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Water impacted 3 of the 4 homes we owned. Learn from my experiences so that you can save time and money with your home.

Our first home was in Franklin, TN. Franklin is just south of Nashville. It is a great place. We lived there in the late 80s. We bought a brick rancher and an acre lot. Unlike the new homes our Realtor showed us, this home had apple trees. I am convinced now, we bought it for the apple trees. We stayed there a few years. We put the home on the market. We got it under contract. I remember the agent calling us and telling us we had a problem with the buyer’s loan. The lender paid FEMA for an updated flood map. Our property had moved into the flood plain because of new development in the area. The buyer’s lender was requiring flood insurance and the buyers were considering backing out. We purchased the property without flood insurance. We never had a problem with flooding. Only the corner of the property was included in the map. I considered donating the corner to the county and making it a public park. The buyers were able to get an elevation certificate from a surveyor and a release from their lender of the requirement.

The second home was at the foot of Signal Mountain, TN in Spring Lake. (Note to purchasers: always have a good water drainage guy look at your property if a water name is in the name of the neighborhood – like Glorious Geyser Estates, or Wild River Homes). This was not a bad problem, but we had wash draining down the yard from a neighboring property. The home builder installed a dirt berm in the upper corner of the yard.

The third home was on a mountain. Signal Mountain. We purchased another brick rancher over a full unfinished basement. No apple trees here. This house had a sloping yard. It also had broken concrete drain pipes on the high ground side of the lot we could not see. We had lived there a few months when I noticed a small trickle of water on the basement floor. As the rain kept coming, the water quickly became a small stream through the basement. It was then, I really started noticing the rust marks on the steel supports and heating system. I had simply overlooked them as age and not due to potential water in the basement. This fix required a back hoe, rock, water proofing, and upper and lower drains. You can definitely have water problems on a mountain. Especially one with little soil and lots of rock formations where water can run and damn up against a block wall. The sustained slow pressure of water will force its way into your home at the base above the footer.

Three times a charm, the 4th home is well graded and has a bed of gravel as well as a vapor barrier. There are drains on all corners taking the water 20-25 feet into the yard at lower points.

Water impacted 3 of the 4 homes we owned. Consult your agent for good guidance on how to mitigate potential water issues with your home.

How to rent your Chattanooga house. With careful minded sober thinking and fear.

I attended a wedding Saturday. A young man named Todd asked me, “so … how is the real estate market?”

I told him and his father-in-law my observation of the market, as I did in this blog post. He then went on to tell me they had been trying to sell their home for 6 months. They were thinking about renting it out and going on to their next home.

I urged him to carefully consider 4 things as he was thinking about renting his personal home.

1. Do not treat this as a band-aid. Treat this as a business venture, because it is! A serious business move. You may have already invested in this for several years now. Some of the biggest landlord regrets: A. Business with family, B. Shallow screening of tenants, C. Poorly written agreement, D. Lack of understanding of Landlord/Tenant Federal and State law.

2. Place ability to monthly “inspect” property to spot check maintenance, and upkeep. Savvy landlords put monthly air filter maintenance scheduled in their agreements. Treat the tenant with respect for their right of enjoyment of the property, but retain the right it visit for monthly “inspections”. Phrase it to tenant as a service for them.

3. If you are not planning to purchase additional rental properties, there is no need to start a corporation or LLC. It is not worth the expense.

4. Ask a few professional landlords who they use in your county for eviction and collection attorneys. Also ask them who they use as an insurance agent for landlord risk insurance and umbrella coverage. You also need some good CPA and tax advice.

The biggest mistake I see people make when they “rent their house” is not understanding the liabilities of starting a business venture that is dealing with the public. You are held to the same Federal, State, County and City laws as the big boy landlords.

This is a good market for renting your property. But for heaven’s sake, please treat this home and your time with respect. Because renting a home is a business. If you are not prepared to take on a part time property management business, then consider dropping your price and selling. If you are wanting to take this challenge then perhaps you need to consider taking on a few more after cutting your teeth on the first one. Pretend you are starting a new business, that is how you rent your Chattanooga house.

Home life affects everything. Young men are responsible for mass murders. John Medina (link to wikipedia) spoke last evening in Chattanooga at Baylor School about future success of a child. The bottom line key factor he says is “Home life”. So is there a correlation in the “non-successful” mass murderers in our midst? According to a person who studied the 2012 mass murders, 75% were conducted with a pistol, all men, most all born after 1980. If John Medina is correct, then what does it look like to be a “real” home man? My perception is that our culture does very little to celebrate or even define what it means to be a “real” man that can positively influence the next generations. What do you think? Is “Home Life” important to you?

Who are you? My DNA is generationally from Ireland. My father and his father owned and operated small businesses. I enjoy taking risks and thinking about entrepreneurial opportunities. It’s in me blood, so to speak. Although my hair is not red, I do like Guinness. That has to count for something Irish.

Kathy Kolbe grew up in a family business that helped corporations place people in the right org chart block. Her father created the Wonderlic test and she grew up helping her Dad score the results in the basement. Wonderlic measured IQ and other things and helped large corporations like GE place applicants. Kathy saw years of results and realized that many people were very successful but the person didn’t fit well by Wonderlic standards. She also saw people that scored well with Wonderlic but fail at performing certain positions. Kathy saw a need to build a test that helped you identify your strengths in a different way. She built an exam to help you figure out how God built you. The test measures how you accomplish things. This allows you to focus on what you do best. Focus on your strengths and build a complete team around to support your weak areas. If everyone on your team or family takes the test then you have a picture of how to work well with each other. There is no good or bad in any score, it simply gives you a marker that identifies you.

1. First Clue is Fact Finding: On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do you enjoy research and exploring for data? Is Google your best friend?

2. Second Clue: Follow Through: Are you a list maker and live by processes from A to Z?

3. Third Clue: Quick Start: Do you take risk or enjoy new things or do you trust in the tried and true methods?

4. Fourth Clue: Implementation: Do you physically enjoy building things? Are you more hands on, or imaginative by nature?

My score is 6-2-9-3. A risk taking researcher or in plain English, an entrepreneur.

You take a 20 minute test. The entire process can be done online at http://www.kolbe.com. Cost is $50.00. I am not an affiliate.

Matthew 5:3 “Your’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

Business thought: Comparing small town finger manwave to Like on Facebook.

I toured the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant last week.  Seven years ago I toured the Cadillac plant in Detroit. The two manufacturing facilities are very different.  There are several observations from the comparison.

1. The VW plant is similar to walking into Target and the Cadillac plant is like walking into the cave at Rock City (It is a novelty to see but its a bit eery too).
2. Parts of the GM plant were very loud and the workers wore ear protection, the VW plant was very quiet. (Battery operated tools) Different music tunes played at the VW plant to alert the workers whether to slow down or speed up.  (I must say the selection of music at VW was horrible and sounded like a Japanese robot wrote it and performed it on a synth.) Might help productivity if they had some James Brown “feel good” blasting…just sayin…
3. Volkswagen plant had many different levels of assembly lines above your head in two or three layers at a time.  The Cadillac plant took much more ground space as most of it was one level.
4. Both facilities employed JIT(Just-in-Time) techniques, but the efficiency of distance for parts to travel, worker lift and movement and gravity fed racks is very slanted to VW’s favor.
5. The spirit of the employees and how they engaged with the tour was different.  More of the VW employees waved and seemed to take pride in their work and environment.  The tour guide for VW was a walking encyclopedia, whereas the GM tour guide was somewhat entertaining, but did not leave an impression that I needed to run out and buy a Caddy.  The tour in VW was 0.5 mile walking and the rest seated in a Passat seat mounted on a tram.  The GM tour was mostly in tram and nice but not the fun impression of the Passat simulated leather seating.
6. Have to insert here an observation: I did not see any of VW’s “Industrial Athletes” working out in their really cool gym facility.  Not sure how well the concept of working 10 hour shifts and then pumping iron really works out.  There were no idle employees seen at the VW tour.  I have also toured some of Germany as a teen, and they do have a different culture….Ve have ways here… Did not get to talk to workers at either plant about conditions, treatment, etc.
7. The VW plant is a platinum Leed certified design.  The rainwater off of the roof is collected in large tanks that sit on top of tornado shelter bathrooms that provide over 1.5 million gallons of water each year to flush toilets as well as cool the welding tips on the assembly line robots.
8. In fairness the tours are 7 years apart and the Passat is a $20,000 sedan with a production rate of 600-700 cars daily, and the Cadillac is obviously high end and most likely fewer produced daily.  But the feeling after being inside either of the facilities is so different.  You leave feeling like you have been to Frontierland in Detroit Disney and Futureworld at Chattanooga Disney VW.
9. I grew up in a very smoggy, smelly Chattanooga.  Toured Germany in the 80s and was overwhelmed at how clean and neat it was.  Now, some Germany has landed here and it leaves me with the same neat, tidy and efficient feeling.  Kudos to our German brothers.  If i can find my Hofbrauhaus stein, I will raise it!