Happy Harvard graduation day for those who celebrate.
As part of unloading the Harvard Square condo that I bought in 1996, I hired the realtor’s favorite handyman to fix some recessed lights, shim an old Lightolier track so that the heads could be removed (an aluminum frame installed around them was interfering), replace some ancient smoke detectors in common areas, and secure a front door jamb into the rotted frame (over 100 years old?). He charged $1800 for his labor and worked from 9a-3p, including a trip in the middle to Home Depot. When I asked if that was really the going rate, he said that he makes this much every day. If he works 250 days per year, that’s $450,000 per year for the immigrant from Brazil with no college degree.
Gemini: “Harvard graduates earn a median salary of approximately $85,000 to $95,000 ten years after enrolling.”
I previously hired a different handyman whose rates were, I think, a little lower (but that was before Bidenflation). He eventually just started saying “no” to all jobs, however, because he was too booked out.
If you’re going to criticize me for financial irrationality, the situation is even worse than overpaying a noble migrant. The buyer already accepted the condition of the property and I wasn’t obligated to fix anything, do anything, or pay anything. The buyer hired a professional inspector whose job it was to uncover anything substandard. Why did I hire and pay various tradespeople, invest some of my own time in doing stuff such as changing electronic lock batteries with new 9V lithiums, etc.? I just didn’t like the idea of handing over known-broken stuff.
(The $1800 doesn’t include the $20 sandwich that I got for him at the bakery around the corner.)
Aww, cute…Phil had a crush on a buyer. The rates you paid seem to be the going rate all over (I know, I know, Florida is much cheaper). We got our seller to pay for a bunch of concessions, the only way I’d pay a former French literature major (from a small private college back East, not even Harvard or Columbia) $600 to caulk a kitchen sink. He didn’t even remove the mildewed old caulk, which shows through the translucent new caulk. I had to soak my back for an hour the last time I caulked the shower, so I’d prefer someone else to do it now that I’m in my 7th decade.
OAG: I have never met this buyer and have never seen a photo of the buyer so the crush would definitely be a truly Platonic one. I did more or less the same things for the buyer of the house that we sold in the Boston suburbs during coronapanic, just before our Florida move. She was over 70, childless, and I worried that she wouldn’t be able to maintain the place, which had sapped a huge amount of my energy over the years that we owned it. In fact, I begged her not to buy it and instead stay in her full-service modern-building rental in West Concord, MA. There were no realtors involved in that sale (found the buyer through a post on a town mailing list where I was asking about realtors) so this kind of direct communication was possible. I think the new owner is happy (she sends email from time to time with various questions). She’s put up various progressive political signs that the house previously lacked so it is now consistent with other houses in the town (e.g., “No Private Jets at Hanscom”; see https://concordindivisible.org/stop-super-emitter-private-jet-expansion/ for more on this subject).
I doubt this handyman is consistently billing out 6 hours a day 250 days a year. The life of an independent worker alternates between feast and famine. But, yes, the economic value of a Harvard degree is very questionable. Doing simple math makes it clear that if you are paying list price for a college degree, almost everyone would be better off attending two years at almost any trade school and then going to work in that trade.
Yes, indeed. If he was really making $450k/year (and likely not declaring much if any of it for taxes) he would be living in the Brattle Street neighborhood of Cambridge (or similar) where homes sell for $3m and up…very doubtful.
Gemini: “To comfortably afford a $3 million home, an American household generally needs an annual income ranging from $750,000 to over $1.2 million, depending on their down payment and current debt”