeing, games, interesting garbage cans, & a nice restaurants to try. Feel free to leave a comment and share this post on your social media sites.

**$19.00 Shirt is available in women and men styles. Available in long sleeve and short sleeve.**

adorable_babies_72346-1473490620141-gildan-lad-hot-pink-_w92_-front — **$19.00**

funday-m_72346-1474301603439-gildan-lad-navy-blue-_w92_-front — **$19.00**

pro_football_rules_left_justified_navy — **$19.00 This is the back of the shirt. Also available in women.**

Real Football

Posted on December 16, 2016December 30, 2016 by DM

HD is better than standard def!

Changing Bike Seat to Help End Numbness

Posted on December 15, 2016June 14, 2017 by DM

bike_seat_3 — Biggest Cut Out, Second Seat Figure 2.

I am an avid road bike rider. I’ve been riding for years. I normally ride between twenty four miles to thirty two miles about two or three times a week. I wanted to address an issue that may be affecting many bike riders in general. The issue causes numbness in the groin area. The seat you see below in Figure 1 is the original stock seat that was included with my road bike.

This is the original stock seat that I bought with my TREK bike. It is very comfortable, and the comfort of the seat allowed me to experience bike rides in excess for fifty miles. With that being said there are many discomforts a bike rider can experience if his or her road bike is not fitted for him or her correctly which brings me to the topic of this article. The issue I was experiencing for about five years when I went for my road bike rides is numbness to my groin area during the ride. It seems to be caused because of decrease pudendal artery blood flow. The shape of the white seat you see above in Figure 1 seemed to cause me to sit on this artery. So, it decreased penile blood flow. Essentially the saddle shape affects penile blood flow. The narrow saddle is associated with more of a reduction in penile blood flow. I thought there was no remedy for this. After doing some investigation, I found that there might be a remedy. It may have to do with the seat design itself. I wanted to share my findings with you. I went to the bike shop and purchased the following seat in Figure 2 as a solution to the issue.

As you may notice, compared to the white seat, this particular seat has a nice size cut out in the saddle area. It seems that the theory behind this is that the rider will no longer sit on the pudendal artery due to the cut out in the saddle, and hence will not decreased the blood flow to the groin area. The other observation to notice with this seat is that this seat really doesn’t have a nose on it either. I’m happy to report that with this seat I did not experience any numbness. I think it’s because of two reason. One reason is because of the cut out in the saddle, and the other reason is because of the absence of a long nose on the saddle. There was a different issue with this seat; so, I took it back to the bike shop. I wasn’t aware at the time I purchased the seat, but the person helping me at the bike shop sold me this seat that had a bone placement of 168 which is too big for my body. My body requires a bone placement of 138 to 143. Make sure you have your bone placement measured. So, although this new seat solved the numbness issue, it caused other issue because it had a size of 168. If I had gotten the seat size of 138 or 140, there would probably have been no reason to return the seat to the bike shop.

After returning the 168 wide seat in Figure 2 I bought the following seat in Figure 3 & Figure 4.

This seat is narrow like the white seat in Figure 1 that I mentioned above, but it has the cut out similar, but smaller than the seat that was sized at 168 in Figure 2. The new seat has a size of 138. It fits my body perfectly because it is the same size as the white seat in Figure 1 above. I went for a 32 mile bike ride using the latest seat in Figure 3. There was definitely less numbness if any because of the cut out in the saddle. So, my plan is to go back to the bike shop to get the second seat in Figure 2, and buy it in size 138 or 143. I think it may be the perfect solution.

The numbness issue is very very seriously! It doesn’t matter if your object is to enjoy road biking or to use road biking as a means to get healthy. You don’t want to damage your pudendal artery; So, my recommendation is to spend the money necessary to remedy the numbness issue. It is important. It’s not worth possibly permanently damaging your pudendal artery. It could have side effects that you may have to see a doctor for. Feel free to leave a comment, post on your social media page, and subscribe to this website.

Las Vegas Strip Kid Friendly

Posted on December 15, 2016December 15, 2016 by DM

The past 38 trips to the Las Vegas strip were centered around activities that required a person to be twenty one years of age or older. For some of the activities a person could probably participate if he or she was at least eighteen.

However, on a recent vacation to the Las Vegas strip some really enjoyable kid friendly activities were discovered. The one that is being highlighted here is the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay. Both kids and adults are guaranteed to loved the aquarium. The kids will have an opportunity to see some of the animals that they’ve learned about on the Octonauts. It is general admission, and the prices are very inexpensive. There are always packages, groupon deals, or other discounts in Las Vegas to reduce cost even more, but even without discounts it’s affordable. It’s definitely something to put on the to-do list. Aquarium visitors don’t have to have a room at the Mandalay Bay to visit. With that being said if you decide to take a taxi, try to have cash for the fair. The taxis charge an extra four dollar to pay with a credit or debit card. The four dollar charge was discovered the hard way.

Other kid friendly activities like magic shows to name one were visited that the kids enjoyed too, but the Shark Reef Aquarium was great! As a frequent vacationer to Las Vegas who only thought it was the playground of the over twenty one, it was a pleasant surprise to discover all of the family friendly activities that the Las Vegas Strip has to offer. Feel free to click on the video above. Please feel free to leave comments below. Feel free to post on your social media page, and subscribe to this website.