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Selling Your Home Without a Broker


I live in Brentwood.   Brentwood is known for many things.  Its show business residents first come to mind.   But it is probably most famous for the murder scene of O.J. Simpson’s wife, Nicole, and the O.J. Simpson house, which has since been razed.

What Brentwood is not known for is its poverty.   Mind you, among the glitzy multi-million dollar homes there are people who reside more modestly in condos or apartments.   A lot of single women live in he neighborhood.  It is safe and shopping and the coffee shops are within easy access.   But poverty?   There is none to be found.

A new poll finds that over 90% men showed interest in increasing size if they knew a tonysplate.com tadalafil india 20mg safer way. The herbal vitamin Femline helps balance hormones and lower mood swings using ingredients for example St. check for more info generic cialis People don’t have to learn anything new or have any expectations other than wanting free viagra samples to achieve the changes that they want. With consumption of the product, the solution inhibits the PDE5 enzyme from causing degradation of the cGMP substance in the body. generic levitra 10mg you could try these out So it is odd when on a Sunday as you drive past the different intersections where a plethora of “For Sale” signs from a dozen brokers sprout from the sidewalks like so many new types of trees that you find so many of these signs have “For Sale By Owner,” listed on them.   This simply isn’t done.   But it is being done now.   This, indeed, is a sign of the times, a tell tale indicator of the housing market and how deeply it has plunged.

There are two times that people eschew realtors and try to sell the house themselves.   The first time is when there is a housing shortage, as there was a few years ago, and people were at your door begging and bidding for the opportunity to move in.   Houses then went for ten, maybe fifteen percent more than listed price.   To sell your house was like shooting fish in the barrel.   So why give the realtor his or her six percent, when you can put that in your pocket?

Even the realtors knew this, since many cut their commissions in half.   Selling a house was easy.  Just list it.   The banks were forthcoming with mortgages for just about anyone.   Appraisals seemed arbitrary, if not a flight of fantasy.   So just put up the sign and close the deal when the throngs come banging on your door.

But there is a second window when people try to sell their houses.   This is now.   This is when the marekt has fallen so steeply that the sellers will be taking such a hit they simply can’t afford to give up the realtor commission.  And since the realtors know that no house is an easy sell, they will hold for the most part to their six percent.   So when your house drops thirty percent from purchase price, giving up another six percent is unthinkable for many people.  Especially those people who bought at the high and are now in the hole.

Come Sunday I will be driving toward the beach down San Vicente Boulevard and with this economic downturn and a further drop in the real estate market, I expect to see even more houses listed with “For Sale By Owner.”   This indeed is a new sign.  A sign of the times.

Sarah Palin–What Becomes of Her Now?

Last night like just about everyone else, I sat in fron of the television, staring at election returns.   I watched John McCain give his concession speech, which I found to be sincere and dignified.   I watched Sarah Palin as well.  She and her husband stood behind and to the side of McCain, looking a bit like deer in the headlights.  Or when she first met Tina Fey.

Palin looked like a person unsure of how to deal with defeat.   She looked like she wanted to say something but was obviously prevented from doing so.  The concession issue goes to the top of the ticket, as well it should, and not to the runner up.   Sarah looked wooden and tried not to fidget.   It was tough for her.

So now what becomes of Sarah Palin.   Although she was not my favorite candidate, she ran a feisty election campaign, maybe based more on fiction than fact.   But that’s what election campaigns are for.   Palin certainly gave new cachet to the red, waist length jacket, and from now on women who wear it will remind observers of the Governor of Alaska.    The red jacket will be regarded as sexy.

Lot of the times erectile dysfunction acts as a precursor to a major cardiovascular best cialis prices event. If you really want a beautiful, young wife who will love you forever, head for Probolinggo, Indonesia and prescription du viagra turn your fantasy into reality! Low admiration or the absence of lovemaking. A sildenafil cheapest price number of studies have also indicated the chemical substance may be effective in improving sexual health. cialis 80mg The soft versions of kamagra brand such as jelly, soft tablets and effervescent have emerged as the best drugs for the ED issues. Palin is certainly an attractive woman.   Many men from the right pine for her favors.   They find romance in their hearts for her.   And Sarah, maybe a bit of a bumpkin, initially, certainly has learned how to shop and wear fashion from the leading designers.   Even in this world, $150,000 in clothes, makeup and skin care can go a long way.   I wonder, with the economy being as bad as it is, if she bought some of that wardrobe on sale.

So what becomes of her now?  Back to Alaska?   Maybe, but it is hard to return now that she has seen the bright lights of the city and the Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C., a place she claims to abhor.  Yeah, sure.  But with Ted Sevens convicted of counts of bribery and what have you, he may well be barred from taking his Senate Seat.  That would leave it up to the Alaska Governor to appoint an acting Senator.  She could well appoint herself.   That would give her access to all those Washington insiders who she may claim to dislike but who can also elevate her career.   Not a bad move at all.

And then, she could become a commentator on Fox News.   It may not be politics, exactly, but it would sure mean a handsome contract and a lot of money.   At that point, with fame, fortune and a better wardrobe, would she finally give up Todd, the husband, first dude, who, let’s face it, won’t be doing her new career that much good?  Will she?  Won’t she?

Stay tuned.   The girl has been bitten by the TV bug and it’s doubtful if she’s about to go away.

Lindsay Lohan and the Celebrity Personality Makeover

Sometime over the summer I was reading an article in the Los Angeles Times about San Francisco poet, August Klenizahler.   I read how he was the bad boy of verse, and how he has alienated fellow poets with his critiques of their work.   He has  disenfranchised himself from the Academic literary scene by pronouncing their writing programs”multi-million dollar Ponzi schemes.”   All in all, he has pissed off a lot of people in the literary community.

Kleinzhaler’s legacy is he literary tradition of two fisted poets and story tellers who have sometimes allowed  their colorful reputations to surpass their  writing talents.   Their drinking and fighting gets in the way of their careers.   They show scorn where they are supposed to display humility.   He openly sneers at what he terms the bullies of his business.  Whether it is an act or genuine, or a little of both,  you have to love the guy for what he is.  Aside from all this he is a very talented writer who can select the images that can pronounce the truth of a scene or an incident.   That plays like music on the deeper emotions.

Whether Kleinzhaler will mellow with age is still out with the jury.   Whether he will be embraced as a curmudgeonly literary icon, much like Charles Bukowski, remains to be seen.  Whether he will undergo a  personality makeover is doubtful.   Depending on your own view of the world and the need for success and acceptance, August Kleinzahler seems incapable of either enduring that ungainly process or possessing the good sense to turn his career around.

The article about Kleinzahler started me thinking about any number of artists are born with a skull full of demons who cause them to abrogate their successes with acts of contrariness and self-destruction.  Kleinzahler may well have a reason for confrontation.  There is much to be said about his critiques of the middle brow hacks out there in the world of Academia who pass off what meager talent they have for creative achievement.   I have known a few of them myself, to say the least.   But I digress, since this is not really the point of this story.

As for the other artistic personalities, they may have  what to them seems like rational perspectives for choosing disruptive behavior.  Others may have been influenced by the wrong people, or let the celebrity go to their heads.  Some succumbed to the demons who have been lurking around since childhood.

Some get over it, and some don’t.   The ones that do get over it and straighten out their lives make good subject matter for the media.   There they can confess to a certain degree about their previous transgressions and then explain how with the help of whatever it was that helped them, they overcame these demons and returned to the path of righteous.   Well, all right, if not the path of righteousness, then at least they gathered enough sense to put their careers back in order.

Some, like Bukowski, a talented drunken brawler, are elevated to to iconic status.   Ron Jeremy comes to mind as one who has been pronounced some kind of national treasure.   Jeremy, of course, was not known for drunken brawler, but made his headlines as a porn star with plenty of stamina.  For awhile there it seemed everywhere you went someone was extolling his virtues, telling the world what a nice guy Jeremy was.   I believe he is.   Not that I know him, other than having sat across from him in the deli now and then.   Out in the Valley where the bulk of the porn films are made.   It just seems odd some would deem him a national treasure.
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There have been many others who were the bad boys and girls of celebrity. After years of drug and drink soaked depravity, fighting and fornicating in all the wrong places,  they became freak show attractions. The only attention they drew was the kind of attention they no longer wanted.   They were laughed at and, worse for any celebrity, finally disregarded.   The trash dumps of Hollywood are littered with their bodies.

Dennis Hopper comes to mind.   He was an absolute pistol in his younger years.  He was renowned for his doping and orgiastic behavior.   He had gone from the heights of fame and approval to the depths of his profession.   And then he cleaned up his act, put on a suit and after years of persuading the Hollywood powers that be, he became respectable.   He was allowed to work again and established himself as a consummate actor.  He is a renowned art collector and an artist himself.    He even votes Republican sometimes and he is the spokesperson for a major financial group’s retirement investment fund pitch to Boomers.   That’s a long way from Taos, New Mexico and other reaches of Bacchanalian history.

Barbara Hershey was another.   She along with what may be the contributing factor to her career downturn, her then boyfriend, David Carradine.   Hershey, after being considered for years the stoned out, loopy, crazy cosmic hippie, cleaned up her act and, yes, put on a suit, and, after some years of persuasion convinced the Hollywood powers that she was reliable once again.  Carrdine, after years personal craziness, drifted back into the bosom of acceptability.   It may have been a Zen thing, in his case.

The list goes on.  Mickey Roarke, after winning kudos for his acting portrayal in the new film, the Wrestler, is about to join the ranks of the redeemed.   Always talented, Roarke was distracted by his personal demons until it was all he could do to find an acting job.  Now he is redeemed, sober, the aged, craggy, veteran of his own personal wars.

And then we come to Lindsay Lohan.   The verdict is not only out on Lindsay Lohan; the court has yet to even convene.  Lohan is still going through her own travails as a club crazy practitioner of libidinous and inebriated activities.   She is involved in a romantic relationship with another woman, which in Hollywood,  despite these allegedly enlightened times, can prove a deal breaker for the leading actress.  As far as her being the leading actress her revolving door relationship with rehab can prevent her from being insurable on any major motion picture.

So if Lindsay Lohan is eventually going to get her act together, she will need to change that act.  She will need to undergo the Hollywood celebrity personality makeover.   It begins of course with sobering up and being much less of an attraction for the tabloids.   Then comes her ability to assure people she is sober and reliable, capable of doing what she is asked.   She may even need to put on a suit.   And then, lastly, as with all the others previously mentioned, there is the matter of talent.   While some are lucky to go places despite their lack of talents, once you fall off the proverbial horse, without talent, you can do all the personality changeover you want and nobody will care.

Talent is it.  Talent is why your industry and even the public will look past the demons and misdeed.   Talent is why they will begin to hope you can make a comeback.   Because, without talent, you can climb back on your horse, but you still ain’t going nowhere.   Not even in the movies.

Frontier Justice? Justifiable Homocides Are Up, According to FBI

There is a cliched line in too many movies to remember where the protagonist proclaims,” he never killed anyone who didn’t deserve killing,” or something to that effect.   And despite all the socially sensitive rhetoric to the contrary a good many of us have contemplated, however briefly, those we wouldn’t mind seeing removed from the face of the Earth.   They may be the distant evil, the Osama Bin Laden’s or the molester and killer of juveniles they find in some distant state.   Or they may be something we know, someone we know only too well.  But there have been times when we think the world would be a better place without these people sucking up our precious oxygen.

According to an article in the USA Today, as well as dozens of other publications, the FBI has reported justifiable homicides have been on the increase over the past couple of years.   The article reported that 391 killings at the hands of the police were proved justifiable.  The common citizenry is lagging behind, having racked up a mere 254 justifiable homicides during the past year.   That is close to one a day.

Certain law enforcement analysts are claiming this increase in justifiable homicides is a result of changing attitudes on the streets.  Police feel more threatened, more overwhelmed by dangerous criminals with advanced firepower, so they are more prone to put them down, rather than risk death and injury trying to arrest them.   As for the public, the article says that citizens are taking greater responsibility for their own defense.

I would think to some degree this is a modern day version of frontier justice.   Or, as the old blues song goes, “I would rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.”   I realize gun ownership is a hot button issues.  It was more so a few years back.   There are pros and cons and the beat goes on as it does with any issues deemed controversial.  Passions build on both sides.
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More to the point, people with guns can screw up and in a drunken rage kill their neighbors or, even worse, their loved ones.   At the same time an armed citizenry gives criminals pause.   Let’s face it, until the police come rescue you from a home invasion, the police being as understaffed as they are, all that could be left of you and your family is another gnarly story for the six o’clock news.   Besides, neighbors and fellow citizens love it when someone protects himself by shooting down the bad guys.

We have instant hero grocery store clerks.   We read stores of women who were would-be rape victims but left their would-be rapists lying dead on the sidewalk.   I recall a story in Santa Monica, where the poor store owner was robbed time and again, and each time he shot it out and often killed the robbers.  He was famous, sure, but he was like the fastest gun in the West.   Idiot armed robbers trying to make their reputations in whatever club they belonged just had to try him.   The store owner finally gave up in disgust and sold the business.

I think it is fair to say that part of justifiable homicide is the fact that there is little doubt someone is trying to harm you.   If someone is trying to harm you and is killed it means they are killed in the middle of the crime.   They are not killed later that afternoon or the following Thursday.   Frontier justice is dealt out at the existential moment of the crime.   So with the economy as bad as it is, a trials being so costly, one could argue shooting down violent criminals is saving cities a lot of money.   It may be a specious argument, but I’m sure I’m not the first one to make it.

So in the coming year, with people really upset about the economy, I mean really pissed off, I suppose we will be seeing more justifiable homicides.   After the country was raped by its politicians and bankers, I would dare say the common criminal doesn’t stand a prayer.

Financial Meltdown Remedy–Stashing Your Cash in the Home Safe

Selling Safes

As the financial crisis worsens more people are taking their money out of banks and buying home safes.   They feel their valuables are better protected when it is closer to hearth and home than it is in a bank that could fail at any minute.   They are stashing gold, jewelry and cash.  According to an article on CNN, home safe sales are up by at least fifty percent.

I am sure the trend is catching on.  And with the trend come the bragging rights.  We often love to brag about the most insipid of things.  In communities where life is too often measured by who has the nicer car and who maintains better lawn care,  this is a one more topic for the cocktail and barbecue circuit.   I am sure we will here from people who ten minutes ago didn’t know a safe from a cab stand, all about the intrinsic qualities, the locking devices, style, weight and, naturally, the size and cost.

The financial meltdown is hardly funny.   But aspects of running out to buy a home safe that you believe is safer than banks, is pretty funny in a darker way.   It reminds me of the old timers and miser of yore who hid their money under the mattress, or in the cookie jar or the cut out pages of a book.   My grandparents long ago employed one such fellow who discovered to his dismay that my grandmother on a cleaning spree unwittingly donated the cobwebbed books and, consequently, his money to the Salvation Army.

With mattresses now so technologically advanced, it is really difficult to hide more than a few bills under one.   Too much cash can ruin the rest on a Tempurpedic.   The cookie jar is a tough place for stashing gold, and the safe, well, as good as it is, it’s vulnerable to burglars and home invaders.

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The really good, expensive,  home safes may be impervious to the blow torch or maybe even to dynamite.   Well, some small amount of dynamite.   But they are not impervious to someone sticking a gun in your face and ordering you to open the safe, before they kill you.   Will this happen?   As the economy continues its downfall, you will see more crime.   You can’t count on much, but you can sure count on that happening.

The geekier burglars will hack in to vendor databases and find out where you live.   Intercept your mail.  Whatever.   So what’s the trend, then?   Install an alarm system.   That will protect your house and your safe.  Until the geeky techno burglar bypasses your alarm and gets into your face, or waits in hiding until you come home, sticks a gun at your head and orders you to open up.   Burglars driving by will see the new alarm sign and figure, ” there has to be a safe in there.”

Now I’m not saying someone shouldn’t have safe.  Probably they should.  A good fire safe is excellent for protecting valuables against a fire.   It’s a great place to stash some cash for emergencies and some of your jewelry and the kind of bonds you can easily have replaced.   It’s great for your prized autographed Babe Ruth Baseball or a document signed by Abraham Lincoln.   Whether it is good for stashing gold bullion, as some are wont to do right now, well that is another story.

So what to do with most of your cash, your valuables, and, if your are lucky enough, your gold coins and bullion?   Stick them in a bank.  After all, that’s what banks are made for.