It’s around this time of year that the bottom line on Rehoboth Beach, DE utility bills tends to begin to grow larger once again. Power and water consumption can’t help but rise as we bid farewell to Rehoboth Beach, DE’s mild springtime conditions. Gardens and lawns get thirsty now that the days are growing longer, and once deep summer heatwaves develop, household utility bills report what happens when air conditioners and sprinklers are called into action.

For Rehoboth Beach, DE householders who’d prefer avoiding a budgetary shock when they open utility bills this July and August, it’s good to recall that some of the most effective expense-cutting activities are also the most straightforward. They are so simple and so obvious, that, paradoxically enough, they’re easy to overlook (at least that’s what the USEIA tells us). Here are some of the most effective cost-trimming actions—they also benefit the environment:

Energy:

·         Replace incandescent bulbs with LEDs  

·         Shut down computers

·         Use power-miser power strips

·         Turn off the lights!!!

·         Use cold water (80°) in the laundry (except for synthetics and for sanitizing)

·         Eliminate “vampire” power (unplug idle electronics)

·         Run the washers (dish- and clothes-) only when fully loaded

Water:

·         Water outside only when the sun is low

·         Favor baths over showers

·         (again) Run appliances only when fully loaded

·         Put a few drops of food coloring in toilet tanks: if it begins to appear in the bowl without flushing—fix the slow leak 

These points aren’t just economical today—later, when you’re ready to sell your Rehoboth Beach, DE home, you’ll be able to show utility bills that demonstrate a house that’s economical to operate. When that time to sell does roll around, calling me is also a simple and effective step you can take! Call/Text me Russell Stucki at (302) 228-7871, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., visit more listings at www.beachrealestatemarket.com. 

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Written by Jimmie Bachand

Published: 03 June 2019

Created: 03 June 2019

Last Updated: 12 June 2019

 If you’re a frequent visitor here, it will come as no surprise that those of us whose days are devoted to the Rehoboth Beach, DE real estate industry aren’t shy about championing the virtues of homeownership. We’re aided by more than a century’s worth of wit and wisdom directed to the merits of owning the place where you live.

America’s two most storied humorists contributed to the collection. There is Mark Twain’s “Buy land—they’re not making it anymore” and Will Rogers’ “Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.” Then there is Anthony Trollop, the classic English novelist’s wry “Land is about the only thing that can’t fly away.”

You can credit other real estate witticisms to more modern celebrities—like “The best time to buy a home is always five years ago.” (The late jazz great Ray Brown gets credit for that one).

The real estate-promoting commonplaces don’t just come from writers and entertainers, either. Take President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Real estate can’t be lost or stolen…managed with reasonable care, it is about the safest investment in the world.” Abraham Lincoln could have been the nation’s first sub-divider with his “I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels, so that every poor man may have a home.”

 Today’s Rehoboth Beach, DE real estate may be a far cry from Honest Abe’s “wild lands”—but the insight from America’s first billionaire, J. Paul Getty, is as apt today as it was when he described “current real estate” in the mid-20^th century: “Real estate prices have risen because a constantly increasing population with money to invest…continues to be created.” When you combine that maxim with Mark Twain’s observation, you emerge with the humorous-because-it’s-true wisdom that continues to ring true—just as it has for centuries. 

For help in evaluating the great opportunities among today’s Rehoboth Beach, DE real estate offerings—call me! Call/Text me Russell Stucki at (302) 228-7871, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., visit more listings at www.beachrealestatemarket.com. 

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Written by Jimmie Bachand

Published: 22 April 2019

Created: 22 April 2019

Last Updated: 29 April 2019

Rehoboth Beach, DE’s week starts off with Monday’s federal income tax filing deadline—AKA, Tax Day. Rehoboth Beach, DE’s Tax Day may not be the kind of annual observance that people look forward to—although for homeowners at least, it does serve as a glorious reminder of the value of the home loan interest deduction. Then, too, for Rehoboth Beach, DE’s non-procrastinators, a second positive may already have been experienced with the early arrival of a U.S. Treasury refund check.

Along those lines, last Friday the IRS put out a news flash noting that a third of taxpayers had yet to file their returns. Of the 153 million individual returns Uncle Sam expects to receive for tax year 2018, 50,000,000 had yet to be filed. That meant that for many Rehoboth Beach, DE residents, the weekend was spent with less time devoted to the pro basketball and hockey playoffs or the  Master’s golf tournament. Instead, teeth-gnashing encounters with the income tax forms had taken place—sometimes resulting in Automatic Extension form filings.

As a side note, taxpayers in Maine and Massachusetts get until April 17 to file because of their Patriots’ Day—a legal holiday celebrating the first battles of the Revolutionary War. Why two days instead of one? That’s because Tuesday is Emancipation Day in Washington D.C., and the IRS can’t require that anybody’s tax return be filed when they aren’t open for business. For residents in those two states, it must be nice to know that (at least when he’s got the day off) Uncle Sam keeps his hands in his own pockets.

If your own Tax Day has been observed without that vital home loan interest tax break, there’s next year to think about. Call me! Call/Text me Russell Stucki at (302) 228-7871, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., visit more listings at www.beachrealestatemarket.com. 

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Written by Jimmie Bachand

Published: 15 April 2019

Created: 15 April 2019

Last Updated: 22 April 2019

You can’t blame Rehoboth Beach, DE residents who’ve been bamboozled in the past for having grown cautious as April 1 approached. They braced themselves for this Monday, knowing that the practical jokers will have been hard at work concocting 2019’s April Fools Day tricks. There would be spoof ads, fake headlines, and who-knows-what else? to watch out for.

That’s why you could hardly fault those who instantly dismissed last Friday’s banner headline in the Wall Street Journal. It might be unfair to print an April Fools prank ahead of time—but pranksters have done that before.

And the article certainly bore all the earmarks: an almost believable premise (slightly understated to build credulity) followed by the requisite goofy supporting specifics. Maybe it wasn’t as wild a story as one the Onion might foist off—but it did add the kind of ridiculous details that would set up a satisfying “APRIL FOOLS!” payoff. 

“The 4% Mortgage Is Back!” was the shocking headline—followed by the parody subhead, “Its Biggest Drop in Over a Decade.” The supporting text talked about mortgage rates “fast approaching 4%”—rates “so low” that “economists and lenders believe it will help jump-start the housing market again”!

For Rehoboth Beach, DE real estate watchers who have been following actual Rehoboth Beach, DE mortgage interest rates over the past few years, the overwrought details would have been a sure tipoff that pranksters were at work. A full quarter point sheared off of home mortgage rates in a single week? That (as the article explained) might constitute “the biggest drop in over a decade”—but to any reasonably well-informed reader, it would surely also confirm that the April Fools writers were in charge. The graph that accompanied was evidence that the Journal artists were in on the joke. Its gradual rise and sudden plunge looked more like a diagram of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel than of a realistic rate chart.

The final surprise proved to be—well, it actually proved to be on readers who thought they’d spotted an April Fools Day gag. The article was real. It appeared in Friday’s print edition as “Mortgage Rates Fall Toward 4%”—and the information was, however improbable, 100% accurate.

It was also a great practical development for the already-lively Rehoboth Beach, DE market and Rehoboth Beach, DE home buyers and sellers. Another not April Fools Day idea: call me! Call/Text me Russell Stucki at (302) 228-7871, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., visit more listings at www.beachrealestatemarket.com. 

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Written by Jimmie Bachand

Published: 01 April 2019

Created: 01 April 2019

Last Updated: 15 April 2019