Home Buying Tips and Advice Learned from Going Through the Process

Recently I went through the home buying process and learned a lot along the way. I figured I would share what I learned to help others out there who are looking to purchase a new home. Here are some tips and advice on buying a house. 

When you see a property that looks good, act quickly. Make an appointment to see it soon. If you like it enough to make an offer, don’t wait. Put in the offer soon. The more time you wait, the more time it gives others to see the property and make competing offers. 

Don’t expect to get a good deal on a good home. In a competitive market, any good property is going to have a lot of interest which means it is likely to get several offers. If you want to get the property, you have to have the best offer. This means it is usually going to be at asking price or even higher. If you put in a low offer trying to get a good deal, someone else with a higher offer is going to get it. 

Seasons have an effect on the housing market. Home prices tend to be lower in winter and higher in the summer. There also tends to be less of a selection in the winter and more of a selection in the summer. 

Look at the sale history of the property. If it is being bought and sold frequently such as every few years, it means people don’t like it enough to stay. If it has a history of long ownership such as 10+ years it is a sign that the people like living there. 

When you are touring a house, try to visualize living there. Think about what it would be like to live there. Think about your every day life and what it would be like if you were there. It can be hard to get a full understanding of a house with one visit. If possible you may want to visit it again at another time of the day such as at night. 

See a lot of different kinds of houses and different locations. The more options you see, the more you can figure out what you like and don’t like. There are so many factors to consider when buying a home and getting out to see them in person is a great way to compare these different factors. 

Pay attention to the showing agent’s observations of the property. Often they will see things about it that you might have missed. Also it can help to bring other people with you too see the property also and they may also be able to notice issues that you might have missed otherwise. 

Expect to pay more than you thought. There are plenty of cost estimators out there but once you get into the process all of a sudden there are more charges than you thought and things are more expensive than you thought. Make sure you have plenty of buffer room and backup funds to cover it. 

Shopping for a house is fun. Buying a house is not fun. It is fun to get to tour houses and see what’s out there in the beginning. Once you get an offer accepted, that is when the fun stops and the work begins. Working with realtors, attorneys, and loan officers can be time consuming and stressful. Negotiations, contracts, qualifications, inspections, you name it. There is a lot to do and you have to get through it all if you want to make it happen. 

Buying and selling homes is very expensive with all the fees and commissions involved. Frequent buying and selling is not very cost effective. If you are going to buy, look for something that you will be happy living with for a long time. 

Crave Cookies Free Cookie for New Customers. Crave Review and Comparison

Cookies are one of my favorite deserts so recently I have been trying out some of the specialty cookie places. I started with Crumbl and recently I tried Crave Cookies. It is very similar in terms of the business model where they have gourmet cookies that rotate each week. 

One thing I like about Crave is they are more generous with the promotions and discounts. When you download the app, they give you credits for a free cookie right away. With Crumbl, it is hard to even get a discount let alone a free cookie. 

So far I have tried a few different flavors such as cookies and cream, caramel biscoff, and churro horchata. Overall they are pretty good. Compared to Crumbl, they seem to be less sweet and more crunchy, so it will depend on your preference which one you like better. 

One thing I noticed when placing an order on the app is they charge a .25 service fee. This even applies on the free cookie. I looked it up and I couldn't really find much information on this or why they charge the fee. 

Overall, if you like cookies I would definitely recommend trying it out if there is a location near you. Also keep an eye on their social media pages where they post about other weekly specials and promotions.  

The Correlation Between People Who Eat At Raising Canes and People Who Litter

Over the years one of my hobbies was picking up trash to clean up the neighborhoods. It eventually led me to a job in grounds keeping where I clean up garbage for a large apartment complex. Over the years I have noticed patterns on the types of things that are most littered. 

When it comes to fast food restaurant trash, the ones I find more than any other are from Raising Canes. Now the reason this is odd is because there are not many of these restaurants near my location. The nearest one is 5 miles away. Pretty much every other chain has several restaurants closer by, yet despite this fact, it is still the most littered. 

One might think it is a fluke, but these findings have been consistent and it is not just one one specific area, it is everywhere I go. I will say they Raising Canes does put their logo on pretty much all their containers so that may have a small contributing factor, but it still does not explain why their trash is found so much more than other similar restaurants. 

It has really become a joke. Whenever I find a cup or a wrapper from there, I say to myself "The joke continues" because it feels like a joke the universe is playing on me haha. 

I am curious if anyone else has noticed this? It is possible there is just some strange correlation between people who eat at Raising Canes and people who litter? 

Five Guys is Not Good

As the title states, Five Guys restaurant is not good in my opinion. Recently my work ordered a group lunch and they picked Five Guys. I pleaded for other choices but that is the one they went with. 

As someone who doesn't eat much meat, this place really has limited options. Heck, even if you do eat meat this place has limited options. It's pretty much burgers, hotdogs, and fries and that's it. I went through every item on the menu trying to find at least something to order. I reluctantly settled on a veggie burger with cheese. I requested bbq sauce as well.

I go to the location to pick it up for our group. Now I used to work for Door Dash so I have experience picking up from this restaurant. Let me tell you, it was always one of my least favorite places to pick up from to the point where I pretty much refused to take orders from there. 

Right off the bat as soon as you walk in there is a nauseating smell. It gives me a headache almost instantly just being in there inhaling the fumes from the cooking. 

Another thing is, they don't start the fries until you get there. The point of pick up is that is is ready to pick up when you get there. No one picking up wants to wait extra time for the food to be cooked after they arrive and are ready to pick it up. 

Then of course is the greasy fries that soak through the bag. They used to just give a paper bag which was a disaster of course but now even with a plastic bag it is pretty disgusting with the oil and steam. 

So back to picking up this order. It's for 8 people and they all have fountain drinks. After waiting about 10 minutes for it to be ready they give me the order and 8 cups. Just great, now I have to fill up and prepare 8 cups of soda. And the machine is one of those touch screens with all the different choices which seems like a good idea except it just makes everything more difficult. Try getting the right while trying to control the flow with a touch screen.  

So after about another 10 minutes of making the drinks I am finally able to load everything into the car. I have to keep the windows down because the smell is overwhelming.

I get back to work and set up the food. I get my veggie sandwich and it has no cheese and no sauce. So I pretty much got raw vegetables on a plain bun. Delicious... not. Glad I brought my lunch as usual just in case for situations like this. 

Anyway, just wanted to rant because I am disappointed by this restaurant and my experiences I have had there. Anyone else have a similar opinion? Feel free to leave a comment. 

Wrong Number Text Scams, Whatsapp. Be Careful! Almost Got Scammed!

About a week ago a got a text message from some number I didn’t recognize asking something about if I am coming into work today. I figured they accidentally got the wrong number so I told them they may have the wrong number. They apologized and said they would treat me to coffee if I was in the area. I said I was far away but thanked them for the offer.

I thought this was a friendly exchange but little did I know at the time, it was just a common set up for what is known as a wrong number text scam which the scammer will try to befriend you to gain your trust over time and then eventually try to convince you to invest money into a scheme which you will end up losing money.

Anyway so they continued the conversation and I guess I was intrigued enough or just willing to make a new pen pal so I continued to chat with them. Soon they asked me to transfer our conversation over to Whatsapp. I asked why and they said they were using a work phone that other people use. I didn’t have the app but it looked ok so I downloaded it to the phone to continue the conversation.

As the days went on she shared more about herself including pictures and videos which seemed to be real. I was still a bit skeptical so I started looking up the phone numbers and the images but nothing turned up so it seemed legitimate. 

It soon became apparent that she was very wealthy. She said she had her own jewelry business and that she also makes money by investing in the gold market. She spoke about this investing several times and mentioned that she could teach me to do it if I was interested. 

I was still considering that this was possibly a scam so I knew I did not want to invest any money, but it was tempting especially since she apparently was very good at it. She said her aunt was her mentor and taught her about investing. 

About a week in, the relationship was going well. We chatted several times a day and we seemed to be getting along great. I really thought I got lucky by randomly getting into a conversation with a stranger who just happened to be beautiful, single, and rich. Of course this should have clued me into the fact that it was probably a scam, but I wanted to believe it was true. 

Even certain examples along the way that seemed a bit odd and didn’t quite check out, I brushed off and kept believing that this could be the real thing.

I told me sister and she immediately said it sounded like a scam. She sent me examples of common scams and honestly the descriptions matched up with what I was dealing with so I started to get a little more cautious.  

I started to dig a little deeper and search for terms like “wrong number text scam” and “gold investing scam". Examples on Reddit started popping up and I was shocked by what I found. There were tons of examples of pretty much exactly the same set up leading to a scam!

It starts with an innocent wrong number text and they keep chatting back and forth to gain your trust. They ask you to move over to Whatsapp to keep chatting. They mention that they are rich from investing and offer to help you get involved with it. Once you agree to invest money with them, it turns out it is a scam and you lose your money.

I was lucky I discovered it was a scam before it got that far so I did not lose anything. I told myself I would not put any money into it in case it was a scam but I will admit, the idea of it was tempting. I was really believing this person and starting to take their advice and direction on big decisions which is pretty scary considering it was all fake.

I believed this relationship was real for about a week until I discovered the similar examples online. I consider myself a pretty tech savvy person who is well educated when it comes to tech scams. I have seen many examples of it online and taken a lot of cyber security courses as well, and even with all of that, I still managed to get pulled into one of these scams.

It is really sad that there are people out there doing this, taking advantage of people with the sole intention of stealing their money. They are preying on innocent people who are often seeking out a relationship and they exploit this for their own personal gain. I was lucky I did not lose anything in this interaction but many people out there get further into it and end up losing a lot of money.

I wanted to share this example of what happened with the hope that it will help others not fall victim to the same scam. Be careful out there. If something seems too good to be true it is! 

Facebook Marketplace – Why is it so bad? Pet peeves and frustration.

If you are looking to sell something locally, chances are you have experience with Facebook Marketplace. It is one of the most popular platforms for buying and selling items and it is run by one of the biggest companies in the world, so why is it so bad?

Is it the software itself, the people who are using it, or a combination of both? I would say it is a mix of both. 

One of the biggest issues is poor communication. Most people start by sending a generic “Is this still available?” message. I will usually reply immediately with something like, “Yes, can you pick it up today?” Then most of the time they will not even read the reply or if they do read it, they don’t reply.

My theory is that since Facebook has those quick message send options, I think a lot of people are accidentally tapping those messages even when they don’t mean to send a message. For the others, they are clearly not serious about buying the item so they don’t even reply. 

It doesn’t help that Facebook’s app is not reliable at all when it comes to functionality and communication. I just had a scheduled meet up with a buyer. I was waiting like 10 minutes and so was he, when we were both there because the messages did not go through. I was there with the app open to the chat and there was nothing. It was not until I force closed the app and then re-opened it that I saw their messages show up. 

Another thing is that people do not even read the details of the listing before they start sending messages. There have been so many times where people have said they were interested and we went back and forth discussing the item. Then finally when they agree to buy it they realize the distance is too far. I always have the location listed and still they do not pay attention. 

The rating system could be better also. I always rate after a good transaction. If it was not a good transaction I will just not rate them. I don’t like the idea that your identity is shown on the ratings because it could cause conflict or retaliation for giving a bad review. 

Overall the app could use a lot of improvement. Considering how popular it is and how big the company is, you would think they would be able to make some of these fixes to improve the product. 

What is your experience using Facebook Marketplace? Feel free to leave a comment below. 

Making mistakes is not a problem. Being dishonest about it is.

Everyone makes mistakes from time to time. It is just part of life. When we make a mistake, we have the chance to learn from it so it does not happen again. 

Sometimes when people make mistakes they don’t want others to know about it so they try to hide it or lie about it to avoid taking the blame for what happened. It is understandable when people do this because they are trying to save themselves from embarrassment or from consequence. They don’t want others to know they made a mistake because they feel others will think less of them because of it.

I would argue that this is the wrong approach and that being honest about it and telling the truth is a much better way to address a mistake. Sure if you lie about it and no one finds out the truth, you might get away with it. However if you lie about it and the truth is found out, now not only will you be judged on making the mistake but now also on lying about it which is worse.

The reason it is worse is because being dishonest is a personal choice. It is something you have control over and by lying, it also means you can no longer be trusted. Trust is incredibly important in all aspects of life. When you are trustworthy, people can depend on you and that makes you valuable. If you can’t be trusted, people can’t really take you for your word anymore and that means people will always question whether you are telling the truth or not.

When you make a mistake, it is better to just own it and tell the truth rather than try to hide it and end up making things worse for yourself. 

This topic was on my mind because I have dealt with this situation frequently at work. I will ask someone about a mistake that was made and they act like they don’t know anything about it. Then later I find out that it was in fact their mistake and they were not truthful about it. In these cases, I would much rather they had just been honest in the first place. It would not have been a big deal at all, but since they lied about it, now I know I can’t trust them, and that has a huge negative effect on how I see them as an employee and as a person in general. 

As tempting as it may me to try to hide a mistake, in the long run, it is better to just be honest about it. Mistakes happen. It is part of life and often times it cannot be avoided no matter how careful we are. It is how we choose to react when these mistakes happen that will determine if we are someone who can be trusted or not.