Michael Roebuck's Blog

Remember the old Virginia Slims cigarette ads? The slogan was, "You've come a long way, baby." I feel this slogan is a good reference to the search engines.

The Search Engines have certainly come a long way since the early years. Most of my clients sell products and we certainly understand the benefits of a top position and "being found" when a potential customer could be looking for your product. Without search engines, many of these companies wouldn't exist.

But there is a whole other side of the Internet. The information side. I obtained my Master's Degree with the majority of the research found on the Internet so I'm not saying information doesn't exist at all, but sometimes it can be damn hard to find. For example, with the recent adoption of our 5th child, our house has all of a sudden gotten very small. Quite amazing actually. One day it was fine, the next day it's too small and before I knew what was happening, we have a for sale sign outside.

I'm pretty high maintenance so I don't want to be house poor and I like having access to a little cash to go out to eat or buy a new washing machine when the current one breaks. My wife has found several beautiful homes to move into, and my job is to decide what we can afford. I'm not a seasoned home buyer as I only bought one house in my lifetime and it's a pretty daunting task. The realty Web Sites makes it easy to determine the house payment with a handy mortgage calculator. What could be easier than that? We find a beautiful house and it's within our budget. I talk to a few co-workers about our find and slowly realize there is something wrong. Taxes, Homeowners insurance and PMI insurance. I better do some research. Since I work for a living, I do my research at night.

A quick search ought to give me tax rates right? Wrong. I couldn't find anything about the tax rates or how to calculate them. A call to the county assessor told me the tax rates in my area range from 6 to over 9%. That can add up to a lot of money every month and it will only get higher. We also thought of building so I needed information on a well. Not much relevant information on my area found at all. And don't get me started on house plans. Lots of companies selling house plans, but don't expect to find one based upon a proposed house budget.

After a couple weeks of house hunting with our new tax and insurance information, we thought about just adding on to the house we currently own. You think the Internet was helpful in giving me ideas on the cost to re-build a bigger garage? What about adding a shower to an existing bathroom? The Internet just told me a bathroom would cost somewhere between $9 to $11,000.

To sum up my rambling, you can find lots of information on the Internet and many comparison sites if you are looking for a specific product. But if it's specific information you want, sometimes a phone call during business hours is the way to go.