How do you like my hat?

I just got a cool hat. I ordered it from Golfballs.com. It is red and has Callaway advertised on it. To top it all off, it has my name, Lee Vass, stitched in white thread on the right side. Now what is so big about a hat? Search me, but I have always loved hats. Ask my wife. I have the entire top shelf of my clothes closet covered with hats. Some are so sweat stained that they look like something from the 40's. However, I cannot bring myself to part with them.

I suppose that the enamourment with hats is because it tops off your ensemble for the day. I like to match my shirts color to that of the hat. I go back into the 60's when shirts had to match the color of socks. I suppose that carries over to my hat fetish.

I recently lost a sale to a home inspection. The home was built in the 60's and no one was around who could tell us when it last had its hat changed. This buyer drove the seller off the price by $35, 000. I paid $32,000 for a brand new house in 1972. The home inspector declared that the roof was at the end of its useful life. Never mind that they loved the location of the house, the friendly neighborhood and they had to have loved the price. They could not move past the old hat. I guess they are a lot like me and just obsessive compulsive about what sits on the top of the
edifice. Some folks are like that. They could have had 5 new roofs put on the house with the $35k they saved.

I read a very scholarly article, sometime back, by an FSU Real Estate professor about the various elements of a home and how they independently affect overall price. He, straining my memory, said that the various components affected the price in incrementally different manners. He said that the house was like a bag of groceries. Encapsulated in the overall house was a kitchen, some bathrooms, some counter tops, some flooring, some windows, a roof, a garage, perhaps a pool. The question on the table was where could you best put your money in updating the house? The final answer, as I remember, was the kitchen. I don't think the roof was in the top 3

Now back to the roof people. They are not all that unique. I sold another house, sometime back, that was also built in the 60's. We did not get a lot of showings initially. I suggested to the owner that since he needed a roof anyway, then why not go ahead and put one on. These sellers had treated this home with extreme care and it was in great shape. He did replace the roof and in short order we had a contract that we successfully closed.

Different strokes for different folks. Some pass on a nice home because they don't like the wallpaper in the family room. The WALLPAPER for crying out loud. How much does it cost to replace wall paper? A real estate transaction is an emotional experience at both ends of the spectrum, whether buyer or seller.

I lived in an old farmhouse when I was a child. It had a tin roof on top of it. As I recall, it had some badly rusted areas that probably signalled a new roof was needed. I, being 10 years old, could have cared less. However, I was keenly aware of that roof. It played music to me when it rained. Nothing soothed my soul more than the "rhythm of the falling rain." It put me to sleep as predictably as Ambien does today. Why the Cascades even made a top 10 hit about my roof. I suppose that roofs are important as are hats. The appeal is along a broad span of reasons. All of which could be made painfully obvious after a few sessions with our favorite psychoanalyst.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBjtQ5Hea5Y&feature=related

Please visit my website at http://elvass.com/