Greatest Boom Ever

    Many corporations have a “sinking fund” set aside to deal with investors who require their capital .   A sinking fund is a pool of money set aside by a corporation to help repay a bond issue. Bond agreements require a corporation to make interest payments to holders of the bonds and then at the end of the life of the bond, all the principal is to be repaid in full. A similar approach should be taken by a real estate investor who owns a rental property   Suppose you have  purchased  a positive cash flow residential property and all is going well until one  day,  an unexpected problem occurs. It could be that there is a $400 repairs bill for the furnace, a $700 bill for unanticipated plumbing repairs or other unforeseen circumstances. Many investors would be scrambling to get these  funds  but there is  a simple way  to avoid this type of emergency.   If your property has a monthly income of $1,000 then you should have b...

    In the overall scheme of real estate investing, many people have their likes and dislikes. Some of the things that I am good at and like are  the investment  analysis, economics (this should not be a shock based on the majority content on this site) and accounting.   When it comes to my biggest weakness, it is unquestionably property management. I consider myself to be the worst property manager in the world! If the rent  was  constantly late, I would  probably fall  for every story that was given to me. Having discovered this weakness of mine early on, I decided to address this issue by outsourcing  all of  my property management. This is critical to going forward because the best property in the world can fall apart if the management is lacking. I am completely hands off and have this as one of my strongest sides of real estate rather than my Achille’s heel.   What is the one (or more) aspect(s) of real estate you  d...

    Everyone’s circumstances in real estate are different whether it is age, gender, education, lack of experience in investing or anything else. We all need mentoring especially when starting off on this road less traveled and the best way I have found is also one of the cheapest.   Call a friend,  neighbor  or anyone else you know (or even better you  don’t  know) who owns real estate and  buy  them a Starbucks coffee or lunch while asking them questions about their real estate investing experience. I have personally done this hundreds of times with people all over and have gained an incredible amount of knowledge and insight. It is extremely rare for someone not to accept your  offer  and most are  only too  glad to help.   Unlike school, you will not be penalized for duplicating someone else’s success and in fact, it could help you from making some on your own .   I know people who have saved tens of thousand...

    At one time or another, most people have been approached to join Amway or some other type of Network or Viral marketing program .   This usually entails paying hundreds of dollars to receive a starter kit, making a list of people you know, calling them and introducing them to the business you have become part of.   Over the past 20 years, I have been exposed to dozens of such programs and am still a loyal customer of both Usana Health Sciences and Legacy  For  Life’s Immune 26 .   My dedication to these companies is strictly as a consumer. I do not pursue these as businesses unto themselves as I have found them to have too many barriers to being successful and the fact that the pay programs are not in your control.   Even with all these obstacles, I still strongly support the notion of this model as it has taught me  a great number  of things which have helped over the years in real estate and in life.   First of all , it forces...