CHESSNOID

I put up some EBay auctions to try to maintain a type of consistency as well as get rid of excess items. I like to think of it as a form of recycling. I use to make decent money on Ebay just selling comics. I almost qualified to be a power EBayer at one time. It does take time and effort as well as good follow up. Also, there are many great deals to be had online. It is fun to win an auction for an item you really want. If you get it at a great price, that is just icing on the cake.

Tonight is the 3rd show of the series Flipping Out on Bravo TV. I find the main guy Jeff a real character with funny quirks. He is successful but he is going into a hard tough housing market. It was originally marketed as a professional flipper flipping out and juggling those subprime loans that have basically caused this housing market bubble to burst. Jeff has 5 houses right now and is trying to sell 2-3 of them to get some cash. His cash flow is poor right now. His business partner is helping him out, but he is still way in over his head. I don’t know how well the show is doing, but I would like to see another season.

One of the Flip this house shows has an update variation at the end. Basically, it fast forwards into the future, 18 months after the original flip to see if the flipper was able to sell the house and to show how much money was really made. In the older shows, they make it glamorous and show people making $100,000 in a month on paper. Now, we see there are hidden costs if you are not a real estate agent, the commissions alone on a $500,000 house is about $30,000, the title, escrow, and other closing costs are another $10,000 to $30,000, so when all is said and done, that $100,000 might only be $10,000 to $40,000 per transaction. Mind you, this is still a lot of money, but it is also a lot of work.

The MyBlogLog site has basically been successful thus far. I added a new side bar on the right side so I can see which bloggers are coming in to check out my site. I have many of them coming from so many countries, it is hard to believe. I hope they become regular readers on my blog. I like the idea of people commenting as well as linking back to the blogs or sites I do like. This place does provide a good community. So far I have had over 300 hits just on my profile at the MyBlogLog place, but I think it has something to do with my avatar that I use. It is a cool Smiling Snoopy avatar. Check it out by clicking the link above.