All posts by Ben

Arizona, Odds & Ends

Besides Alcohol, Cannabis Remains Essential in Arizona

Many businesses in major metropolitan areas in Arizona have closed their doors for the foreseeable future, but medical cannabis patients don’t have to worry about dispensaries closing.

Since cannabis is a medicine, it is an essential service, and dispensaries will continue to sell products as usual, said Sam Richard, executive director of the Arizona Dispensaries Association. But “everyone’s doing things a little differently,” he said.

Several dispensaries have posted notices on their websites detailing their response to COVID-19 emphasizing patient and employee safety and following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

Common precautions include limiting the number of patients inside the dispensary, only allowing people in the waiting room, and frequently wiping down surfaces. Dispensaries have encouraged employees who feel sick to use their paid time off.

Many dispensaries also have changed their hours, opening late, closing early or both.

Source: Arizona Medical Marijuana Dispensaries to Stay Open, With Changes | Phoenix New Times

Equal time for the other vices, after all, the casinos are all closed.

Odds & Ends

Arizona Deems Liquor Sales Essential

Within six hours of losing access to alcohol, withdrawal symptoms ranging from the shakes, vomiting, hallucinations or seizures can send people with alcoholism to hospital intensive care units.

With 15 million people in the United States dependent on alcohol, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, banning liquor sales might flood already overwhelmed hospital emergency rooms with countless thousands of additional patients.

Asked this week why Arizona decided liquor sales are essential, Patrick Ptak, the spokesman for Gov. Doug Ducey, issued a statement: “In making all our decisions during this time, we have relied on the advice of public health officials. We have also sought to have the least amount of interference on people’s daily lives and on the economy…”

Source: Why states keep liquor stores open as an ‘essential service’

 

Gardening

7 Quick Vegetables – 60 Days

Even if you haven’t started any seeds yet for your garden, there are some vegetables that can be planted indoors now and harvested within 60 days.

As well, one of the best advantages to planting fast-maturing plants (other than quicker harvests) is that these plants will need less water and fertilizers before they are harvested. These are also vegetables that were recommended for victory gardens during World War II.

Source: 10 Vegetables You Can Grow In 60 Days or Less | Ready Nutrition

Gardening, Off Grid Living

15 Tricks for Gardening With Limited Supplies

If you are itching to get your hands dirty but have few gardening supplies on hand and hesitate to head to the store, take a look around the house and yard.

You may find many items that can be re-purposed into just what you need. Here are some cheap tips and tricks for house-bound gardeners!

Source: 15 Tricks for Gardening With Limited Supplies | Old Farmer’s Almanac

Some great ideas for the home gardener. Enjoy…

Real Estate

Pandemic Apocalypse? Here’s the Home for You

Las Vegas Underground House! Its not just a house, its an subterranean 15, 000sqft concrete & steel rectangular shaped doomsday bunker.

The 5000 sqft House is built Inside this huge bunker & is finished with pool, spa, waterfall, trees, guest house, BBQ, fountain & 500 linear feet of floor to ceiling illuminated murals of landscapes of wide open spaces simulating day, dusk, dawn & night modes.

All Furnishings & 1 year of caretaker & upkeep are included.

Source: 3970 Spencer St, Las Vegas, NV 89119 – realtor.com®

Wow!

Real Estate

How is the Coronavirus Affecting Real Estate

With more Americans out of work and worried about the security of their jobs in addition to their health, home buyer interest has fallen sharply, according to 90% of Realtors® surveyed in the National Association of Realtors® Flash Survey: Economic Pulse.

About 6,000 real estate professionals participated in the survey, which was conducted from April 5 to April 6. Roughly 45% of respondents said buyer interest had plunged by more than half. Just 2% said they had seen an increase in eager buyers.

Source: This Is How the Coronavirus Crisis Is Ravaging the U.S. Housing Market | realtor.com®

 

Odds & Ends

Nikon Free Online Photography Classes – Learn During Staycation

Nikon School Online, which provides video tutorials by professional photographers, is free for the entire month of April.

The class topics include landscape photography, macro photography, photographing kids and pets, portraiture, and music videos, as well as focused tutorials for Nikon equipment.

Classes range from 15 minutes to over an hour, and there are ten in total, so you could learn a lot over the course of April.

Source: Nikon Free Online Photography Classes | Apartment Therapy

Arizona, Real Estate

Sellers Losing Hope During Coronovirus Pandemic?

With the coronavirus pandemic bringing the U.S., and much of the world, to a screeching halt, only just over half of Americans think it’s still a good time to sell a home.

Only 52% of homeowners believe it’s still an opportune moment to put their place on the market—a steep month-over-month net decrease of 29 percentage points in March, according to Fannie Mae’s monthly Home Purchase Sentiment Index. The index measures buyer and seller attitudes about the housing market.

Meanwhile, the net share of Americans who think it’s a good time to buy a home, 56%, is down 7 percentage points from February to March.

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” says Javier Vivas, realtor.com®’s director of economic research. “We have yet to see the full extent of the impact of the virus on housing.”

Source: Why Home Sellers Are Losing Hope in the Housing Market | realtor.com®

We’re not seeing a huge slowdown in either pending sales, or closed sales, however anecdotally the Title Companies are seeing a slowdown, and their offices are closed to the public with many working from home. As long as the County can record deeds, we’ll probably muddle along just fine – Ben