Warts and all

The big question I have is this, how are real estate investors like us, who aren't taking out massive loans and debts who are spending their own money, how do we grow our real estate empires in a way that allows us to get our properties, product service, and projects we believe and out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question will be answered in this blog.

My name is Linda Harley and welcome to Real Estate Secrets.

The house that I live in is approximately 22 years old, and we are definitely starting to see all of its warts. It is showing its age for sure.

Yesterday alone, the dishwasher stopped working the garage door wouldn't close, and the bathtub faucets started leaking.

Fortunately, I have enough knowledge to know how to get the dishwasher to work and the garage door to close, albeit with some temperamental words being spoken and drawers being slammed... and me just kind of wishing that nothing else would break .

But the leaky faucet?

That was definitely not my forte, not something that I know how to do or would even be comfortable doing.

I always just imagine like blowing a leak and water going everywhere and me just causing more damage than what it is worth.

So fortunately, I have my plumber from my real estate business on speed, dial Josh from Local Plumbing and Sewer.

I texted him. "Hey Josh, I have a problem. My bathtub is leaking. When can you come by?"

He texted me back about 30 minutes later and said, I can be there tomorrow afternoon.

I was like, yes, get this bathroom problem is solved.

However, then I started thinking, well, you know what if he has to replace the whole thing. I should be ready for that else it's gonna be delayed even more.

I should just go to Home Depot and buy the replacement faucet fixture, just in case.

Now I love Home Depot.

And so today, as I walked into the store, it was like, ah, I'm just so happy to be here.

There's so many nice things, useful things, things to make a house pretty and functional.

And I just took my time walking through the store.

And along the way to the plumbing section, I happened to pass the dishwasher section .

I stood there gaping at and eyeing all the dishwashers.

The prices have gone up exponentially.

The cheapest one I could find at my Home Depot, bottom of the range was $650.

Yeah. Pretty much doubled in the past year.

While I was just admiring all of the fancy dishwashers, one of the sales ladies came up to me and asked "Hey, how can I help?"

And so I told her my woes of my dishwasher not working and doors not properly closing, and how disappointed I am with the GE brand, cuz I've had this dishwasher for less than four years and it's busted already.

We were talked about which product is more durable. She recommended Whirlpool and I definitely agree.

Whirlpool is more durable.

So my next Big buy will probably be a Whirlpool dishwasher for my house.

But then I remembered why I had come to the store, and decided that the dishwasher was going to have to wait.

After all the dishwasher still works and when it really breaks and doesn't wanna work then I'll put in the order.

Although guess what?

The wait time for a new dishwasher... drum roll... three weeks.

Everything is back ordered cuz of COVID.

So yeah, there, I was admiring the dishwasher, having to pull myself away from it to go to the plumbing section...

I get to the plumbing section, and of course there are 50 different options for a tub shower faucet combinations.

I usually like the Delta brand because in my experience Delta brand has the best products, easiest to install and all my plumbers seem to love working with Delta.

So that narrowed it down. I'll just get the Delta one, the $99 one. It's nice.

It's Chrome finished and it's what I would like to have in my house.

Now mind you, I have no idea if the plumber's actually gonna need this, but I'm just getting it because I want to honestly. In the back of my mind, I was justifying the purchase by arguing that if I can't use this in my house, I'll just save it and put it in the next property that I flip.

So I get home and the plumber Josh arrives. Josh inspects everything and he's says he can install the new fixture but it's gonna be way more expense than me just replacing the valve that had broken..

So he had to take out the valve.

Unfortunately you can't buy those valves off the shelf anymore, and they make them from scratch.

What they do in their business is they get all of the little pieces and parts and everything. And then they build the valves from scratch and then when they come to your house they have it ready for install.

And so he fortunately already had a rebuilt piece in his truck that he could just grab and install it.

So fortunately for me, he was able to fix it. $425 later.

That is fixed.

I have no idea if that's too expensive or too cheap, but I just wanted it done. So it got done.

It's no longer leaking and I am no longer losing gallons of water a day due to leaky faucet.

So what is the lesson I learned?

If you can fix a plumbing problem, it is cheaper than completely replacing it.

Would've been a few thousand dollars to replace the entire faucet, and so way cheaper to just repair.

So lesson learned for next time.

Thanks for listening. And I'll see you tomorrow. Bye