1. Our sales for last week exceeded our break even point, for our full operational budget! That is awesome, considering the current gas prices, housing crunch, and the overall skittish nature of the economy right now. Now we just need to string together a series of weeks meeting or exceeding budget (like, forever!)
2. Good news / Bad news on the rental house issue. The good news is that we are under contract, the home inspection is complete, and we have come to agreement on what items on the inspection will be corrected by me. That is really great news, actually. The bad news is that we are closing very quickly, one week from tomorrow (April 1). The reason that is bad is because I have an 8’x8’ shed, a 26’x24’ wood working shop, and a 12’ x 25’ garage full of woodworking tools and materials that I have to get out of there before closing. The biggest problem is I have a 12’x25’ space to put all of that into right now. I am going to have to rent a storage unit until we can afford to build a new shop at our house (or at least a storage barn)… The other bad news is that I did not have the time to finish the remodel there. We are selling the house as-is, with remodel materials included, for about $20,000 under market value. I hate giving away $20k in equity, but it has to be that way right now. I could have hired a contractor for about $10k to $12k to finish the work, and paid two or three more months of payments and utilities. That would have resulted in about $5k to $8k gain, as compared to our current contract, but having the house gone and out of our hair is most important. Another good news item… Our next payment was due on 4-1-08, and we are closing on 4-1-08. I thought I had to make this payment, but I was told not to. The pay-off data for closing is calculated without that payment. That is about $1000 that stays with us, instead of going to the mortgage company, literally hours or minutes before closing on a sale!
3. We are still trying to get our staff where we want it to be. One of our recent hires did not work out. Based upon the upbeat nature of the interview, we had great expectations for this person. Unfortunately, it did not go as expected. Tracy and I interviewed a girl who just moved here from Fargo, ND (no, she does not talk funny like they did in the movie). She had a great interview as well, and we hope things work out better with this one. We have implemented our past learning points to cut someone loose after a trial period, as opposed to trying to make a situation better via training and additional effort. It makes things hectic in the short term, but should pay off in the long run if we get a solid staff in place. We will always have turnover, though… that is just the nature of retail customer service work.
Gotta run…
Take care,
JD
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