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Page 8E — Real Estate & Home Builders Guide — May 2016 Promoting undeveloped village, tourism is not unlike selling a home By Ilyce Glink & Samuel J. Tamkin Tribune Content Agency Q : I live in small village in New Mexico. The village was desolated when the logging industry was halted due to the Spotted Owl. We are trying to rebuild the area and would love for investors to discover the natural resources: hiking, Indian ruins, hunting, dark skies, etc. I think the location would be perfect for a big lodge and tourists. How do we go about this? I saw your article about the top 10 ski resorts in which to invest. How about the top 10 undiscov- ered pristine wilderness places? : In all the years we’ve been writing this column, we haven’t been asked about how to promote an area to real estate investors or developers. But at the core, promoting a town, metropolitan area or a single-family house isn’t too different. The process is the same, even if the goal is different. You’re looking for investment, but a home seller wants to sell his or her property. It all starts with the Internet. You can create a website that promotes the natural beauty of the area and talks about tracks of land that are available for sale. We assume you’re working with the local real estate company so that you can include links to properties that are for sale. (Perhaps the local real estate agents or brokers will co-sponsor your A Thinkstock Image efforts, with the hopes of generating more business for themselves.) Is there a local Chamber of Commerce or local tourism board? If not, you’ll want to start a loose afiliation of local businesses and people who are interested in promoting how great the area is. Take advantage of companies like Airbnb and websites that feature prop- erties for rent by owner. As more people come to stay in the community and have a good experience, they’ll tell others, and come back with friends in tow. And online communities like Kickstarter might provide the seed money to get a larger developer interested. Try to raise awareness at the state level, and with the local community in the nearest big city. It’s possible the state tourism board will help promote your community to business leaders looking for an unusual place for a retreat. They may be able to connect you to investors as well. And, if your commu- nity has been damaged due to a wildlife protection issue, there may be federal funds available. You should investigate those. Finally, contact your representatives in Wash- ington, D.C., to see if you can get them interested in helping you out. In this, a most contentious election season, your congressional representatives and senators might be eager for a feel-good story about helping a local community rebuild. (Ilyce Glink is the creator of an 18-part webi- nar+ebook series called “The Intentional Investor: How to be wildly successful in real estate,” as well as the author of many books on real estate. She also hosts the “Real Estate Minute,” on her YouTube channel. Samuel J. Tamkin is a Chicago-based real estate attorney. Contact Ilyce and Sam through her website, ThinkGlink.com.) Dripping sound, no visible leak worries homeowners By Ilyce Glink and Samuel J. Tamkin Tribune Content Agency Q : Our house was renovated by the son of the original owner shortly before we bought it. We heard from nosy neighbors that they had planned to live there, but plans changed, so we don’t believe it was a quick lip to mask problems. But after we run the water in several bathrooms in our house, we can clearly hear dripping in the walls in the bathrooms after running the sink or bath. We have looked very thoroughly and there are no signs of water in the ceilings, walls or loors below the bathrooms or where we hear the drips. Outside of tearing open walls, is there any sugges- tion for isolating what could be causing that sound or is it something we shouldn’t worry about? Thanks in advance! : Ah, the mystery of dripping, invisible water. You’ve asked an interesting question and we see that you’ve taken the time to take a look around and see if there was water damage to the home. Since you have found no evidence of actual damage, the next step is trying to isolate the problem. Have you tried investi- gating each ixture sepa- rately? We would suggest starting with the sink, then trying to hear whether you hear the leaking. Next try that with the tub. Finally, we’d suggest seeing if the dripping also occurs when you lush the toilet. If it happens with all three, there may be a bend in the drainage pipe from your bathroom and the leftover water in the piping ends up at that spot dripping within the pipe. At least, from hundreds of miles away and A Thinkstock Image without our X-ray vision, we can only assume that to be the case. As you test the ixtures in the bathroom, think about where exactly you hear the dripping. If you are able to isolate a spot where the sound is the loudest, try to imagine if the contours of the home (behind the walls) are such that you could visualize a bend in the drainage pipe in that area. Since many newer homes use PVC plastic piping for waste water, dripping water tends to echo within the plastic pipe. In older homes with cast iron waste pipes, the pipe can contain the sound of the water better. We certainly hope your issue is water dripping within the pipe. If not, you can also check for leaking water without opening up the walls using two types of instruments used by the professional home inspectors to check for water problems. One of these devices is a moisture reader. When you place the instrument on a wall it measures the moisture content in the walls. If you have a slow leak that is not visible but may be causing a moisture problem behind the wall, the moisture reader might pick it up. The second instrument many home inspectors use are infrared cameras. These cameras can pick up variations in temperature. Frequently water or moisture will create hot or cold zones in a wall. If you can borrow these instruments from a contractor friend, you can give it a try. Or, you might be able to rent them at your local home improvement store. Otherwise, you can call a plumber or home inspector to come over and go over the area. If you love gadgets, you might even pick up a used or new one of these devices online or from big box retailers. We don’t know how much use you’d get out of them in the future, but they do reveal problems that you otherwise can’t see with the naked eye. Good luck.
