I’ve been known to take advantage of the deals that my credit cards give me, and use them to my advantage. A year ago, I refinanced my 9% (now 10%) HELOC to a fixed 2.99%, for a fee of only $135 using balance transfer checks from one card, and a balance transfer from another card.
Now, I have a new low-rate balance transfer offers on an existing credit card, and am planning on making a little extra money from mr. Visa.
On Yahoo finance today, the feature article in the real estate section is on a topic that I have always loved to hate: the McMansion. Any inner-city dweller worth his/her salt has to loathe the McMansion on principle, after all. They’re big (wait, huge) and grandiose and impressive, sure. That and they’re brand new. But they’re also soooooo close together, crammed onto lots in character-less new subdivisions, and the building materials always seem slightly cheap to me. I have a feeling that they will not age quite as well as their Victorian predecessors. They seem a bit ostentatious and over the top to me, kind of like the gold lamé of housing.
I was just paying my (sigh) credit card bills tonight (actually it’s not that bad, because they’re all fixed at 2.99% for the life of the balance), and saw an ad on the citibank page to sign up for an online savings account. They’re offering a 4.65%APY, which isn’t bad (although not as good as the 5.05% that I get at Emigrant), and if you sign up and fund an account, they’ll give you $50 for your trouble. Not bad.
The site, formerly a trainwreck-style source of amusement, is no longer. The real estate blog of foreclosure has been foreclosed on by its very author. There was a brief notice up on the site, which said…
So, I read this article on yahoo news today, talking about how a house is actually (contrary to popular thinking) not so much an investment as a liability, or at best, not a very good investment.
Naysayers!
I read an article on yahoo news today about piggybacking — getting added as an authorized user to the credit card belonging to someone with good credit to improve your own bad credit. Something that’s commonly done by parents (to improve their child’s credit), or spouses, but now being offered to strangers through internet-based services. These services claim to “improve your credit overnight,” and apparently it works(!)
So, I’ve been biding my time, not really thinking too seriously about buying the duplex next door (but thinking about it, nonetheless). It went up for sale a month ago, and the sign is still there. I haven’t seen a great deal of activity there (both units are currently vacant), although they do periodically mow the grass (not really as often as they should when trying to sell the place, however.). All of this cashflow 101 playing has gotten me wondering a little more seriously about it…. and doing the math over again.
So, a friend’s sister wants to buy a duplex, and has friends lined up to live in the other half. A great idea? Probably not…
I recently got hooked (ok, not quite as hooked as the person who introduced me to it) on the computer game “Cashflow.” Designed by Robert Kiyosaki (well known author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money–That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
I just signed my tenants into another one-year lease, so I don’t have firsthand knowledge of what the rental market is like at this moment, but I’m reading that although rents have inched a bit higher in the past year, the vacancy rate is at a two year high (6.1% nationally). How would this happen? Although renting is looking more attractive to people, there are a lot of people who bought (primarily condos) speculatively, hoping to do a buy-and-hold strategy and make some easy money. Unfortunately, the housing market didn’t do what they predicted (went down, or at best flat instead of skyrocketing), and they’re left either selling at a loss, or renting. Adding more stock to the rental market, driving vacancies up (and preventing rents from increasing enough to keep up with rising inflation, property taxes, insurance costs, etc.)
About a year ago, I was sprucing up my rental unit so that it would look more attractive to prospective renters (either it worked, or I really didn’t have to, because I found renters within a week).
One of the improvements I made was replacing the old outdated square pull-chain light fixtures.
Last year, I spent $35 on what looked to be the best invention ever: the wall-mounted hose reel. It winds up the ridiculously long hose with a hand crank. genius. This frustration-saving device would prevent countless swearing fits throughout the summer. (And it did. It’s sooooooo much easier to use than winding up a hose by hand.)
I always freak out when I find out that my tenants are leaving. Turnovers are a lot of work — painting, changing the locks, squeezing in improvements where I can, refunding security deposits, getting the new tenants moved in…. Oh, and the biggest task of all, actually finding and screening suitable new tenants. A couple of years ago, when the rental market was a lot worse (and I was brand new at this whole landlord gig), I think I had 50 showings before I had a signed lease. (Last year, thanks to a very directed ad, and an improving rental market, I found tenants on the first day, after about 5 showings).
OK, so this is technically old news, (the article I’m quoting below is from 7/30/06), but I still find news about the movement of the housing market interesting. I’m happy that the current swing of the housing market is making the rental market more in my favor (even though I just signed my tenants into another year lease). Owning a duplex kind of puts me in a good place regardless of which way the housing market swings — if appreciation goes way up, and it’s a seller’s market, I’m in a good position to cash out and sell my duplex. If prices slow down, and so does appreciation, it becomes more attractive to rent than to buy, and my rental market goes up (lower vacancy rate = higher rents and more tenants to choose from).
I really don’t like it when I have to assume the role of mean landlord / landlady. If I buy more properties, I’m sure I”ll get used to it. but I’m not entirely comfortable with it yet…
I just read an article on CNET about would-be real estate mogul Casey Serin — at just 24, he bought 8 properties within a year, taking cash out at financing, planning to flip them all to turn a profit. But alas, due to the market slowdown, some hasty and risky decision, and perhaps just general bad luck, things did not go so well for him, at least in this round. He’s sold three properties and been foreclosed on in 6 properties (yep, six.)
I just paid my property taxes this morning. I’ve chosen not to escrow my taxes and insurance with my mortgage payment, so that I can save the money up in a bank account through the year, and earn interest on it. (5% in an Emigrant account is nothing to sneeze at). So that means that twice a year I need to log into the county assessor’s website and send a payment via e-check (of course, if I planned ahead, I could also snail-mail it). They do keep going up, though. I’ve chosen not to raise the rent on my tenants if they signed another year lease, so the increased property tax bill just cuts into my profits. At least, though, the money that I pay in property taxes is deductible (on my 1040 for my personal half, on my schedule E for my rental unit).
(Not likely.) While I was standing in line today to purchase exactly 47 two-cent stamps (due to the recent two-cent rate increase, which I was unaware of when I stocked up on stamps for the office two weeks ago), I considered the forever stamp. Jokingly, I declared to my friend, “I’m going to buy $5,000 worth of forever stamps, and sit on them for 20 years before reselling them on ebay and turning a huge profit! I’ll become a stamp tycoon!” (Well, as much as a tycoon as one can be on a $5,000 initial investment.)
Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a 40-year mortgage. And some people are apparently using them (!) I was doing a bit of reading on bankrate.com today (doing some research, as I’m considering buying the duplex that went up for sale next door to me), and saw a banner ad from a mortgage company that had a list of mortgage rates. All of the usual fixed loans were represented — 30 Year Fixed, 15 Year Fixed, 10 Year Fixed. The ARMS were all there, despite the bad press they’ve gotten lately with all of the people who bought on ARMS that are now coming, causing the banks to foreclose on them. And then I saw it. The much-fabled 40 year fixed mortgage. Wow.
There’s a townhome down the street from me that has been for sale for quite a while. The “for sale” sign has been out front, with a little mailbox full of flyers for almost an entire year. I pick up a flyer periodically, look at the price and say “How can this townhouse be worth $70,000 more than my duplex?”, and put it back in the mailbox. The curious thing is that they’ve only lowered the price by about $10,000 over the past year…
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