The hot water ran cold on a Tuesday morning, mid shower. The plumber came out that afternoon and asked the obvious question: when was this unit last serviced? I didn't know. Not roughly, not vaguely, I genuinely had no idea if it had ever been serviced.

What goes up must come down. Corrections aren't a sign that something has gone wrong they are a normal, healthy part of the economic cycle.

The problem is that the homeowner is the only one left standing there afterwards, expected to hold all those pieces together with no real system for doing it.

It is a strange way to hand over information about the most expensive thing someone will ever own.

Most of the time, none of this is a disaster. It rarely stops a sale outright. But it does something quieter and just as costly: it plants doubt.

I lost track of something as simple as our home insurance payments and policy documents. Not lost as in gone forever, just lost as in buried somewhere between three email accounts, a shoebox of receipts and a folder I swore I'd organise "this weekend." Anyone with young kids knows that weekend never comes.