the mesh network | northern california real estate

No TV for December -- Part 2

This month seemed to just fly by so quickly, despite my commitment to not watch any TV for the entire month.  It was much easier than it sounds, trust me.  Your time will become filled with other things, hopefully things that are much more important and meaningful.

 

Observations:

1)   I don’t feel like I really missed anything.  I still read my Wall Street Journal to keep up with events.

2)   Surprisingly, I think I have a better or more positive daily attitude since I don’t watch any news.  I believe I’m already a pretty positive thinker, but I have to say that I surprised myself to see how much negative influence the little news that I used to watch was having on me.

3)   I’ve been reading more -- I finished 3 books: The Lost Symbol, Airframe, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and have made it partway through Smart Couples Finish Rich.

4)   We watched several DVDs for films that we really would not have had time to watch before giving up TV.

5)   The house was more quiet and peaceful in a way that made me notice how much noise was going into my head each day.

 

Should we keep going without TV?  Should we cancel our cable all together?  I’m seriously considering it.

 

-Mark

No TV for December

Yesterday went by very smoothly, despite my new “commitment” -- no TV for the month.  While Sabrina immersed herself in the Montana photography school she lived like a hermit by having no TV, pulling all-nighters to deliver a project, and focusing her energies into her passion -- photography.

So I started looking at myself and asked if I could give up my casual TV as well -- after all, how painful could it be?  I don’t really have time to watch that much TV, but I do turn it on as “background noise” sometimes or to relax a few moments to wind down at the end of the day.

To challenge myself and see if watching TV is a habit or an addiction, I have decided to go the entire month of December with no TV.  I may even realize that spending $700+ per year on casual entertainment is way too much and putting that money to work somewhere more productive would make me happier.  We can probably watch whatever entertainment we may need for free through Hulu or Fancast and I believe that’s the ultimate future of broadcast TV anyway.

If I start pulling out what’s left of my hair within a few days I’ll be sure to let you know.

-Mark

And now we have new Short-Sale rules

An interesting article in today’s WSJ regarding short-sales.  Right now in our Bay Area market, the short-sale success rate is at an all-time low and from my most recent short-sale experience I feel the acceptance/approval process has gotten much worse (read: slow) than just a year ago.

The article mentions a new “incentive” program to encourage borrowers AND lenders to make the short-sale work (hopefully more quickly).  The Feds will give a borrower $1,500 and give the mortgage servicing company $1,000 to complete the short-sale.  Nice.  Best of all, these guidelines specify that the borrow must be “fully released” from the debt liability -- basically the lender cannot chase the borrower for the bad-debt.

Maybe it’s just a phenomena of the Bay Area, but most of the short-sales I’ve seen are not happening from “poor” people where $1,500 makes a difference.  In most cases, I see flat-screen TVs and newer cars in the driveway no doubt bought through their equity line.

I’ll be curious to see what effect this new guideline has on the short-sale numbers.  My gut tells me it will have a minimal effect.  The process is the problem, not the incentive, but we’ll see.

-Mark