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Two guys from a well-known national brand that makes windows knocked on our door Friday and gave my wife promotional literature. Despite my repeated urging to her to just say "NO" to these kinds of solicitations, they ended up scheduling an in-home window evaluation for last night.
Partway through the 2 hour pitch, and around glossy page number 30 of 70, I started getting suspicious, not about the offering, but about the finances. Sure enough, the bottom line finally came: $39k for replacing 21 windows. As I told him that we never make snap decisions, especially for major expenses like this, he made the following statements:
We should use our home equity to pay for the windows. We won't be able to sell out house with the windows we have (same brand, oddly enough) because we have some mildew on some of the wood. Smart rich people borrow money because they can leverage low interest rates. He has a friend worth millions because this friend rents out houses and perpetually upgrades their kitchens and bathrooms because using that equity he can write off the interest.
And after our disappointing answer, he "left a voicemail" to the regional manager regarding the outcome of his efforts. He also "forgot" a small window cross-section and tape measure, which means he'll be back to pick it up and have another chance to close the deal.
So I guess this is part vent and also an interesting observation: unless people have $39k sitting around, they must be listening to pitches like this and getting deeper into debt. He threw around some financial terms and strategies that I just knew were wrong, but might sound legit to some people. I'll use this experience to further convince my wife to not talk to solicitors!
Partway through the 2 hour pitch, and around glossy page number 30 of 70, I started getting suspicious, not about the offering, but about the finances. Sure enough, the bottom line finally came: $39k for replacing 21 windows. As I told him that we never make snap decisions, especially for major expenses like this, he made the following statements:
We should use our home equity to pay for the windows. We won't be able to sell out house with the windows we have (same brand, oddly enough) because we have some mildew on some of the wood. Smart rich people borrow money because they can leverage low interest rates. He has a friend worth millions because this friend rents out houses and perpetually upgrades their kitchens and bathrooms because using that equity he can write off the interest.
And after our disappointing answer, he "left a voicemail" to the regional manager regarding the outcome of his efforts. He also "forgot" a small window cross-section and tape measure, which means he'll be back to pick it up and have another chance to close the deal.
So I guess this is part vent and also an interesting observation: unless people have $39k sitting around, they must be listening to pitches like this and getting deeper into debt. He threw around some financial terms and strategies that I just knew were wrong, but might sound legit to some people. I'll use this experience to further convince my wife to not talk to solicitors!
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