From the NYT:
Priced Out of the City, They Bought a Tiny Suburban Home. Now What?
Much has been written about “good enough” marriages, but what of “good enough” houses in “I guess we have to live somewhere” neighborhoods?
This is the story of a family who began with low expectations and then fell in love.
In 2016, Amanda and Alain de Beaufort were renting an apartment with a garden in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where they had access to a new school with a Spanish/English program for their two children. (Mr. de Beaufort, 49, is from Colombia.) The family had achieved urban-suburban balance in a community they treasured. They were happy.
Then one day, their landlord sold the building for cash and gave them a month to pack up and move out.
“OK, we’ll just buy something in Sunset Park,” Ms. de Beaufort, 46, recalled saying, before making the cruel discovery that no affordable properties remained in the neighborhood. The couple cast their eyes on nearby Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. They flirted with Westchester County.
They did not consider New Jersey. “It wasn’t cool,” Ms. de Beaufort said.
Soon, she was sleeping on the sofas of friends as she house-hunted, while her husband and children bunked at her parents’ home in New Hampshire. In this precarious state, they succumbed to a campaign waged by a friend in Maplewood, N.J., who described that township, about 20 miles west of New York City, as a cross-Hudson-River extension of Brooklyn. (At least one newspaper article has made the same comparison.)
The couple bought a small house on a pretty, tree-lined street in Maplewood and declared it their not-forever home.
If they were going to move to the suburbs, they thought, they might at least enjoy ample space. But the 1923 colonial was roughly 900 square feet, with three tiny bedrooms and a sliver of backyard — smaller than New York City apartments they had occupied. Furthermore, its previous owner, whom Ms. de Beaufort described as “a DIY guy,” had a fondness for murky colors and copious, awkwardly placed storage nooks.
Too poor to live in NJ.
Jobs day predictions?
Economist consensus expects 180K more jobs, but there have been lots of unexpected gains over the last year. I would say we see a higher number.
Like many muppets before them, they had dreams of that huge front porch in the town of Ridgewood where they could watch the leaves turn colors in the fall amid the bright sunshine wearing their NYU sweatshirts and Yankees cap. Little did they know they’d wind up three blocks from Irvington with a three year plan that will turn into a thirteen year plan.
Another interesting take is the CME’s FedWatch Tool, it has turned optimistic in the last week, bets are a 73% chance for a pause in interest rate hikes at the June 14th meeting.
https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html
Jobs: 350K, Powell goes 50 basis points, house prices rise another 10% in our region by Q1, 2024 despite a 7.85%, 30yr. fixed rated. Reports of physical fights ensuing on open house lines result in brokers needing to hire security guards to keep the peace. On average, it takes three weeks for an accepted offer to be announced as agents need to sift through the 65 to 70 offers made in same day listings.
And we get 339. POW!
What now?
re: ” On average, it takes three weeks for an accepted offer to be announced.”
House up the street was listed for $799 on 4/17/22 then raised to $850 on 4/27/22 the day before the open house. Had several offers that day.
However it still shows pending, so idea what the realtor and homeowner are up to, and I have not seen the neighbor to ask. This morning while walking my dog I noticed the for sale sign however was knocked down. It was not taken down but knocked down. Either the landscape hit it with the mower or perhaps some angry buyer kicked it over. Perhaps the homeowner decided not to sell? He is a bit of a character.
Ouch, they should all be fired for guessing 190k
I have floaters going north of 700. Booya boycott open houses.
Nice call Eddie…I will take second place for calling a higher number however I was thinking only 250…
Eddie knows. I’m surprised we haven’t gone beyond feeding the squirrels to s.exual favors being performed for the privilege of winning the bid. I’m sure we’ll hear and read those stories soon.
Fucking VIX 15.
BREAKING: The US added 339,000 jobs in May versus estimates of 195,000
Like I said yesterday…I hope the Fed realizes that this labor market is not the same as the past before they go nuts with the rate hikes.
In the past, you had massive immigration and a high birth rate. None of that exists now.
Talk about coming in and disrupting a market….
“Amazon has been negotiating to get the lowest possible wholesale prices that would let it offer Prime members wireless plans for $10 a month or possibly for free.”
Pumps – in the past? You cannot live in the past. BTW you are wrong on both points.
The immigrant population is nearly as high as it was over 100 years ago, it’s 13.6%. Highest recorded was around 14.7% around 1910. It is at a 50 year+ high now up from 4.7% in 1970 after the landmark 1965 immigration act. Millions of legally accepted and million so of illegal immigrants every year, no other country in the world even comes close.
The birthrate will never be 4 children per woman average ever again. It will be sub 2 or less forever unless they outlaw birth control. I doubt that will ever happen. Average age of motherhood was 22 back in 1980, it is now 27 and creeping higher.
By the way things are going with social media and whatever they call dating these days, and all the crap I see online about not being able to find a good man and expectations keep getting higher and higher. Women wait longer and longer looking for the right man, too long in many cases. The statistics don’t lie, percentage of men over 6 feet, making six figures are abysmally low.
14.5% of men are over 6ft, if you are 6’2, you are taller than 94% of men worldwide.
17% of all men make over 100k a year in this country..
The pool is short and poor that is the fact jackie….
Two years ago Hyundai released the Ioniq 5 a much anticipated EV CUV/hatchback. Instantly the Facebook fan page lit up with posts of people buying them MSRP, > MSRP, it didn’t matter, look at my new toy! posts were all the rage. Contextual information gathered from their profiles didn’t suggest high income or net worth.
One guy posted about an extra $15K tacked on to his sales price, he never even read the sales contract. Found out about it when the group pointed out the issue in the contract he posted online.
A few months ago, the fan page started to collect its fair share of “I need to get out from under my crushing car payment”. There was another post today about a cashier at Panera who said the dealer told her with a slightly better job she’d be good to go on the $1K monthly payment. So many take over my payments or vehicle for sale ads.
Two years ago I was scratching my head wondering how everyone was swinging these payments, while our car payment is 1.8% of our monthly net take home.
Re: Amazon and cell phones.
Trying to beat Elon to the punch? His Starlink constellation is well on it’s way.. space-to-ground service is coming with T-Mobile they are now building six next generation Starlink satellite per day and increasing production, there is a launch scheduled for later this month to get it the new “V2 mini” Starlink broadband satellites up and running. They are doing a launch now every what four days?
Juice: Even back in the late 80s when we were starting out, it was mostly two kids, sometimes 3, and occasionally 4, but that was rare.
Juice Box says:
June 2, 2023 at 9:51 am
14.5% of men are over 6ft, if you are 6’2, you are taller than 94% of men worldwide.
Juice , great tid bit I never knew, I am 6’4″ ( although probably lost an inch in old age). That is probably the only place where I am in the top percentile….you made my day LOL.
Juice: From what I see and hear, there does appear to be a lot of man-boys out there, so that may have something to do with later marriages, also I believe females outnumber males, so more competition.
Maybe that couple in Maplewood will buy a Hyundai too.
Chi — Long VIX @ 15 was a pretty reliable moneymaker in the past.
Juice — Since the bottom quartile does not exist (to anyone else), these percentages should be grossed up to reflect this fact. Taken to an extreme to illustrate, the Illiterate mountain folk are not competing in urban dating pools.
Pumps — Seems that anyone not in debt up their eyeballs and under 50 years of age should want rates jacked relatively high. I swear sometimes this whole forum is just people trying to talk you off of your reddit cut paste pasta.
@ Genius @ 8:58 — I was sure you made this sh*t up. I immediately googled it and and jaw dropped.
Not flexing but to give an anecdotal temperate reading: My wife went from $65K as a teacher in 2019, to 85K at first private sector gig post covid (stayed home with our kid), now at $110K+bonus, interviewing for IPOd SaaS manager level at $130-165K + 150K equity vest over four years. Aced the preliminary. It’s crazy out there!
Jim having blue eyes, being above average height and good looking, funny and all can be a real curse. Just ask well me…
Sorry to be a party pooper, but, “Men of height 175.3 cm or less lived an average of 4.95 years longer than those of height over 175.3 cm, while men of height 170.2 cm or less lived 7.46 years longer than those of at least 182.9 cm”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1600586/
175cm is 5ft 9 inches, 183cm is 6ft, which I’m just under.
I know some short Jewish guys with fathers in their 90s. My dad and grandfather were both over 6ft, neither made it to 80.
Great Danes live about 9 years, poodles live about 13.
Wonder how long Shaq or Charles Barkeley will live.
8:20 three blocks from Irvington … Milburn!?!
Why do you hate gang members Gary!?!! Why ?!!!
although probably lost an inch in old age
——————
That’s what she said.
No One – A party poop is when women show up to the party and all there are is a bunch of short bald guys talking about accounting.
10:36 Typical Livingston get together then…..?
You gotta be really dumb to spend six figures renovating a 900 square feet bungalow shit box in Maplewood. Just wow..
The guy is a 49 year old “crew member” at Trader Joes for the last 6 years, according to LinkedIn. How big a house can he expect? Anyway, with hard work and diligent study in school, someday his kids can live in a million dollar PoS Cape next to I78 in Milburn.
Busy, busy, busy!
For those following at home I did add move another 30% of my stable into the markets at 13k on the Nasty a few days ago.
I feel like we are about to climax the “return to normal” phase of this insane asset bubble.
10:52 I thought Maplewood was “the” place to be…..?!
ExEx says:
June 2, 2023 at 11:10 am
10:52 I thought Maplewood was “the” place to be…..?!
It is, if you want to be carjacked at some point in your life.
I just want to be “jacked”… forget the car part.
When did north jersey become southern Cal? Endless sunny days with no rain. We need rain badly, first time I have seen lawns go dormant this early in the year.
Why? Why would anyone under 50 want to pay more interest to someone? So they can pay for their guaranteed returns in retirement?
“Pumps — Seems that anyone not in debt up their eyeballs and under 50 years of age should want rates jacked relatively high.”
ExEx says:
June 2, 2023 at 11:22 am
I just want to be “jacked”… forget the car part.
Move to Muscle Beach, not Maplewood.
Geographically at least half of your wish is true.
Thanks for the correction. I thought it slowed down under Trump, but that’s what I get for not researching it.
This is huge for the American economy. We will be one of the few mature economies that get support from immigration to maintain population growth.
Juice Box says:
June 2, 2023 at 9:51 am
Pumps – in the past? You cannot live in the past. BTW you are wrong on both points.
The immigrant population is nearly as high as it was over 100 years ago, it’s 13.6%. Highest recorded was around 14.7% around 1910. It is at a 50 year+ high now up from 4.7% in 1970 after the landmark 1965 immigration act. Millions of legally accepted and million so of illegal immigrants every year, no other country in the world even comes close.
Mmmmkay
I’d be happy with decent carne asada.
Juice Box says:
June 2, 2023 at 10:18 am
Jim having blue eyes, being above average height and good looking, funny and all can be a real curse. Just ask well me..
For crying out loud , that is me right down to the blue eyes. I remember after my first wife passed I dated over 25 women almost like a JJ story. Scored more times than ever in my life, until I met my current busty blonde wife…. then I was smitten. THOSE WERE THE DAYS MY FRIEND. I actually had sx 5 times in one night, now it is only a dream but worth the trip.
Speaking of trips we are off to Manasquan for two weeks, Ohio kids are off school, Jersey kids coming on the weekends. That is what life is all about!
I could murder and no jury would convict me.
The Great Pumpkin says:
June 2, 2023 at 11:28 am
Why? Why would anyone under 50 want to pay more interest to someone? So they can pay for their guaranteed returns in retirement?
Sub 15 VIX.
I think the bulls figure they are bulletproof.
Strong economic data and Fed is going to skip.
The way to fuck everyone over is raise in 2 weeks.
This is one crazy market…that’s for sure. Almost impossible to read or make sense of.
Chgo: What do you make of the rise in unemployment rate? More people looking for work, or an early indicator of a slowdown, as some are saying.
Maybe will get some more time to accumulate and build a cheap position.
“Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE:DNA) stock has been downgraded to sell by Goldman Sachs over concerns about weakening end-market demand in the biopharma market.
Goldman Sachs said in a noted dated June 2 that it believes the current economic climate along with factors such as subdued activity in the capital markets could lead to restrained spending by biopharma, which would impact Gingko’s new programs. Such a scenario would also put “additional stress” on Gingko’s biosecurity revenue in order for the company to maintain its revenue goals.
Goldman added that it sees constrained biopharma spending persisting through the end of the year.
“While we believe the end-market shift towards biopharma and agriculture is a sound long-term strategy, we believe the macro environment and the softening spend we are seeing in the biopharma end-market may result in slower new program growth for DNA,” The investment bank lowered its price target for Ginkgo Bioworks to $1.25.”
Patience is a virtue. Glad they believe it’s a sound long-term strategy like myself.
Thank Joe and Ds… tremendous job. All this winning and 5% return on cash? Wow amazing policies
Chi? Cost to rent money > social security & we will have to borrow to pay interest as this spirals
The US will need to refinance almost half of its national debt in less than 2 years.
https://twitter.com/TaviCosta/status/1664383751114174464
Bystander: Love the 5 percent! Market up 700 points today. Inflation still high, just back from super market, one bag 100 bucks.
3b,
It is absurd. All of it. Up is down. Left is right. Today was the biggest head fake of year, basically idiots at Fed ignoring data, screwing consumer in favor of banks and allowing day traders to pump and dump for another two months thinking rate pause. We should be scared of blowout jobs report at this juncture. They are feckless at Fed.
Since when did the baseline cost of summer shorts of a just recognizable (not luxury) label like Orvis, etc jump to $80 and exceed $100? WTF?
Alright, since our (unofficial) masthead includes cars and knowing full well the following goes against the DNA of this blog….
If you were to purchase a new…yes, new…. sport SUV for a single guy (no three row, no family considerations) any recommendations on model? I’m fairly ambivalent, no strong consideration, other than simpler is better. I hate all the new bells and whistles I’m forced to pay for but accept for the most part I have to have them because they are effectively standard. Never had a foreign, so I guess I naturally lean US mfr…definitely want to avoid vehicles in prior conversations with CVT or whatever (or anything similar) that overengineers anything in search of…something. Don’t want the marginal benefit of what they are trying to delivery, certainly not at the embedded ‘cost’.
I would like a nice balance between ‘sport’ and ‘adult’. Bronco looks good, but too much ‘kid’ oriented. Feel I’ve even outgrown a Jeep Sahara, maybe not. Would like 4WD, not AWD. Kind of something I could both pull up to a business meeting and look serious while also being able to drive 10 miles on a NC beach…
Thoughts/suggestions?
And for joyce…
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2023/01/06/jacksonville-police-officer-arrested-on-charge-of-official-misconduct/
Left:
INGR. Tell me what you think. Looks pretty undervalued to me in a very low risk mid cap.
Bystander: I would agree. It’s like living in the upside world. Does it eventually blow up, and if and when it does can the Fed “fix” it this time, or does it just continue, and we really are in the upside down world. Who knows.
BMW x5. M50i should let the ladies know you have money.
Beach bunnies are fun.
Will do. Like Midwestern companies. Quick glance, nice chart, looks like she broke multi-year resistance around 100 and held. I also give this a look – do my own work using source materials of course if serious – but it’s a good screener on valuation and not just price.
https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xnys/ingr/valuation
I’ve been playing VIX, should have tossed it up here. Missed the 5/31, more than made it up Wed/Th with 6/7s….also leaned into RSP, may load some more Monday. And, just to keep life spicy jumped into AAP and DG after their earnings debacles. Volatility off the charts, wrote premium.
More down your alley I also took on some TSN this week.
Phoenix, had one of those a lifetime ago. Liked it, damn prices have changed. That’s too high end…want something I could toss a bike or roof racks on and not get bent if the vehicle gets nicked.
Plus would definitely look like an uber-Northern douche beach driving a Bimmer.
In more important news, apparently some of Taylor Swifts fans are so intense , and don’t want to miss any of her songs that they wear adult diapers! Imagine that sitting in your own waste so as to not miss a minute of a concert.
Biden looks tired in his address to the nation.
The myth of progress
How did this happen? Progress is supposed to make time more valuable. That’s the idea of productivity; you get more out of each hour of work. So, the things you produce get cheaper and better. Rich countries are those with high wages. Time is money; money is time. People in prosperous countries earn a lot per hour. People in poor countries earn very little. Gross wages in Switzerland are nearly $50 per hour. In Uzbekistan they are less than $2.
As inflation destroys the value of money, so it destroys time… and the people who sell theirs by the hour. In Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Argentina – the inflation rate goes up… the middle classes disappear. They flee, or they go broke. Will that happen in the US? We don’t know. We can’t predict the future.
The idea of America is that “The People” – independent, middle-class families – rule. But the feds want money. They must take it from the middle classes. And the elite wants power. That too must be taken away from the very people the politicians claim to represent – “The People”.
“The Hottest New Amenity? ‘It’s Brutal.’
Homeowners are spending tens of thousands of dollars to outfit their properties with cold plunges.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cold-plunge-for-the-home-a836fe17?mod=djemRealEstate_h
ExEx, Maplewood is “the place to be” but to get a good home on a nice street the pricing is sky high. New build 5 bd 4 bath 3000 sq ft homes are pushing almost 1.5m or more a decent 3 bd 2 bath home in a good neighborhood is 750k, the people in the article could not afford Maplewood even when they bought, the Hilton section is technically Maplewood but it is really more like Union, a 265k house was bound to be VERY bad at that time decent homes were twice that price.
As for the renovation, I don’t know what option this family had they cannot afford to live in Maplewood, if they sold they certainly could not afford a better property in town, it seems like they couldn’t when they bought and certainly cannot now. The big issue I see in the article is they spent 100k renovating 900 sqft and it still looks pretty dumpy, they really needed to add space as any future buyer will find that house claustrophobic. People who bought in the Hilton section years ago made a killing, 20 or so years ago they couldn’t give those houses away and now they sell pretty briskly at decent prices all things considered.
Phoenix, if you are buying a city car you might as well get a Range Rover Autobiography with the twin turbo V8, super nice cars, very expensive and unreliable but SO much nicer than the X5 in pretty much every way. The M5 isn’t even an SUV, unfortunately there aren’t many “REAL SUV’s” still being made everything is a jacked up sedan with an SUV body. Lexus GX is one of the few real SUV’s still being made, naturally aspirated V8, body on frame, locking rear diff, traction control, built to last 20 years, a beast off road and less than 70k well equipped.
Ford Explorer?
leftwing says:
June 2, 2023 at 5:47 pm
Left-
Have a friend who used to have a Jeep Sahara. On the hichway it was the noisiest, most uncomfortable car I’ve ever been in. Probably great off road, but you have to suffer an awful lot the 99% of the time you’re on the pavement.
If you want an SUV that will handle rough roads and snow, but still drive like a passenger car, take a good look at the Subaru Forrester.
8.5 inches of ground clearance (most car-like SUVs only have 6 or 7 inches), plenty of room for gear, and one of the best AWD systems out their.
Couple of weeks ago I was down in the Pine Barrens for a week- had a blast driving on all those sand back roads (sometimes with 3 canoes on my roof) ;)
Last time I drove cross country, I removed the roof racks for the trip and got 34 mpg on the highway. That’s with the CVT (100k plus miles w/ no problems).
Buy farmland outside of urban boundaries. You can retire off of that purchase in 20 years.
What you really want is a silent, fast as all get out, Ioniq 5 CUV/hatch. Alas, it’s not what you’re asking for.
I would get a slightly used, but very depreciated, Range Rover.
It looks the part where you want it to look the part, and is very competent off road. The maintenance issues are what they are.
I thought rich people only ever leased Range Rovers, so you didn’t ever need to worry about paying to fix them. My father had 3 Land Rovers, they were all basket cases. Two of them were scraped after catastrophic engine failure, even though they were basically babied. None were high miles either.
His last, LR2 he totaled in a head-on with a $140k Taycan. Dump Truck blew a stop coming down from a steep hill, he veered left instinctively. Foot over the line and they clipped enough to total both. The whole front left wheel and all associated suspension completely ripped out of the car. Good thing that battery didn’t light up, but at that point it really didn’t matter.
That one spent 3 months in the shop with cabin heat issues (read: no heat, ever). Prelude to another engine failure if you ask me.
He ended up getting a Volvo XC60 with the crazy turbocharged+supercharged engine. Beautiful car, no doubt. But just looking under the hood, I could feel my wallet starting to squirm at the potential repair bills. Had every option that would end up being a fortune to repair (self-leveling pneumatic suspension that drops when you stop, levels with heavy loads, etc), gimbal headlights, seat massagers (!?!), etc etc etc.
The new version even more complex: gas engine + turbocharger + supercharger + hybrid electric = god help you if you have engine problems.
I’ll tell you, I rode in a new Polestar a few weeks back, what a beautiful interior that thing has. A little bit midcentury, super super clean and minimalist, beautiful design. Like if you could buy a car interior at Design Within Reach, or if Eames designed a car interior. Screams nordics, like you’d need to be sporting an all-black Copenhagen wardrobe to drive. Photos do it absolutely no justice. I don’t necessarily care about the vegan label, but it’s so far from the vinyl semi-squishy interiors that defined cars for the last 30 years.
Not necessarily a high-end luxury car though, there are enough cheap elements to make you question things. Not ready to buy a made-in-China car.
With a surge in population growth, soaring urban development, and, of course, desert conditions, it comes as no surprise the Phoenix metropolitan area could one day run out of groundwater. On Thursday, local authorities declared the state would no longer issue building permits for new developments across the metro area unless alternative water sources can be found.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said a newly released study of the Phoenix metropolitan area’s groundwater showed a potential shortage looms. To safeguard supplies, current developments that have been approved can be constructed, but ones that have yet to be approved will have to show alternate water sources. Developers must show state officials they have an alternative “assured water supply” for 100 years from non-local groundwater.
The government could build pipelines. Nah.
Humm speaking of SUVs.. I replaced the struts on mine a few months ago as I am up to 160,00 miles now and it was overdue. I had Firestone do the work. Last month the driver side strut started making a metal on metal bang noise over bumps, the strut mount had failed. They replaced it under warranty. Now the passenger side strut is doing the same thing, and it is in the shop again for replacement under warranty. Stuff like this is not supposed to fail even under heavy loads which is not anywhere near what I do. I drive only on paved roads and I avoid ever pot hole. No off-roading or loading up my truck with too much weight etc.
Not sue what the deal is but it has to be cheap steel. Perhaps made during the supply chain crunch? They may have used lower quality steel because the good stuff was on back order? The part itself is not even all the expensive OEM is like $200.
Every single electric car is a very expensive fix in the shop. I am not just talking about Telsa’s legendary $15,000 rear quarter panel replacement or $22,000 battery pack replacement because a few battery cells in the pack of 7,104 have failed.
If I go electric it will be a lease and give it back after 3 years, as long term repairs for any kind of bodywork or battery issue are just super expensive, and only a few shops can actually work on them.
They should build large pipelines from the great lakes or something if they are going to continue to just farm out west neverminded growing the population.
It’s really crazy out west when it comes to water, read about how the ground subsistence actually sinking land do pumping out of ground water?
The land in parts of California has been sinking about 1 foot each year..it’s nuts I tell you..all about the nuts.. almonds and walnut trees.
https://www.yahoo.com/now/land-sinking-groundwater-levels-drop-120039322.html
Juice,
I experienced the inferior part thing with my front brakes on my Mazda 6. After about one month, either the rotors or the calipers would be shot. I gave the original shop three repairs, all under warranty and they admitted there was something wrong with many of the parts they were receiving. It failed a fourth time down in Atlantic City and I spoke with the limo drivers as to where to get the best work done. Not only was it a dirt cheap, cash only shop. But, the repair has now held for six months, so I know we they are back in decent shape. Mr. B’s was the name of the shop, on Fairmount.
BTW, I think I am settling on the Mazda CX-90 for our next car. We are giving our CX-9 to our son as a college beater. It doesn’t look like a beater, since I recently sent it to my miracle worker body guy who made the car look brand new for $900. Car’s got 140K on it and it’s 11 year’s old. We don’t expect it to return from Florida.
Juice,
The auto repair business model has changed. Is no longer the local mechanic shop that has a good rep. Those are mostly gone.
The customer advisors in Mavis, Firestone and alike work on commission. True mechanics are expensive so a lot of places now have repair teachs assisting the mechanic. Think nurses aide to nurses. So a lot of the little things get missed.
Overall the goal is to upsell and clear out and empty the repair shop by end of day. You have to treat repair work like you deal with dentist. Dentistry is full of crooks. So you double check integrity by going to 2 or 3 and comparing. Recommend next time go anywhere other than a Firestone. And if you are in the Cross Bronx exit at Jerome Avenue and have one of those places look at it – proviso is cash only, you might need to get the parts at the Auto Part store a block away and speaking spanish helps, but they do a great job.
Frankly, this is why as expensive as they might be now, electric’s simplicity outside of the proprietary software and systems is the future.
Juice,
That’s exactly the problem. Las Vegas reclaims over 90% of the water they use. The last 10% is golf courses and those who have grandfathered lawns. The amount of water desert farming uses is astronomical.
TrustNo,
I’ve been getting my basic work done by a Valvoline Shop attached to a carwash. They have been absolutely fantastic and I have abandoned my mechanics at Exxon on Broad Street in Bloomfield, who I have used for 22 years. It’s a sit and wait jiffy lube type of place, that also does brakes, AC work, really, mostly everything. I watched them closely the first few times and they are mad thorough. Their checklist is more complete than the dealers. They are also a CarFax shop, which is nice if you want to look up your maintenance history. Workers there are very professional too. A lucky find so far.
We should be running pipelines from east to west for water.
3:23 agreed.
To paraphrase the great philosopher Sam Kinison, why don’t they just live where the water is?
Good luck getting the people around the Great Lakes to agree to pump their water out west.
I still use Firestone for basic stuff and abuse their warranties. The tire warranty is a steal at $10 per tire, especially if you’re around construction sites. Nails, screws etc are a semi regular problem.
Plus if I’m in god knows where like Harrisburg or Poughkeepsie or something there’s always a Firestone somewhat nearby if something starts acting up.
Back up to 35k miles a year on a car. Kind of miss the pandemic.
Chamber of Commerce weather today in SoCal.
Low humidity, sunny, 70’s. Bliss
Ex,
Jersey weather on par or better. I don’t think it rained once in may.