Real estate tips

Given how low the traffic is for this blog, I might as well turn this into an online notebook.  I can use Google Docs, or I can just put it here.  Blogger is fairly dead, and especially without any SEO.  However, what's nice about a blog is that it can be in the form of a diary.

Things to do:

A lot of YouTube channels refer to Biggepockets.
https://www.biggerpockets.com

The thing about living in a HCOL area is that the houses are very pricey.  It is almost impossible to find any properties that are cash flow positive.  So for me, it has turned into a waiting game, waiting for the market to dip.

Why do I want to invest in real estate?  For the kids really.  By the time they grow up, it is going to be super expensive.  So I want to invest now, and time advantage of the slow appreciation over time.  Before the kids can actually buy for themselves when they reach the age of majority.

Maybe the mistake is not to look for something in a HCOL area, but look in other areas where cashflow is positive.  Not as much appreciation in value, but why not?

Watching a disaster in real estate

There is something very hypnotizing about watching disasters.  This is why people watch disaster movies right?

In the Canadian market, it has been very hard to lose money over the last decade unless one buys in at the wrong time.  Today, I learned that there were a couple of twitter accounts dedicated to listing Vancouver properties that sold way below its acquisition value.

https://twitter.com/johnny_33

https://twitter.com/mortimer_1

The second one is an interesting read.  I knew that Vancouver prices were inflated.  Toronto prices are inflated.  But I had no idea that there were so many Vancouver properties that are really bungalows that sell for $2 million.

Eiffel style chairs for the kitchen

These chairs are pretty popular on Amazon.  I had a few IKEA Tobias chairs that cracked after maybe 5 years of use.  I'm not into wooden chairs so I need something more modern for my kitchen.  With the kids, I can't have fabric chairs that get extremely dirty.  I've replaced 3 of the Tobias chairs already.  They all crack in the middle so it must be a design defect.  Instead of pouring more money into Tobias, I figure I'd get something different.

For like $30 a chair, this seems to be a no-brainer.  The price of 6 chairs is the cost of 2 Tobias chairs.  So even if these break or crack or get destroyed by the kids in 5 years, it doesn't really matter.

You can buy chairs on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/35Al1s6

IKEA and We are unable to confirm stock levels or estimate your delivery to complete your order at this time.

TLDR; If you can't check out at IKEA because the website cannot confirm stock levels or estimate delivery time, just check out as a guest and/or use the Microsoft Edge browser.

Every time IKEA has a sale, I try to use their website naturally to score some good deals.  But every time I do this, it never works.  IKEA must have a fairly robust back-end given that they move billions of dollars of merchandise a year. 

Once again, they are having their $19 flat shipping in Canada.  Once again, checking out did not work.  I got the dreaded "We are unable to confirm stock levels or estimate your delivery to complete your order at this time" error message.  What is really bad about this is that the message just flashes temporarily in red, and seemingly disappears.  Being a web developer, I know that likely that it is just some stylesheet that is making it hidden.  So by looking at the HTML code, voila, the error message is still there.

However, this time, I refused to give up.  I read on Facebook comments that you can try checking out as a Guest and use the Microsoft Edge browser.  And surprisingly, it worked!  It doesn't seem like I lost much since I created an account right after, and in the account section of IKEA, it doesn't look like it stores the history of previous orders. 

Wow.  IKEA's website seems like it was built from the 1990's.  The url still has /webapp/ within it... so maybe some 1990's technology that uses WebSphere or one of the popular e-commerce servers from way back when.

Getting up to the second storey roof with a ladder to clear out spruce cones

I wanted to clear out the gutters on the second storey.  Once again, I waited too long and it was hard to book contractors to come by.  Rates have gone to over $100 a visit.  I also wanted to inspect the roof myself, so I really wanted to go up myself.  So I bought an extensible ladder from amazon.  I have a 2 storey ladder, the ones that you pull with a rope and it extends.  But I found that to be too heavy to lift.  The perfect solution to get to the second storey is to get to it from the first storey.  The part above the garage is only about 4 feet from the second story, so even if I tumble, I only have to tumble 4 feet.

And here are all the spruce cones and needles that have accumulated.

A lot of it has turned into a soil like consistency.  You can even see the live weed that's growing there.  

The ladder costs maybe $135 including tax, so if I use it for a couple of years, this will more than pay for getting someone to come to the house to clean the gutters.  

Disney Dolphin Hotel

It is pretty hard to find accurate information about what the Disney Dolphin hotel includes. 
Let me summarize based on my experience.

Parking - Includes Parking fees for the Disney Park

• Includes parking at the Disney parks.  Staying at a Disney resort provides free parking at the parks, but with the Dolphin and Swan, it's hard to tell what was included, and what wasn't since there are some exclusions on these 2 properties.  
• I thought that maybe parking at the Dolphin for the $20+ will include parking at the Disney parks.  But when entering the Disney parks, the people at the gate will accept the Dolphin room key card.  The key card includes the guest's name and dates of stay.  But there is no scanning system.  The parking attendant just looks at the card.
• More interestingly, the room card doesn't state if you parked at the Dolphin for the $20+ bucks.  But I suppose if you are showing up in a car/van with a Dolphin room card for the dates specified, then it is assumed that you've parked your car at the Dolphin..... otherwise, where else would be parking the car when you're at the hotel?

Taking the Ferry

• This is by far the best way of getting to Hollywood Studios.  We parked our van to Hollywood Studios the first day, thinking there wasn't going to be much of a difference.

Backing up family DVD's to Youtube - .vob format

The internet is becoming misleading.  Google searches are based on PageRank.  This means that the most popular pages are served first.  So if I search for how to upload a DVD to Youtube, Google will show me pages that state that I need to download some software.  This *used* to be true.  The problem happens when these pages become out of date.  They are still returned first during searches.

The DVD I have has a bunch of .vob files.  You can just drag and drop them into Youtube. 

It's hard to imagine that Youtube creator wouldn't provide support for popular formats.  However, if you just blindly search Google for the answer and rely on the first couple for results, I find that a lot of answers are out of date.

Luggage locks for Traveling - Buy then in bulk!

We have lots of luggage so we need lots of luggage locks! Bought a 4 pack off Amazon.
I haven’t heard of the brand Fosmon but these locks are good. They are very solid and you can feel the weight unlike the plastic ones.

Here is how to set the new code on the locks:

Toto toilet leaking and how to fix

This has been happening for a while. I wasn’t expecting to have to replace a flapper for a new Toto toilet so soon. The original flapper has a design flaw.

The edges of the pink flapper actually bends since it is made out of soft rubber. So over time, it slides outwards and pulls the flapper off the hole. The fix is to push the sides in, but after some time, the flap is off the hole again. The flapper is soft because it actually has holes that you need to wiggle over the arm or handles of the overflow pipe.

I’ve been putting off this repair because I thought I had to buy another flapper that has holes in it like this one. All replacement flappers just have a half arc that you clip onto the handles.

Turns out I didn’t need to.

If you look at the replacement, it has a half arc and it just clips on. To remove the pink flapper, since it is rubber and flexible, you can just wiggle it off the handle even though it has a L shape at the end.

The net result is that the new flapper works way better. I took the opportunity to adjust the chain on the handle too.

The new handle’s arms are plastic and stiff. So it should not pull the flapper away from the hole over time. A rubber flapper with rubber handles is just asking for trouble. Given the reputation of Toto, I wonder why they included such a poor flapper to begin with?

Upgraded basement bathroom sink

I had put this project on hold for many years. I probably bought the supplies when my first kid was 1 year old and 7 years later while cleaning the basement, I realized that I had a vanity top that to my surprise, fit the old sink’s cabinet perfectly. It was a weird size: 37 inches.

The faucet is made by a company called Jado. You can tell that it is a higher end brand since all the pieces weighted a bit unlike the usual chrome plated stuff. The thing that I didn’t realize was that having a faucet with a sprout separate from the faucet handles made it a lot more difficult to instead. Instead of just stuffing the faucet down one hole, there were multiple holes and basically I had to do it 3 times and never mind all the water lines that need to be connected.

At the end, it was worth it. The kids are getting older and using the basement more. So it is nice to be able to use that bathroom without having to trek upstairs.

Tim Hortons’ breakfast steak wrap

Whenever I am here, I like to try their new or limited time offerings. Today, they have steak on a wrap or biscuit.

The packaging was more like a McDonald's apple pie. It took a few seconds this early in the morning to figure out how to open it. There is some strip to tear along the middle.