milanb

It's hard to tell. A lot of things can change between now and next year. I honestly can't see a situation where the Vikings are looking for a new QB a year from now and Spielman and Zimmer still have their current jobs.

Yeah. I ended up selling my 3 bedroom town a few years ago because the unit next to mine was a rental and had potheads living in it. My townhouse was a freehold, which is actually more popular with investors because there are no condo fees. I must admit that I don't understand the logic of buying one of these units to rent it out. At least where I am, where the rents are low compared to the purchase price of the homes. A rule of thumb is that monthly the rent you charge should be 1% of the value of the home. And in that neighbourhood the number is around 0.5%.

Here in Ontario, an offer to purchase that is accepted by the seller is viewed as a valid contract. In general, you cannot back out of the deal without a valid reason. That is breach of contract and can get you sued. However, almost all offers have boilerplate clauses like "conditional upon home inspection" or "conditional upon buyer selling his current home". AFAIK, the home inspection clause allows you to back out of the deal only if you find one or more major issues (e.g. plumbing, electrical, structural, fire/water damage) that were not previously disclosed. Also, if you are buying a condo, the offer usually contains a "conditional upon reading the condominium bylaws". If you don't like the bylaws you can back out of the deal without providing any reasons. I actually did that in my first attempt to purchase a home.

I wasn't assuming anything. It was simply a case where I really don't know what the real estate laws are like in the US. I would imagine that they vary by state?

I don't know what it's like in the US, but here in Canada we have unscrupulous real estate agents who feast on hot markets. They will create bidding wars artificially by purposely setting the list price well below market value, then accepting bids only in a specified time period. It sometimes gets crazy, especially if the property is in a trendy neighbourhood. You get bully offers, escalator clauses and and idiot buyers waiving home inspection conditions. It is all horribly unfair to the buyers, as the seller is under no legal obligation to disclose any of the other offers and can simply reject all offers if he doesn't get the price he wants, even if some of them are over list.

Put another way: remember a few of years ago when the industry was pushing 3D? How well did that work out? 4K is going to stay because it is getting to the point where you can't buy a new TV without it. But most of the broadcast, satellite and streaming services don't even broadcast at true 1080p. And of course your eyes and brain can't tell the difference between 1080p and 4K at normal viewing distances anyway. The Surround Sound is getting out of hand too. How many speakers does one really need?

Yes. Buying is not always cheaper than renting, for a number of reasons: Transaction costs are typically 5-10% of the value of your home. If you are staying in your home for less than about 5 years it is difficult to make up the difference. Real estate prices do not always go up. If your mortgage amortization is more than about 15 years you are mostly paying interest. In some markets (like e.g. Toronto) the purchase/rent ratios are very high. All that said, there can be huge financial benefits to owning, but you usually need to own your home for a long time to see them.

If you look around there are lots of companies and nonprofits that will buy your old beater for about $200 or so, regardless of condition.

Yes. You need a serviced lot with the proper zoning. In a small town or rural area it's probably not much of an issue. In a major city, it depends on what the bylaws say. Is there such a thing as an upscale trailer park?

Looks like F1 is finally going to bring back partial ground-effects in 2021. https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/47422390 Quite frankly, this is a no-brainer and something they should have done 20 years ago.

Anyway, just to be clear: I am very sympathetic to the causes of energy conservation and sustainable urban planning and development.

I understand the logic behind it. However, I live by myself in a 2,000 sq. foot single home on a 60 foot lot. And guess what? It's awesome having all this wonderful SPACE all to myself.

Well, yes, but this is a separate issue. What I meant was: Cousins is the sort of QB who will either put your team over the top with the big play capability he brings compared to e.g. Case or Teddy, or he will bring your team down with his propensity for turning the ball over and not producing when it matters. And the fact of the matter is that Cousins had a very good year statistically but the Vikings went from 13-3 to 8-7-1. Some of that difference was a drop in the quality of the defence and special teams, but most of it was on the offence. I also think that Zimmer and Spielman vastly underestimated the degree to which Case Keenum elevated the level of play of the offence in 2017 with his ability to evade pressure, extend plays and execute the play action pass. I think they may have fooled themselves into thinking that the OL was better than it is. Even the receivers - Diggs, Thielen, Rudolph - are all "contested ball" types who don't necessarily get great separation and generally need time to get open.

That was one of the issues I had with the Kirk Cousins signing in the first place. You had a Vikings team that didn't show up to play in the NFC Championship game last year, but the ownership and front office doled out a huge amount of guaranteed money to a QB with something of a reputation for not producing on game day in situations when it really mattered. And he turned the ball over a bit too much to be an ideal choice for a team built to win with defence and field position. I posted earlier in the season that I believed that Cousins will either take the Vikings to the Super Bowl or he will get both Zimmer and Spielman fired. We'll have to wait and see what happens.

Quite honestly, I think the Vikings need to go OL in the first two rounds. If they need to move up or down to get the player(s) they want they should do it. The OL has been broken for a long time now and the Vikings are not likely to fix it with free agents, trades or late round "gems". The window is closing for this generation of players, and waiting around for the OL to magically get better is not an option.

My point was: an HC should never call one of his players or assistants out publicly. Ever. Especially when there is some sort of conflict going on. It's Business Management 101: criticize in private. What purpose did Zimmer's public comments serve, other than to make a bad situation even worse? As much as I dislike Bill Belichick and his say-nothing interviews, at least he has a pretty good idea of what should be handled behind closed doors.

I don't really have a whole lot to add, as the decision to keep Zimmer and Spielman has already been made. I will say though that the two points that I raised are enough to wonder if Zimmer is the guy to lead this team to a Super Bowl. Head Coach is first and foremost a management job. Zimmer publicly calling out his OC like that and firing him with four games left in the season should be raising all kinds of alarm bells about his management skills, especially since this incident came only two years after Norv Turner's mysterious "resignation". As for the team looking flat all too often, especially in big games, that goes to Zimmer's ability to get his team prepared to play both physically and mentally. I agree that it may not be all on the coach (i.e. players at this level should not need motivation for a big game).

I would agree with you, except for the fact that there are just too many things about Zimmer and this team that don't inspire a lot of confidence. Twice in 3 years he has had to replace the OC during the regular season. This time there are only three games left and the team still has a chance at the playoffs. And this time he had publicly shamed and blamed DeFilippo at least twice prior to the firing. Which should never happen. Beyond all that there are too many games where the team just doesn't show up to play. When it's just one or two players it is on them, but when it's the entire team (like in the NFC Championship game last year) it falls on the coach.

I can think of several examples over the past two decades where coaches with very good records were fired and their team went on to win the Super Bowl within a few years. The Ravens (Brian Billick), the Bucs (Tony Dungy), the Broncos (Mike Shanahan), the Colts (Jim Mora), the Seahawks (Mike Holmgren) all spring to mind.

I think this is a conversation best left for the end of the season.

Shaggy struggled in his first four games at Denver but has played quite well since then. Bear in mind that the Denver offence really struggled last year and now they have a new OC in former Vikings OC Bill Musgrave, as well as a new QB in Keenum. The Broncos have been running a lot more play action passes and designed bootlegs of late, which raises the question of why they didn't do that at the start of the season. I suspect that it's simply a case where Musgrave didn't have a lot of confidence in his offence's ability to execute the plays - not just the play action passes, but also the off-tackle zone runs that set them up. All of which is very similar to the situation in Minnesota with Kirk Cousins and John DeFilippo.

And what speed would that be? It didn't occur to you that perhaps he didn't want to discuss the issue out of respect for the forum rules? If you had done as he had suggested and googled the issue, you might have happened upon dozens of articles such as this one. https://www.warealtor.org/resources/media/REmagazine/blog_post/remagazine-online/2014/04/02/the-ultimate-love-letter

For the seller there are potentially issues under The Fair Housing Act in the US. Canada does not have an equivalent to the Fair Housing Act, but it does have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and here in Ontario the Ontario Human Rights Commission prohibits discrimination in housing. People can google this if they are interested, as I have nothing further to say on the topic.

Well, as a seller I personally would not want to have any communication with the potential buyer until after everything is finalized. There is absolutely no advantage to me in reading such a letter, and there may be legal consequences if one of the bidders felt like they were not treated fairly.

You will never know the seller's real reasons for choosing your bid. As I had stated in a previous post, there are almost always conditions attached to an offer, and quite often there is a significant gap between the seller and the buyer in terms of preferred closing date. The seller may choose a lower bid for reasons that have nothing to do with a love letter. And in terms of my situation, I would be equally put off if I were in fact selling my house and received one of these letters. I mean, really? I should reject the best offer for my house because someone I don't even know writes me a letter trying to persuade me that they are somehow more deserving?